M1 MBP won't boot past Apple logo

[stevearm]

Hi all,

My M1 MBP won't boot past the Apple logo. It's just a black screen and the Genius Bar weren't even able to put it in recovery mode. They suggested three options:

- Flashing the firmware which might fix, but "40% chance to lose all your data"
- Repairing the firmware which might fix but 100% chance to lose data
- Harware repair, 100% chance to lose data.

Does anyone have any experience with this? My last backup was 4 months ago and I really don't want to lose the data since then.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[The Wolf]

Hi all,

My M1 MBP won't boot past the Apple logo. It's just a black screen and the Genius Bar weren't even able to put it in recovery mode. They suggested three options:

- Flashing the firmware which might fix, but "40% chance to lose all your data"
- Repairing the firmware which might fix but 100% chance to lose data
- Harware repair, 100% chance to lose data.

Does anyone have any experience with this? My last backup was 4 months ago and I really don't want to lose the data since then.

Any help would be appreciated.

Possibly you ran into this evil upgrade bug not yet fixed for Monterey: did you perform a Monterey security upgrade to 12.7.x recently? Is your screen refresh rate set to anything other than ProMotion? If yes you are likely the next victim of Apple screwing their upgrade process, NOT calling back the potentially bricking codes, and not making this bug public either - so that folks continue to encounter data loss, because their 'geniusses' prefer to change mainboards (at cost of their customers of course), rather than trying the fiddly NVRAM revive procedure which would save your data. They still did not fix it for Monterey yet (it finally seems fixed for Ventura since 13.6.2, though). If you hit the bug, the NVRAM revive procedure will likely leave you with Sonoma (if you want or not), but at least your data still intact - see the lengthy thread in the Ventura forum on the very same subject.

 

[stevearm]

Possibly you ran into this evil upgrade bug not yet fixed for Monterey: did you perform a Monterey security upgrade to 12.7.x recently? Is your screen refresh rate set to anything other than ProMotion? If yes you are likely the next victim of Apple screwing their upgrade process, NOT calling back the potentially bricking codes, and not making this bug public either - so that folks continue to encounter data loss. They still did not fix it for Monterey yet (it finally seems fixed for Ventura since 13.6.2, though). If you hit the bug, the NVRAM revive procedure will likely leave you with Sonoma (if you want or not), but at least your data still intact - see the lengthy Ventura thread on the very same subject.

Wow I just upgraded from 12.0 to 12.7 a couple of weeks ago after buying a studio display! Though I’m pretty sure I was using ProMotion but possibly not?

I’ll check the thread when I get home. This NVRAM procedure is the Mac Configurator 2 thing where you connect one Mac to another?

Thanks so much for your reply. I’m pretty upset at the prospect of losing my data.

 

[chabig]

Read this article. Though you can ignore the parts about emergency disks, it walks you through the ways to get an Apple Silicon Mac to boot. One thing neither you nor the Genius tried, I bet, is Fallback Recovery. If regular recovery doesn't boot, try Fallback Recover as explained in the article.

Should you make an emergency disk for an Apple silicon Mac?

Many of us keep an emergency external drive at the ready by our Mac, in case we need to use it to recover from problems. What’s the equivalent for Apple silicon?

eclecticlight.co

 

[The Wolf]

Wow I just upgraded from 12.0 to 12.7 a couple of weeks ago after buying a studio display! Though I’m pretty sure I was using ProMotion but possibly not?

I’ll check the thread when I get home. This NVRAM procedure is the Mac Configurator 2 thing where you connect one Mac to another?

Thanks so much for your reply. I’m pretty upset at the prospect of losing my data.

I wish you good luck - there are reports the bug can hit with a delay, on a consecutive reboot, following the upgrade - and maybe the studio display required a fixed frame rate? I bricked 3x 16' MBPs, with 1x Monterey and 2x Ventura upgrades, one month ago. I tried to escalate this within Apple, but this is like talking to a wall - they are beyond arrogant, and their uneducated support makes things worse by changing mainboards, thereby provoking full data loss, in a situation were a NVRAM revive, if carried out correctly via Mac Configurator 2, would have worked. The caveat seems: you are forced to install Sonoma to get your data back this way. https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/macOS-Sonoma-Boot-Failures sheds some light on the subject... In Ventura 13.6.2 release notes, the bug is finally mentioned by Apple.

