MBP Won't Boot

[uncleiven]

Restarted my Mac (Late 2013 15" MBP) as it felt a little laggy. Got to the password screen for my user account as normal, but when the usual status bar starts to load the screen goes black and there is an intermittent white circular loading wheel which comes and goes and the Mac just won't start.

Any ideas, running 10.12.5

 

[dianeoforegon]

Restart in Safe Boot Mode. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

 

[uncleiven]

Doesn't seem to want to boot in safe mode either! The only difference is the white loading bar after I enter my password stays on the screen longer but doesn't progress. The black screen and white circuit wheel kick in again after about 1 minute

 

[uncleiven]

It says it should say "Safe Mode" in the upper right corner of the log in screen when in safe mode.... I don't see that

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, you should see a red "Safe mode" in the top right corner of the login screen, along with a wifi icon and the clock.
You ARE holding the shift key down when you boot, correct?

Try booting to the Recovery system - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314
Do you see an Apple icon, or do you see a spinning globe as you boot? (Spinning globe indicates that you are booting to Internet recovery, booting to Apple's servers over the internet, and not booting to your internal drive at all.
You may be able to launch Disk Utility, and test your storage drive from there.

 

[uncleiven]

Tried resetting the NVRAM and SMC, now when booting in safe mode (I think), the progress bar loads to about 90% then I get the black screen / white circuit again!!!

 

[DeltaMac]

Did you try your Recovery system yet?

 

[uncleiven]

Ok - managed to get into the recovery system using cmd-r and First Aid on main SSD shows no issues but I still get the same thing.

I don't think it will go into safe boot either. Definitely no red text when I try it

 

[uncleiven]

I just got the Apple logo so it must have been local not internet boot

 

[DeltaMac]

I suspect you might have a bad keyboard, but be sure to try the other shift key (on the left), just to see if that makes a difference.

And, if you can boot to the local recovery system again, simply reinstall OS X. You won't lose any of your files or apps that you may have installed, it will just reinstall the system files. Worth a try to get you booting again.

 

[uncleiven]

I don't suspect there is any issue with the keyboard, there wasn't before.

Which recovery system do I need to use, the option where it loads the last version, I think the keys you hold are different on start up

 

[dianeoforegon]

• command R to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
• option command R to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
• shift option command R to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available

 

[uncleiven]

Currently reinstalling

 

[uncleiven]

Nope - still won't boot. Guess it's time to format and re-install!!

 

[SaSaSushi]

Nope - still won't boot. Guess it's time to format and re-install!!

Yeah, that's the next step. If that doesn't fix it you're probably looking at a hardware fault, although it could be something as simple as a dead logic board battery.

 

[uncleiven]

I'm hoping it's nothing hardware related.

Can I do a format and install using the online restore progress?

 

[uncleiven]

Just noticed my SSD is completely full, maybe that's the issue.

I know I had about 20GB free space before the issue started

 

[SaSaSushi]

Can I do a format and install using the online restore progress?

Yes, just erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing.

Don't do this, of course, if any critical data on the drive is not backed up first because obviously it will be lost forever.

It's strange that you can't boot into Safe Mode.

As for the SSD being full, if you're familiar with working from the command line, you could use Terminal (from Tools in Recovery) to try and remove some large and/or unnecessary files to free up some space and then try rebooting.

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/YOUR_USERNAME

to get to your home folder, etc.

 

[uncleiven]

This isn't going well.

Formatted and going through a clean install but it's stuck here...

 

[uncleiven]

Ah, we're in

 

[SaSaSushi]

Glad to hear it's working. In case you run into any other problems, another thing I was going to suggest was to try Apple Diagnostics.

 

[uncleiven]

Thanks mate - hopefully I'll be ok now it's back up and working. Just need to set it all up!