MacBook Pro 13" - Grey Screen at startup

You will need to boot to a macOS installer either through Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) to attempt to access the online Catalina installer, or you can boot from a bootable macOS USB installer (preferably Catalina). Even if you cannot boot to a Catalina installer, you can still install an older version of macOS to the external drive, then upgrade the OS on the external drive to Catalina.

Once booted to a macOS installer, you will need to launch Disk Utility. If booting to a macOS 10.13+ installer, then you will need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility. Select the external drive and erase the whole physical external drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option) if using a macOS 10.13+ installer. Otherwise if you are booting an older macOS installer such as Lion or Mountain Lion or Mavericks, or even Yosemite, then you will need to instead partition & format the whole physical external drive using the instructions in the following article (Apple changed how Disk Utility works beginning with macOS 10.11 El Capitan):

https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf

If you are booting a macOS 10.11 El Capitan installer, then you will need to erase the whole physical external drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). This should cover all the installers that you may encounter.

The main thing is making sure to erase the external drive since erasing a drive will destroy all data on it. Make sure to give it a unique name so you don't confuse it with the volume name of the internal drive. Maybe name the new volume on the external drive "ExternalOS".

Quit Disk Utility and select the "Install macOS" option. Again, make sure to select the external drive as a destination.

Sometimes when the macOS installer finishes the phase 1 copying of installer files to the external destination drive and reboots, the Mac may end up trying to boot to the internal drive. If this happens, then force a power off by holding the power button down until the system powers completely off. When you power the laptop back on, then make sure to hold the Option key immediately after hearing the startup chime. This will give you the Option boot screen or Apple boot picker menu where you will need to select the orange icon indicating the external drive. This should allow phase 2 of the OS installation to run & complete.

If you are installing anything other than Catalina to the external drive, then you should upgrade the external drive to Catalina if you want to use Disk Utility to run a First Aid scan or to attempt to access data on the internal SSD. If you do not need to do either, then you can just run DriveDx (free trial period) to check the health of the internal Crucial SSD. Post the compete DriveDx text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

While DriveDx can run on older versions of macOS, those older versions won't be able to access the website, so you either need to be running Catalina, or you will need to download the app using another computer & transfer it to your external boot drive or transfer it using a USB stick or network transfer.

Catalina is not the issue unless it is incompatible with some of your third part software. Catalina should run just fine on a 2012 laptop. The main compatibility issue with Catalina is that it no longer supports 32 bit apps. As for compatibility with Word, there is a very good chance you won't be able to use that old version of Word anymore even if you can restore it from a backup. If Word requires you to reactivate your license after restoring from the backup, then it won't work since Microsoft turned off the old activation servers many years ago.

Besides, you need to figure out where the actual problem is. Since you are able to boot a macOS installer, it would suggest to me an issue with the internal SSD or the internal SATA Cable, but of course it could be something else entirely since the macOS installer only contains a very small portion of built-in macOS system drivers & software. Plus if you want to try to fix the internal boot drive, Catalina is necessary to run a First Aid scan & it makes it easier to recover data if that is necessary. This external boot drive is mainly to be used for testing & troubleshooting purposes. Trying to access data on the internal drive requires at least macOS 10.13 to be able to read the APFS file system, but it can be difficult to find the data using an older OS....a Catalina boot drive makes it much easier to attempt to access the data.

This is why I was suggesting to remove the internal SSD and attempt to boot the SSD externally. It can answer several questions at once and is quick & simple to do....all you need for that test is a USB to SATA Adapter such as the one I linked previously, or a SATA drive dock, or an external drive enclosure.

If you do not care about rescuing any data and only want to attempt to boot to the internal SSD, then you can of course decide to erase the internal SSD & install whatever older version of macOS you want on it. If the internal SSD or the internal SATA Cable is the problem, then the installation of macOS to the internal drive will most likely fail.