 

[stevearm]

I wish you good luck - there are reports the bug can hit with a delay, on a consecutive reboot, following the upgrade - and maybe the studio display required a fixed frame rate? I bricked 3x 16' MBPs, with 1x Monterey and 2x Ventura upgrades, one month ago. I tried to escalate this within Apple, but this is like talking to a wall - they are beyond arrogant, and their uneducated support makes things worse by changing mainboards, thereby provoking full data loss, in a situation were a NVRAM revive, if carried out correctly via Mac Configurator 2, would have worked. The caveat seems: you are forced to install Sonoma to get your data back this way. https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/macOS-Sonoma-Boot-Failures sheds some light on the subject... In Ventura 13.6.2 release notes, the bug is finally mentioned by Apple.

Read this article. Though you can ignore the parts about emergency disks, it walks you through the ways to get an Apple Silicon Mac to boot. One thing neither you nor the Genius tried, I bet, is Fallback Recovery. If regular recovery doesn't boot, try Fallback Recover as explained in the article.

Should you make an emergency disk for an Apple silicon Mac?

Many of us keep an emergency external drive at the ready by our Mac, in case we need to use it to recover from problems. What’s the equivalent for Apple silicon?

eclecticlight.co

Thanks so much both of you, really appreciate the help. I'm going to try the NVRAM revive procedure now...

 

[stevearm]

I wish you good luck - there are reports the bug can hit with a delay, on a consecutive reboot, following the upgrade - and maybe the studio display required a fixed frame rate? I bricked 3x 16' MBPs, with 1x Monterey and 2x Ventura upgrades, one month ago. I tried to escalate this within Apple, but this is like talking to a wall - they are beyond arrogant, and their uneducated support makes things worse by changing mainboards, thereby provoking full data loss, in a situation were a NVRAM revive, if carried out correctly via Mac Configurator 2, would have worked. The caveat seems: you are forced to install Sonoma to get your data back this way. https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/macOS-Sonoma-Boot-Failures sheds some light on the subject... In Ventura 13.6.2 release notes, the bug is finally mentioned by Apple.

Read this article. Though you can ignore the parts about emergency disks, it walks you through the ways to get an Apple Silicon Mac to boot. One thing neither you nor the Genius tried, I bet, is Fallback Recovery. If regular recovery doesn't boot, try Fallback Recover as explained in the article.

Should you make an emergency disk for an Apple silicon Mac?

Many of us keep an emergency external drive at the ready by our Mac, in case we need to use it to recover from problems. What’s the equivalent for Apple silicon?

eclecticlight.co

Sorry guys, more help needed please if you could...

I got pretty far into the Revive procedure, but then was presented with the option to Install Sonoma. I was told this was the way to go for a procedure like this, as opposed to Disk Utility which wouldn't work. Anyway, I get to the install Sonoma page and it asks me where to install, I click my HDD but (stupid me) it's pretty full and it says it can't install there and it needs another 8GB of free space. Any suggestions of what to do ?

Would installing on an external HDD work?

 

[chabig]

It's great that you got it booted (to Fallback Recovery?).

I think your focus at this point should be saving your data. Can you get a second Mac (even borrow one)? Try to use Target Disk Mode to make a backup of your data.

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode

You can connect two Mac computers using a USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt cable, then transfer files.

support.apple.com

 

[stevearm]

It's great that you got it booted (to Fallback Recovery?).

I think your focus at this point should be saving your data. Can you get a second Mac (even borrow one)? Try to use Target Disk Mode to make a backup of your data.

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode

You can connect two Mac computers using a USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt cable, then transfer files.

support.apple.com

Thanks for the reply!

I used a second Mac with Apple Configurator to revive my bricked MBP by putting it in DFU mode, but it seems after it finished it booted into Recovery instead of booting into OS itself. Apparently reinstalling Sonoma should work and allow me to save my data. The problem is I'm 7GB short and can't install!

I have access to Terminal (it boots to -bash-3.2#), but I've no idea if I can delete files that way?
I also have access to Disk Utility, though I'm not sure if that will do much good?

 

[chabig]

It feels so close. But I'm out of ideas if it won't boot to Target Disk mode. 🙁

 

[Bigwaff]

You might be able to delete files from Terminal if the existing Data volume can be mounted read/write.
mount -uw "{{target_volume}}"

 

[stevearm]

You might be able to delete files from Terminal if the existing Data volume can be mounted read/write.
mount -uw "{{target_volume}}"

Thank you! Yes this worked, the Data volume was already mounted and I managed to use Terminal to delete a few files, which then let me install Sonoma and made my MBP work again. It's ridiculous how the Genius bar staff don't bother with the Apple Configurator procedure, which Apple themselves lay out as a fix for this issue.