User needs help restoring a MacBook.
User needs help restoring a MacBook.
Safe mode didn't make a difference. The apple logo appeared, but the loading bar halted around 25% and remained inactive. Verbose displayed the message and then stopped at that point.
Another update. I've read while googleing around that safemode also starts by holding the shift key. In that case the loading bar moves to around 33% (but pixel by pixel) after which the screen turns white and nothing, again. Also, call me crazy but it sounds like there's a HDD in there (I sometimes here it's head clicking... o.o) There's an Samsung SSD in there and holding the option key on boot shows up 1 drive.
Hmm, this is quite the issue, but I'm not about to give up. The ** GPU Hardware VM is disabled (multispace: disabled, page table updates with DMA: disabled) line brings some concern but when looking it up, there's not much of anything on that. What I did find was someone saying they don't get that on 10.9 Mavericks but in 10.10 Yosemite on it happens, and their model is the same as yours, linked here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7574721 Maybe see if you can get into single user mode (CMD+S), I don't know what we could even do if it boots in there, yet... If it does boot into single user mode that's at least SOME form of progress. Also worth noting that my 2012 MacBook Pro 15" had issues booting the 10.13 installer directly, I had to boot with Internet Recovery, install 10.7, download Yosemite, make a USB with that, and then reboot, wipe the drive, install Yosemite, then download the 10.13 installer and upgrade. Worked fine ever since. My issue was that anything later than 10.10 would start to install, then when it got close to finishing, it'd force reboot. Internet Recovery is just an image of the 10.7 installer with some extra utilities, you can repair the disk or run other utilities, it won't erase the OS unless you tell it to. But! You can't even get into Internet Recovery (the macbook nor the os is too old for it though, 10.7 can even access the app store to download apps) which we've established from the start, and you can't boot IR with safe or verbose mode... The clicking may be from the optical drive, unless that was replaced with a hard drive, and that is clicking. It wouldn't show up in the boot menu if there's no bootable partition on it. Actually, if there is an optical drive, see about booting a Linux or Windows DVD, not to install of course, just to see if its exclusive to OS X or for anything. If not, do a USB boot. I'd recommend a Linux with a live CD/DVD/USB, so if it IS the GPU, we'd see issues with it, else it's something to do with OS X.
If it's the CD drive, it would feel like the best HDD ever made. The Linux USB sounds promising. I found one nearby, but it isn't listed in the startup manager. Tomorrow might require a replacement. The owner's daughter suggested she bring a MacBook, and he'll see if he can repair it or if he needs to get a new one. I plan to test Linux first thing in the morning, and if it doesn<|pad|>, I'll move on. So... I'll check this morning (my time is GMT+1, Germany – it's 1 a.m. now...).
The Linux USB needs to be registered in the GUID Partition Table (GPT), not the MBR. Macs must use UEFI exclusively. This might explain why the USB didn't boot. If not, a quick search should provide some guidance. If you can't resolve it before sending it in, please detail all your attempts so they don't have to repeat work. A successful Linux boot should indicate the problem is limited to macOS/OS X, though a faulty GPU could be the cause—possibly due to stress over time.
You need another Mac to create a bootable USB for macOS. Because the new drive isn’t formatted, recovery options won’t work. You can either use a PC to install macOS via VM or purchase a bootable USB from sources like Pureinfotech. This method also helped me with a 2016 MacBook Pro when I encountered similar problems.
Internet Recovery can function without a recovery partition, which is exactly what I achieved on my 2012 MBP. I relied on the IR version of 10.7, but 10.13 wouldn’t install straight away—it would reformat the drive (using APFS) and then cause failure roughly three out of four times. I switched to HFS, installed 10.7, created a 10.11 USB drive, reformatted it to 10.11, and then updated to 10.13. It seems, given the lack of recent updates from the original poster, they’ve passed the device to the original owner’s son for repairs.
Internet Recovery is merely a visual of the 10.7 installer (in my situation), featuring some additional tools for tasks<|pad|>, such as accessing Apple support sites. It’s essentially a tailored version of the installer disc, according to my experience.