It is possible to check the health of the internal drive by creating & using a bootable Linux USB stick. I did not suggest this earlier because I thought installing macOS to an external drive would be easier for you since you are familiar with macOS and it would prove a better test to confirm the laptop is working fine other than having issues with the internal boot drive. Here are the instructions I wrote several years ago for another user:

Creating & using a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick to check health of a drive on a Mac -- HWTech - Apple Community

nayr497 wrote:

Okay, trying to reinstall OS through internet recovery reboot...OS X Mountain Lion. "Select the disk where you want to install OS X"...and there is nothing to pick.

Do I need to erase my disk?

Partition it via disk utility?

Correct. macOS 10.6 to 10.11 are unable to recognize the new drive layout and APFS file system. Plus the installer will not allow you to install to a volume which contains a newer version of macOS even if installer recognizes the drive layout & file system.

For macOS 10.10 and earlier, you must actually partition & format the whole physical drive to properly prepare it for use with macOS 10.6 to 10.10. Here is an article with instructions for using Disk Utility to properly partition & format the destination drive you want to install macOS onto:

https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf

Keep in mind you can also install macOS onto an external USB3 drive as well depending on your goals here.

Are you getting any progress bar or Apple logo? Or is it just an empty screen? If a progress bar, how far does the progress bar get?

Have you tried booting without the TM drive connected? Have you also tried disconnecting all other external devices as well?

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode?

If none of this helps, then while in recovery mode run Disk Utility First Aid on the hidden Container. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Even if First Aid says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If there are unfixed errors, then run First Aid again to see if they are repaired. Make sure you are booted to the Catalina installer while in recovery mode.

Do you by any chance have a USB to SATA Adapter, SATA drive dock, or external drive enclosure handy? Or a spare external USB drive that can be erased?

nayr497 wrote:

I've connected my Macbook Pro to a 2019 iMac with a Thunderbolt to Thunberbolt-USB-C dongle (the iMac doesn't have a Thunderbolt port).

Connected them, started the non-booting MB in target disk mode, the SSD doesn't show up on the iMac. I've gone through the utilities and made sure it's showing all disks.

What version of macOS is the 2019 iMac running? If it is running macOS 10.14 Mojave, then you may need to manually mount the "Data" volume. Within Disk Utilities you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.

Check the System Profiler to see whether the old laptop is even seen as connected under Thunderbolt.

Within the Finder, try checking under Locations & Networking to see if the old laptop shows up. I know on some newer Macs & versions of macOS that items in Target Disk Mode are listed there. I'm not certain when this began or if it is just an Apple Silicon Mac feature.

Does this mean my last step to try and recover the files on the SSD is to physically take it out and connect it to the USB SATA hard drive adapter and connect it to the iMac and see if the drive is viewable?

Yes, that would be a good option. In fact, you could even try connecting the SSD externally on the MBPro as well and try to boot it externally. If the SSD boots externally, then it would mean either the internal hard drive SATA Cable is bad, or the SSD is not compatible with the laptop (not all SSDs are compatible with all devices).

Using a USB to SATA Adapter would be the best option since it can answer several questions at once.

Creating & using a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick may also help provide some clues if you need to buy a USB to SATA Adapter.

Again, would rather try to save my files (or take it to a file recovery expert) one more time before reformatting the SSD.

Using a USB to SATA Adapter is the best option since Target Disk Mode is not as simple as it once was.

I find this Tripplite USB to SATA Adapter is a good option since it can also support accessing the health information of an attached drive & supports UASP for best transfer rates.

https://tripplite.eaton.com/usb-3-0-superspeed-sata-iii-adapter-cable-uasp-2-5in-3-5in-sata-black~U33806NSATAB

I have a full TM backup on an external HD, so if I do buy a new SSD, I can restore everything that way, last backed up in March 2023 but I really don't save many files on the SSD, all are in clouds.

FYI, most cloud services are just file syncing services and are not backup services. iCloud is a file syncing service. If a catastrophic edit or deletion is made to a file being synced to the cloud, then all copies on all other devices will also inherit the catastrophic change.

