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Mac won’t boot into recovery or usb installer

MacBook Pro 2018 was running fine - left the room for a moment - when I came back it was sat with the black screen and the folder with a question mark indicating it can’t find a boot volume.


first port of call was to run recovery but it needs to run the internet recovery. I used the option key to tell it to use the latest version. It downloads and begins to start but when the progress bar gets to about 5% the MacBook reboots itself.


next idea was to get a friend to make me a bootable usb stick. This is recognised and I can start to boot but again at about 2% progress it restarts the macbook


so I did a NV ram reset and a pmu reset. Tried both the above again and got the same result.


final thing - I tried the diagnostics - which download from the internet and does run successfully finishing with ref code ADP000 (no issues found)


so hardware is ok… but won’t start recovery, internal drive not recognised as bootable and won’t boot from bootable usb.


what should I try next?



Posted on Mar 6, 2023 2:11 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 7, 2023 4:02 PM

AndyKirby wrote:

The revive didn’t change anything.

The restore I am not confident that worked as the instructions say the Mac will reboot at the end. It didn’t and the Apple Configurator showed a padlock icon instead of the DFU.

The "Restore" option works the same way in Apple Configurator as the "Revive" option you already performed. It can be tricky getting these Macs into DFU mode. Sometimes it may take several attempts because there is no way to know what the Mac is doing since there are no LEDs, or lights, or text showing what is happening. Everything relies on what Apple Configurator shows. I've even had to quit Apple Configurator and relaunch it.


Think how "fun" it is when trying to do this on a Mac with more serious issues....obviously no one at Apple has ever thought about this or even tried it, or there would be some major changes to their designs.


Any other suggestions?

The "Restore" is the last big step just before getting the laptop repaired or disposing of it since it is resetting the T2 security chip and restoring the Mac to a factory condition. If factory condition does not work, then obviously there is some hardware issue either internal to the laptop or external.


Unfortunately I've been seeing a lot more Logic Board repairs with these 2018+ Macs than I have ever seen with any other older models...probably because Apple is cramming everything onto the main board making it much more complex and much more likely to have a failure (before on older Macs a smaller component would fail which could be replaced, but now that smaller component is an integrated part of the main board...the more expensive part has become even more expensive). I think the security enclave and/or the integrated SSD is causing most of these Logic Board failures, but hard to say since nothing works at all when these 2018+ Macs except being able to put them into DFU mode (again, not easy).

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5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 7, 2023 4:02 PM in response to AndyKirby

AndyKirby wrote:

The revive didn’t change anything.

The restore I am not confident that worked as the instructions say the Mac will reboot at the end. It didn’t and the Apple Configurator showed a padlock icon instead of the DFU.

The "Restore" option works the same way in Apple Configurator as the "Revive" option you already performed. It can be tricky getting these Macs into DFU mode. Sometimes it may take several attempts because there is no way to know what the Mac is doing since there are no LEDs, or lights, or text showing what is happening. Everything relies on what Apple Configurator shows. I've even had to quit Apple Configurator and relaunch it.


Think how "fun" it is when trying to do this on a Mac with more serious issues....obviously no one at Apple has ever thought about this or even tried it, or there would be some major changes to their designs.


Any other suggestions?

The "Restore" is the last big step just before getting the laptop repaired or disposing of it since it is resetting the T2 security chip and restoring the Mac to a factory condition. If factory condition does not work, then obviously there is some hardware issue either internal to the laptop or external.


Unfortunately I've been seeing a lot more Logic Board repairs with these 2018+ Macs than I have ever seen with any other older models...probably because Apple is cramming everything onto the main board making it much more complex and much more likely to have a failure (before on older Macs a smaller component would fail which could be replaced, but now that smaller component is an integrated part of the main board...the more expensive part has become even more expensive). I think the security enclave and/or the integrated SSD is causing most of these Logic Board failures, but hard to say since nothing works at all when these 2018+ Macs except being able to put them into DFU mode (again, not easy).

Mar 6, 2023 6:45 PM in response to AndyKirby

AndyKirby wrote:

MacBook Pro 2018 was running fine - left the room for a moment - when I came back it was sat with the black screen and the folder with a question mark indicating it can’t find a boot volume.

The SSD may have died. Most SSD failures occur suddenly.

next idea was to get a friend to make me a bootable usb stick. This is recognised and I can start to boot but again at about 2% progress it restarts the macbook

Unless you previously adjusted the Mac's security settings to allow for booting from USB, then this will not work now since the only way to change the security settings is from Recovery Mode. If you attempt to boot from USB when the security settings have not been adjusted to allow for booting from USB, then it will boot into Recovery Mode to tell you about it.

About Startup Security Utility on a Mac with the Apple T2 Security Chip - Apple Support


final thing - I tried the diagnostics - which download from the internet and does run successfully finishing with ref code ADP000 (no issues found)

so hardware is ok…

No, that is not what a passing diagnostic means. A passing diagnostic only means that no issues were detected at the time of the scan. I've run diagnostics in loop mode and errors will either show up in the first pass, or they won't show up until after a 100 passes. In fact the only useful diagnostic is one which produces an error or one which freezes the system during testing.


but won’t start recovery, internal drive not recognised as bootable and won’t boot from bootable usb.

what should I try next?

The only thing left is to try to "Revive" it, but more than likely you will need to resort to a "Restore" of the firmware which will reset the T2 security chip as well as pushing a clean OS to the internal SSD. A "Revive" should not affect any data on the SSD, but a "Restore" will destroy all data on the internal SSD.

Revive or restore an Intel-based Mac using Apple Configurator - Apple Support


If a "Restore" is not successful, then the only option left is to have Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider examine the laptop to provide you with a repair estimate.


I hope you have a good backup of this laptop because it is doubtful any data will be able to be recovered. You can check with a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers. They provide free estimates and are also recommended by Apple and other OEMs.



Mar 7, 2023 1:35 PM in response to HWTech

The revive didn’t change anything.


The restore I am not confident that worked as the instructions say the Mac will reboot at the end. It didn’t and the Apple Configurator showed a padlock icon instead of the DFU. Forcing a restart of the Mac using the Touch ID button it tries to go into internet recovery - I did the control option shift R to force the latest version, but it seems to fail in the same way.


Any other suggestions?

Mar 8, 2023 12:42 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks for the insight. It adds weight to my decision on what to do next.


I've been a bit miffed at Apple in recent years as I had to buy a new laser printer and colour calibrator because more recent versions of MacOS don't support them, or the vendors didn't make drivers that work with modern MacOS - and you can't stay on old versions of MacOS if you want to continue to get updates to software. The poor serviceability of my 2018 MBP adds to my dilemma of what to do next in terms of a replacement, and despite being a fanboy for many years - this may have been the final straw and the replacement might well not be Apple.



Mac won’t boot into recovery or usb installer

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