installing big sur mac not starting

Expecting troubles from Apple on my MBP late 2013 as I had with the upgrade to Catalina I chose to do it different with a CLEAN Big Sur install.

Big Sur works flawless so far! This is what I did.

-Download Big Sur from App store

-Make a Bootable USB with Big Sur on it with Terminal command (Google how to do this exactly)

Obviously if your mac doesn’t boot you will need to do the above steps on another mac.

I continued with:

-Reset NVRAM

-Start in recovery mode

-Open Disk Utility and erase internal SSD completely. (You should have an external backup, otherwise don’t...)

-Boot MBP from the bootable USB and install Big Sur.

Of course all the settings have to be done manually again.

Hopefully this can help you.

Thanks for the tip. It also worked here. The macbook was stuck on the black screen. I pushed the on/off button till it switched of. I pushed then the shift button and ON button the same time. After that the mac continued installing and everything worked again.

The same thing happened to me, it has been a complete nightmare installation! My MacBook Pro got stuck trying to install Big Sur, even after leaving it for hours. I then contacted support who suggested booting my laptop in safe mode, but safe mode didn't work. Then, they claimed I had a hardware issue and have to bring my laptop into the Genius Bar for support. The earliest appointment is 6 days later! At the time, I didn't have a working laptop at all after the Big Sur install nightmare.

I contacted support again and they suggested I restore from a Time Machine backup. I had to reinstall the Catalina OS multiple times and the first restore didn't bring back any of my music or photos. I then restored and was missing my Photos library. I am now on my 3rd attempt to restore from a Time Machine backup all due to Big Sur and each time it takes hours because I have almost 1TB of data backed up.

I have been speaking to Apple Support for 3 days now.

I'm definitely staying away from Big Sur and still have an appointment on Saturday at the Apple Store to deal with whatever hardware issue I now I have because of Big Sur!

Same Issue. I tried everything from restarting the NVRAM or Booting in safe mode but nothing happened. I took it to an authorized apple service centre in Saudi Arabia and they told me that the logic board is broken and i have to pay for the replacement.

I've a local support service Apple Authorised on Friday for my bricked MacBook Pro late 2013 Retina, that worked perfectly before Big Sur.

We charge a diagnostic fee for out-of-warranty repairs. The diagnostic fee is £69 plus VAT but you don't pay it if you go ahead with the repair. Hardware repairs of devices with warranty or AppleCare are free.

Its out of warranty, but I'm not paying this nor any hardware charges for whatever Big Sur did to my laptop.

Got a call with Apple on Friday morning. I need authorisation that Apple will take any charges.

The same happened to me! Apple support refusing to support unless apple acknowledges that whatever happened to my logic board is because of the update.

the apple support guy told me clearly it is a hardware issue not an operating system issue and no software issue can cause any damage to any hardware piece.

i think apple should begin with educating their support specialists first and then they should acknowledge the damage caused by their worst macOS lunch ever.

This happened to my mid-2014 MacBook Pro too—I got stuck on a black screen during the Big Sur update and the machine became totally unresponsive. I couldn't even get into Recovery Mode.

When I called Apple previously they were not helpful at all, and wanted me to get it fixed at my own cost, even though this is clearly an issue of the Big Sur update bricking quite a number of older MacBook Pros. Disappointed in Apple support, as this has taken a lot of hours to diagnose and fix, and they were unwilling to do anything about it.

[Edited by Moderator]

in my case, removing the I/O cable did nothing. The screen did not turn on .

I do believe that for some reason, the internal toshiba SSD has died (it is a 2013 macbook Air 11 inch Haswell), at least it's not being recognized anymore by the MAC.

3 options that are possible in my case:

-Either the installation did something related to the toshiba SSD firmware itself.

-Either , by "bad luck" the SSD has died just in the moment of BigSur installation due to having surpassed the TBW (terabytes written). This, altough possible, it's really awkward, since this macbook air even having 7 years, it has been used very few days per month.

-Or, the installation of BigSur changed some other firmware in the motherboard, and the motherboard has lost the possibility to recognize the internal SSD.

Why I know the SSD is not recognized anymore?

Easy:

Turn On the macbook, it sounds the "chime" sound, and I press command +R for 5 seconds. Nothing happens. The screen is still completely black but the screen backlight is ON.

Leave like that for 3 freaking hours or 4, and after those hours, magically the screen will TURN ON!! with the recovery mode waiting for you.

Once you choose to either do a clean install or choose disk util, you will see that the ssd does not appear anymore!!!

If you choose to install MacOS again, it will ask you where to install it without any disk option!!

And, if you go to disk util, its empty as well. No disk.

People that have the same issue and the I/O board did not work for them, please give it a try this 3hour-boot to see if it happens the same thing as me!

I recently downloded the Mac OS BigSur on my MacBook 2014 mod ( 13 inc ) and now l can not start the Macbook ( screen is black )

Have been trying everything ( also eplehuset in Norway knows that many is having same problem as me ) and the only help was to change hardware ) almost 7000 NOK almost 950$ or whait until Apple takes responsibility for this ( can take very long time.....)

Apple please fix this is obviously related to Big Sur.

2015 15” MBP here, paid the local Apple shop $75 for them to tell me the logic board is dead. Glad I hung on to it at least.

This worked for me, too. MacBook Pro mid-2014 13" Retina was stalled for hours with progress bar showing half way. After it restarted, Big Sur was installed and asking for sign on.

Thank you very much, t5vag! This also worked on a 2016 MBP 13 with the touchbar.

same issue

Thank you for your generous insight, William.