Wifi Restore 2010 Pro

[Bill Schroeder]

New here and new to Macbook. My grandson has a 2010 Macbook Pro that has some problems. As grandpa is the family geek he gave it to me to fix. The hard drive clearly failed so I replaced it with a new one. I have tried to use internet restore several times without success. On two occasions the globe came up and requested the wifi password. Before I could enter it the image just faded to white. Most of the time it boots to a colored screen (see pic) then slowly turns pure white. I know its old but it's all he's got so I would like to get it up for him.Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

[Fishrrman]

I could be wrong, but I believe some 2010 MBP's support "internet recovery", but others do not.
It may have something to do with a firmware update that occurred along the line.

So... it's possible that the 2010 MBP you have won't do internet recovery.

Are you a Mac user, yourself?
Please tell us WHICH Mac you have, and WHAT VERSION of the OS you have running on it now.

I can think of a couple of ways to go here:
FIRST WAY:
Create a bootable USB flash drive containing the OS you want to install on the MBP.
Then, boot the MPB from the flashdrive installer and give that a try.

SECOND WAY:
Take the hard drive OUT of the the MBP, and put it into a USB3 enclosure.
Connect that enclosure to YOUR Mac, and install a clean copy of the OS onto it that way.
Then connect the enclosure to the MBP and try an "external test boot".
If successful, then "do the surgery" and put the drive into the MBP, and it should work afterwards.

 

[Weaselboy]

On two occasions the globe came up and requested the wifi password.

If you saw the grey spinning globe, that model has Internet recovery. What you are describing with that screen sounds like either a bad LCD screen or a failed graphics chip, neither is easily fixed.

Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support

Some computers that came with OS X Snow Leopard and earlier installed can use the OS X Internet Recovery feature after applying a firmware update.

support.apple.com

 

[Fishrrman]

Is this a 13" or a 15" MBP (latter has discrete GPU, I believe).

If it's a 15" with a discrete GPU, and the GPU is failing, it -might- be possible to bypass it and run from the "integrated" graphics, I think...