Catalina bricked my 2015 MacBook Pro. What to do now?

Hi, if you have startup security utility, that may be an issue. What do you mean the folder logo? Have you tried safe boot (Restart and then hold down the "Shift" key). Safe mode helps diagnose issues with the disk on your Mac. If you are convinced that it may be a firmware or hardware issue, then restart and hold down "D". This should startup the macOS Self Diagnostic. Good luck!

@PhanHuy_vn the firmware that allows you to reinstall the operating system is corrupt, all that remains is a small bootstrap that loads the EFI and it can't because it is corrupt. The only solution to this is to reprogram the firmware by direct access to the system board or a system board replacement.

I wouldn't rule out EFI corruption, but it's far from certain. Could be the internal HD itself.

Also when the computer gets hot, do the fans run faster ? If not, then it might be the management engine not doing its job properly (hence reflashing might help).

I'm assuming you did an SMC and PRAM reset as first diag tests, if not then that should be the first thing to try.

Your EFI is fried. Find a 3rd party repair place that can re-flash the Main Board chip.

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried:

1. Holding down ⌘-R while restarting?
2. Making a bootable flash drive and holding down the option key while restarting?

Hi rkcomp,

I went to the Apple store today, and just as I feared, they quoted me to replace the logic board and SSD. $475 for something their software "upgrade" caused. Needless to say, I declined. They will probably tell you the same. Unless you have apple care (expired by now I am sure), you are out of luck as I am. That is, unless they declare this a known issue, and issue free repairs, which I doubt they will. I will probably buy a used logic board and replace it myself for 50% less.

If you need to install 10.15 Catalina on your 2012-2015 Mac, please wipe the drive and install fresh from a 10.15 bootable disk. Do not take the chance and end up with your Mac bricked as I, OP, and many others have. I have read this may be a way around the issue, but I am not sure 100%. I would recommend waiting until later releases to install 10.15 Catalina.

I wonder if there are any shops near me that can do that EFI repair. It definitely seems like the Catalina installer is compromising that part of the system. Everyone is arriving at the same conclusion.

MaxForconi wrote:

Hi all,

I’m not sure if my problem is the same. I’ll try to explain: after catalina update my macbook pro 2016 doesn’t start, only a blinking folder after few minutes. In recovery mode I’m able to access the re-installation process but the problem is that no internal hard drive are displayed! Please help me , I’m from Italy, sorry for my bad english

No one here can help you. Take your machine to an Apple store or authorized service provider.

I'd like to agree with Len.

Office 365 is "relatively" inexpensive IF you need it for compatibility with co-workers.

I've personally been migrating to the "free" Apple Pages (and Numbers), and it has gone well. Pages can do all that I need it to do.

Numbers has also worked well for me. However, it is clear that if you are a high end user of Excel, there is no substitute for business or scientific modeling. That applies to a very small group of users, however. I'm not talking about normal spreadsheets, which Numbers handles just fine.

If Catalina is working well, I would not downgrade. I have done this, and it is painful. You SHOULD be able to do it, however.

One tip is to make a bootable USB thumb drive with Mojave on it. When you use this to install you MUST delete all of the partitions that Catalina has made (it is different from Mojave and earlier), using the disk utility. Once this is accomplished, re-installing Mojave should work well.

To create a bootable drive, go here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Best of luck

Lycoming

Same thing here, with my MBP 15" Mid-2014 (MacBookPro11,3). During the Catalina upgrade process, computer turned off ; I pressed space bar to wake it up, and then it was dead.

Symptom is: after pressing the power button, Nothing happens for about 15 seconds, then cover led lights up and screen gets all white (no logo, no ?). No chime, no fault beeps or blinks.

The SMC reset combination (that is performed while powered off) seems to do something (the led on the charging cable blinks). But no other key combination (performed while powered on) does anything, such as safe boot, boot selection, recovery, PRAM reset.

At this stage I'm 99% sure it's the BootROM which is faulty. Clearly the computer deos not reach a point where it will try to get more code from the disk (UEFI partition). If it was some other component (faulty RAM) there would be beep codes from the POST.

Spent some time on the phone with support, they sent mo to a repair shop ; I suggested they try to reflash the firmware, not sure they will actually try before simply saying the logic board is dead. We'll see, I should be getting news in a few days. In any case, I won't let them change the board, I will try to flash it myself if needs be.

Alex, read this post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250728927?page=1

My assumptions were right, Catalina is ruining the EFI while upgrading.

I got my mother board replaced for free by Apple. Push and they will do it.

This "Bricking after upgrading Catalina" is spreading like the plague, it happened to my 2014 MacBook Air and I have two other friends with MacBook Pro 2015 that have the same issue. No keys are recognized by the device and 5 minute after turning it on the flashing question mark folder. Everything points to be a BIOS-EFI firmware corruption by the catalina installer.

the exact same happened to my 2015 MBP Retina 13”. I took it into the Apple store where the genius couldn’t diagnose it, so they kept the MB for a week or more. Apparently they claim the logic board to have become faulty during the update, but said I’m liable to pay around £600 for a replacement logic board. It’s evident to me now that this is occurring much more than Apple care to accept. To be absolutely honest, both Apple’s customer service and product refinement have stooped into the dumps.