Macbook Pro Unibody 2011 Boots Up to Plain White Screen

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Macbook Pro Unibody 2011 Boots Up to Plain White Screen

Hi, I have a Macbook Pro 2011 that is booting up to a plain white screen each time, no apple logo, no flashing folder with a question mark.

I've tried resetting PRAM (plenty of times) it restarts but still boots up to a plain white screen. Also tried the SMC reset, doesn't change.
Holding to Shift (to boot to Safe Mode) doesn't work neither does holding CMD + R (to boot to recovery mode) or ALT, SHIFT, CMD & R for Internet recovery mode.
I've made a bootable USB and a copy of Sierra installed onto an external HD, holding ALT on boot up does nothing either so I can't access startup manager at all to select what drive to boot from.
As above resetting PRAM works, so the keyboard must work, the screen goes from black to white and chimes each time on start up then sticks on the white screen, so display works.

Is there anything left I haven't tried? Id just like to get the data off it. Next step is to put the HD in an enclosure and try and get data off it that way.

Assuming the fact it wont even boot to the Startup Manager that means that the issue is definitely hardware related? If so is there a specific part of the hardware that would cause this? Battery? RAM etc?

Thanks

MacBook Pro

Posted on Dec 14, 2022 1:33 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Community+ 2026

Level 9

70,508 points

Dec 16, 2022 7:59 PM in response to CrookedCartoon

Would this happen to be a 15" or 17" model? If so, then the GPU is most likely bad.

A failing hard drive could also prevent the Mac from booting even from external media, but I think you should still see the Apple boot picker menu when Option Booting even if it does not show any bootable volumes. After removing the hard drive, see how this laptop behaves when Option Booting or trying to boot into Internet Recovery Mode or USB installer.

You can try connecting an external display and using Clamshell Mode to see if the external display has the same issue, but I find it can be hard to get video to the external display under these conditions. To attempt enable Clamshell mode you need to connect the charger, a wired USB keyboard & mouse, and external display. Power on the laptop and close the lid of the display to hopefully force video to the external display. You may have to experiment when to close the lid.

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Answer 2

TammyW_03

Community Specialist

Dec 17, 2022 10:49 AM in response to CrookedCartoon

Hello CrookedCartoon,

With the steps you've taken so far, it sounds like it could be a hard drive issue. If you have another Mac with a FireWire or Thunderbolt port, you could try to use Target Disk Mode to retrieve the data from the drive. If there is an issue with the drive, you might not be able to recover the data. Here's what you'll need to use target disk mode: Transfer files between two computers using target disk mode - Apple Support

If you have two Mac computers with FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, you can connect them so that one of them appears as an external hard disk on the other. This is called target disk mode.

1. Connect the two computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.

2. On the Mac you want to use as the disk in target disk mode, do one of the following:

• If the computer is off, start it up while holding down the T key.

• If the computer is on, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Startup Disk, then click Target Disk Mode.

When the computer has started up, a disk icon appears on the desktop of the other computer.

3. Transfer files by dragging them to and from the disk.

4. Eject the disk by dragging its icon to the Trash.

While you drag, the Trash icon changes to an Eject icon.

5. On the Mac you used as a disk, push the power button to shut it down, then disconnect the cable.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care!

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Macbook Pro Unibody 2011 Boots Up to Plain White Screen

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