MacBook Pro bricked after failed Big Sur update 😵 ⚰️

While I know mine was an issue with the iMac, I held the power button down, restarted holding command-r on re-start and got into recovery mode where I was able to use my back-up to at least get my machine back to where it was. What a waste of time & effort! I sure hope Apple gets the folks with MacBooks whole again. This is INEXCUSABLE in this day & age!

My late 2014 MacBook Pro 13 inch bricked also. I forgot it was updating and it appears it went to sleep at night when I found it on the 14th Nov. Being too busy to roll up my sleeves and start the restore process (as I have access to another Macbook Pro of which I disabled the auto update until my bricked hurdle is resolved), I managed to gather a external HDD just in case Time Machine would fail me. I could restart into recovery using CMD and R but the kids took the power out and it eventually died (my Macbook sleep mystery is another story). This morning it boots into the setup screen. I am staggered how this happened but it saved me a bunch of time. I will summarise below as the above has a little confusion in it.

My Macbook bricked, I could see the Apple logo with a black screen and the white bar at around a 3rd which was not moving (I don't know if it was installing or what, no status or % bar). I planned to recover it and restarted into recovery where you see Time Machine, Disk Utility and 2 other functions. However power was lost and the battery drained to 0%. Plugging in my charger, I am welcomed by a setup screen.

Observations, Set up was slow, my avatar icon large and blurry. On the Siri option it appears that "Checking iCloud Updates" was unresponsive (go back and then continue again got past this). It eventually finished (whilst showing me what I had open before I started the update, its more that weird this update) and now my Macbook Pro is up and running again!

All I done was 2 things, put it in recovery to see the menu, then accidently drain the battery.

Hi All

My macbook pro (late 2013) has been affected by this issue. There is power to the machine the screen comes on but shows only black.

I have phoned apple support and been through all the reset options to recover the machine.

I managed to get a genius bar appointment for today and have just been contacted by the store, they could not recover the machine using their standard recovery methods and have diagnosed a hardware issue. Based on this they offered me a repair at my cost of £450!!!

I escalated to a manager who could not offer anything else and my only escalation is to contact apple support again.

Upvoting this. I had the exact same issue ;(MBP late 2013)manager escalation and final response. They can fix it for $470US.

this is widespread and the coat to fix is .25-.50% of a a new comparable model machine. They broke working systems and want us to pay for them :(

I tried to install Big Sur on my iMac and it failed with about 15min. left on the install part of the update. The only option given was to boot in target disk mode which wouldn't help me. After shutting down my mac, I was able to restart from a backup drive using Carbon Copy Cloner and reinstall Catalina from that. Now I have an "update" disk image on my desktop that I don't know if I can delete or not. At least Catalina is working, but I'm afraid to try installing Big Sur again after what happened before. Very frustrating and disappointing.

Same happened to me. Had an appointment at the local Genius Bar and the support guy told me that it’s a hardware issue and not software - which can’t damage hardware as to the genius guy. He mentioned costs of 500 EUR for repair but that would definitely exceed the remaining economic value of the MB. When I got home tonight, I read about all the other experiences and now I am disappointed that Apple support did not mention this obviously well known issue. Will claim damage compensation from Apple since Apple as originator of the update caused a damage, being liable pursuant to civil law. Without downloading the update, as encouraged by Apple, my MB would still work.

After several connections to support, first visit to authorized service (I rejected there suggested repair for $850 ), and escalating to engineer level – Apple promise me to give “exclude code” for free repair. Waiting for Friday next trip to service.

Get the IO board changed (and not the whole motherboard). This is where the problem lies. I had it changed a couple of days ago and My MacBook Pro 13” Mid 2014 (A1502) is now shining again with Big Sur (which, for me, runs better than Catalina).

unfortunately as far as Apple is concerned this not a well known issue. The techs at the Genius Bar and phone support believe software cannot damage hardware. Considering that has been debunked since 2002 when viruses were able to crash bioses the only fix would be new hardware that has a working bios chip. The machine is 7 years old and out of warranty even if you got Apple car which I did.

since Big Sur just came out I’m sure they are not even considering restitution or Genius Bar fixes. Best we can do is to keep sharing our stories here until they see a pattern or they get a bunch of bad press

My 2015 MacBook Air bricked but was able to be fixed. I did lose all of my data that was stored on the hard drive but it was fixed. Apple Support call walked me through all the steps. Command + R, erase the disk, internet re-install. I then had to try again with Big Sur and it worked. Took a long time to install and the “less than a minute remaining” actually took like 20 minutes. Call Apple Support.

Shouldn’t be loosing any data, Terminal would have made it possible to copy data to an external HDD with some help from Google. I was about to do it but my MacBook burst back to life after a depleted battery on the recovery screen.

I just spoke an Apple senior advisor for the third time. This was after two Genius Bar visits and two Apple Support online chats. Apple's legal department has refused any compensation. The ~AU$1200 repair quotation is still applicable.

I am stunned.

I paid a premium price for Apple's product to avoid issues and to ensure reliability.

I am not disputing the fact that my MacBook Pro is approaching six years old. However, the MacBook was functioning prior to accepting Apple's System Preference > Software Upgrade notification, ensuring my MacBook satisfied the age requirement to upgrade to MacOS Big Sur and backing up my data. I am not aware of operating system upgrades destroying hardware before this issue.

So very disappointed in Apple. After encountering AirPods battery life issues earlier this year plus Apple Watch Bluetooth disconnection issues it's possibly too much for me.

Same issue when their update bricked my wifes iPhone 7! We had to buy a new phone, no help from Apple after nagging constantly to update & when we finally did, a bricked phone! As a stockholder from way back I'm highly distrubed by updates ruining hardware. Something is seriously wrong!

Nothing special, just escalated problem to the engineer level with help from my Apple advisor and made a video attached to issue how MBK Pro mid2014 turning on and off. Also attached a picture of official response from the Apple authorized service with acknowledgment of bricked MBP (and suggested they solution via whole motherboard change). After several days Apple advisor promise me to offer exclude code for free repair to the service selected. Going to visit there Friday 11/27.

ndv27: Please let us know what happens when you have your visit on 11/27. I have a similar problem with a MBPr late 2013 13" and I have an appointment at the Genius bar on 11/29 (after 2 hours with Apple phone support). Thank you!