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Macbook Wont Boot to MacOS

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djflaco

djflaco

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hello everyone,

I'm having a serious issue because I use my computer for work and school. So every time my MacBook starts up to macOS, the apple would come out, then it keeps restarting and restarting. I have tried to hold down the "D" button while restarting, and it takes me to Internet Recovery. I try Internet Recovery, and it would finish loading,g and it would keep restarting, asking me to enter my internet network again and again.

I have Boot Camp with Windows on my MacBook Pro. I can login windows just find with no issue, but I can't use macOS. Please, I need help getting this fixed. It's crazy how I can log into Windows Boot Camp and not macOS.
 

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This sounds like an issue with the EFI boot partition on your MacBook. It is hard to tell for sure but this partition keeps entries for each bootable partition on the machine and if one partition (windows) boots fine and the other does not (macOS) it likely means something got messed up here.

So what to do:
If you haven't already try these things first since they are non-destructive:

Hold down the option key at boot and make sure you see the macOS boot entry. If you do try to boot it (I don't think this will work but it is worth a shot)
Open the startup disk control panel on windows and make sure you see the macOS boot entry there. If you do try to set this as the startup disk and see if this works. the startup disk control panel does things a little bit differently under windows so this might reset your Mac entry to something healthy.
Install the macOS to an external USB disk and boot off of that. If everything works we can be nearly 100% confident that it is related to your disk.

Here's some fixes if the non-destructive stuff doesn't help.

1) Heavy hammer (this is what apple would recommend): Completely wipe the disk and reinstall. You need to be sure the EFI partition is also removed. There are a few ways to do this but with Disk Utility this means erasing the disk including the windows partition (not just erasing the macOS partition) and repartitioning the disk.
2) More surgical but pretty technical. You can mount the EFI partition like any other partition using the diskutil command or diskutil.msc on windows and edit what is on there directly. I can't tell you what might be off for the macOS entry (I don't know those files well enough) but Google or ChatGPT might be able to help there.
 
mzeb said:
This sounds like an issue with the EFI boot partition on your MacBook. It is hard to tell for sure but this partition keeps entries for each bootable partition on the machine and if one partition (windows) boots fine and the other does not (macOS) it likely means something got messed up here.

So what to do:
If you haven't already try these things first since they are non-destructive:

Hold down the option key at boot and make sure you see the macOS boot entry. If you do try to boot it (I don't think this will work but it is worth a shot)
Open the startup disk control panel on windows and make sure you see the macOS boot entry there. If you do try to set this as the startup disk and see if this works. the startup disk control panel does things a little bit differently under windows so this might reset your Mac entry to something healthy.
Install the macOS to an external USB disk and boot off of that. If everything works we can be nearly 100% confident that it is related to your disk.

Here's some fixes if the non-destructive stuff doesn't help.

1) Heavy hammer (this is what apple would recommend): Completely wipe the disk and reinstall. You need to be sure the EFI partition is also removed. There are a few ways to do this but with Disk Utility this means erasing the disk including the windows partition (not just erasing the macOS partition) and repartitioning the disk.
2) More surgical but pretty technical. You can mount the EFI partition like any other partition using the diskutil command or diskutil.msc on windows and edit what is on there directly. I can't tell you what might be off for the macOS entry (I don't know those files well enough) but Google or ChatGPT might be able to help there.
Click to expand...
So I open up the Startup Disk Control Panel on Windows, and I do see my macOS on there. It does not give me the option to set it up as the default, but only to restart using Windows. I was thinking of installing macOS to an external USB. How would I boot off ths usb? Also I don't care about starting my macbook from fresh.

I don't mind a complete wipe.
 
mzeb said:
This sounds like an issue with the EFI boot partition on your MacBook. It is hard to tell for sure but this partition keeps entries for each bootable partition on the machine and if one partition (windows) boots fine and the other does not (macOS) it likely means something got messed up here.

So what to do:
If you haven't already try these things first since they are non-destructive:

Hold down the option key at boot and make sure you see the macOS boot entry. If you do try to boot it (I don't think this will work but it is worth a shot)
Open the startup disk control panel on windows and make sure you see the macOS boot entry there. If you do try to set this as the startup disk and see if this works. the startup disk control panel does things a little bit differently under windows so this might reset your Mac entry to something healthy.
Install the macOS to an external USB disk and boot off of that. If everything works we can be nearly 100% confident that it is related to your disk.

Here's some fixes if the non-destructive stuff doesn't help.

1) Heavy hammer (this is what apple would recommend): Completely wipe the disk and reinstall. You need to be sure the EFI partition is also removed. There are a few ways to do this but with Disk Utility this means erasing the disk including the windows partition (not just erasing the macOS partition) and repartitioning the disk.
2) More surgical but pretty technical. You can mount the EFI partition like any other partition using the diskutil command or diskutil.msc on windows and edit what is on there directly. I can't tell you what might be off for the macOS entry (I don't know those files well enough) but Google or ChatGPT might be able to help there.
Click to expand...
I been trying to locate a Tahoe macos so I can add it to my external drive but cant find it.
 
The easy way to install to an external USB is to use the internet install and just point that to the external disk. This is also the easiest way to completely wipe the internal disk.

Were this my machine I'd be blowing it away if I didn't have time to fidget with the EFI partition (which I don't). I keep backups of everything so this is a pretty easy option for me.
 
OP wrote:
"I don't care about starting my macbook from fresh.
I don't mind a complete wipe."

Before you do the following, you MUST have your important stuff backed up.
What follows will "wipe" EVERYTHING on the internal drive!

1. Power down -- all the way off

2. Hold down the following key combination:
Command+Option+R
KEEP HOLDING THEM DOWN, while you press and RELEASE the power on button.

KEEP HOLDING THOSE KEYS DOWN! DO NOT LET GO! (shouting is intentional)

3. You can let go when you're asked for your wifi password. Enter it, and be patient as the internet utilities load. (spinning globe)

4. Once the utilities are loaded, you can open Disk Utility.
VERY IMPORTANT -- you must go to the "view" menu and choose "show all devices". You can't see the internal drive unless you do this.

5. Look at the list on the left. The "topmost" item will be the internal SSD. We need to erase it, so click the "Erase" button up above.

6. Erase it to APFS, GUID partition format. DO NOT USE "case sensitive"!

7. When the erase is done (won't take long), close disk utility and open the OS installer.

8. Accept whatever version of the OS you are offered. A Mac that boots (regardless of what OS is on it) is better than one that won't.

9. Click through to get the install going. The Mac will reboot several times, and the screen will go dark for a minute or more with no other indication of activity. Just be patient.

10. When the install is done, you'll see the initial setup screen (Choose your language). Start clicking through. If you have a backup, connect it now. It's up to you whether you want to use Setup Assistant to "migrate" from your backup, or... start "completely fresh".

If you want bootcamp back, you'll need to do that separately... after you get the Mac side set up.
If it was me, I'd leave bootcamp alone. But that's just me.

Good luck.
 
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