Black screen and no OS installed?

Hi ethel45,

A folder with a flashing question mark indicates that your Mac doesn’t know where to start up from. This can mean various things:

• macOS is fine and your Mac simply forgot where to start up from. Hold down the Option key as you power on or restart your Mac. Release the key when you’re allowed to select a Wi-Fi network. If your startup disk appears above (Macintosh HD), click on it, and click the circled arrow as you hold down the Control key. This instructs your Mac to always start up from your startup disk.

• macOS is corrupted or isn’t installed. Hold down Command-R as you power on or restart your Mac. This instructs it to start up from macOS Recovery. If macOS Recovery is absent, your Mac will download a fresh copy from Apple servers and start up from it. Once in macOS Recovery, try reinstalling macOS.

• Your Mac can’t detect or read from the internal drive (hardware corruption or failure). To make sure this is NOT the case, power on or restart your Mac while holding down the D key. Release the key when a spinning globe appears, or when a message appears on the screen. Choose your language if prompted, then decide if you want to send your test results to Apple servers. Once you’ve made your choice, your Mac will test its hardware, including the fans. If you get an error code other than “ADP000”, your Mac has a hardware issue and it needs to get serviced.

EDIT: Considering the article you linked, it looks like you’re trying to reach Apple Support. Instead, it appears you posted to Apple Support Communities instead. This is a user forum, and Apple does not provide official support here.

To contact Apple Support, click here.

ethel45 Said:

"Black screen and no OS installed?: Hi, I attempted to do a factory reset in recovery mode and ended up with a black screen with a turning globe and no boot up? It seems that there is now no OS there! Is there a way for me to fix this? Thanks, Doug"

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Use a USB Bootable Installer:

I. Create a USB Bootable Installer:

1. Go Here: How to Create a Bootable Installer for macOS - Apple Support
2. Use a Separate Mac: to create this for the macOS version install you need to downgrade to.

II. Erase the Hard Drive:

1. Boot: into Recovery Mode: Hold Down [Command + R] upon boot
2. Select: Disk Utility
3. Erase: the all volumes and partitions

III. Boot From USB Bootable Installer:

1. Plug in: The USB Bootable Installer
2. Hold Down: Option upon to boot into Startup Manager
3. Select: the USB Bootable Installer for the Startup Drive
4. Proceed: from there as necessary with the Install

ethel45 Said:

"Black screen and no OS installed?: My macbook pro catalina starts with black screen and a flashing ? in a folder - what can I do to get a working OS on it please"

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Refer to the link provided atop this post.