Even if you are storing files in the cloud and not syncing them between devices, you should still have frequent & regular backups even of the items stored in the cloud because the Terms & Conditions of cloud based services tend to change without notice.

Many cloud backup services tend to have slow downloads of data when restoring from a cloud based backup.

Plus the data stored in the cloud is only available as long as you can access the Internet & the cloud service provider. Cloud services can have outages from time to time.

People should always have at least one backup copy of any important files stored locally. It is Ok to have a second backup copy stored in the cloud (not synced, but stored whether a cloud storage provider or cloud backup provider).

You can use any drive for an external macOS boot drive....even the Dell Seagate drive you mentioned. Just make sure you don't need any data on that drive.

Installing macOS to an external drive & booting from it allows us to confirm the laptop will still boot & work with macOS just fine. It also allows us to check the health of the internal SSD. However, it will most likely still leave questions...is the issue with the SSD or the internal SATA Cable, or possibly both?

Removing the internal Crucial SSD and using it externally can be a quicker method to get answers as you may end up needing to do that anyway. But you may still need to install & boot macOS from an external drive such as the Dell Seagate drive if the Crucial SSD has an issue.

Either of these two methods are fine to begin some tests to gather more information about the problem. Unfortunately being able to boot the macOS installer is not sufficient to confirm the laptop will boot macOS since the installer only contains a very small & basic bit of the macOS system. Both methods have their advantages & disadvantages & limitations.

nayr497 wrote:

How do I determine if the SSD is shot and needs to be replaced OR if it's just the connector cable in the Macbook?

If you are not encountering any issues with the SSD connected externally to your iMac and are able to access & copy data, then most likely the SSD is good.

I guess after the clone copying is finished I connect the SSD to the Macbook externally and see if it works? This would tell me if it's just the connector cable that needs to be replaced and no the SSD itself, correct?

If it boots & works just fine when connected externally to your laptop, then the internal SATA Cable is most likely bad.

If the SSD has problems booting when connected externally to the laptop, it may just mean that something became corrupted while being used with a bad cable assuming you have no issues accessing data & cloning it.

You can check the health of the SSD by using the methods I mentioned in my previous posts by using DriveDx (free trial period) or by using Knoppix Linux. Post the SSD's health report here so I can review its if you wish since SSD health is not easily determined by these apps and needs to be manually examined & interpreted.

In my personal experience, the majority of SSD failures are due to the SSD's controller failing & being unable to communicate with the computer. The next reason for an SSD failure is being worn out after having written PB's of data which most people will never do. Usually any other type of SSD failure will just be performance related issues or sometimes just intermittent issues due to a bad block that has not been reallocated yet.....usually the SSD can still be accessed.

A bootable USB installer is exactly what it sounds like. A USB drive....usually a USB stick that has been setup up with the macOS installer on it. You actually provided a link to the instructions to create a bootable macOS USB installers in one of your previous posts. However, a bootable macOS USB installer can only be created on another compatible Mac since your Mac is currently not booting normally. For you, you would need access to another Mac generally from 2007 to mid-2020 which would allow you to create a bootable macOS 10.11, 10.13, or 10.15 USB installer (depends on the exact Mac). If you don't have access to another Mac from 2007 to mid-2020, then a USB installer is irrelevant and can be ignored.

Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) is just fine as long as you have a good Internet connection....seems like you were already able to boot into Internet Recovery Mode IIRC. You can access Internet Recovery Mode by holding down Command + Option + R immediately after hearing the startup chime. You may be prompted to connect to your WiFi network if you are not using an Ethernet Cable for the network connection.

Both Internet Recovery Mode and a USB installer will do the same thing although a bootable macOS USB installer can be a bit faster & more reliable, but both can do the job.

For reference you can review this Apple article which explains how to boot into Internet Recovery Mode (there are three options, use the one I mentioned for best results). And follow my instructions for using Disk Utility for properly erasing the external drive you will be using.....Apple's instructions for erasing a drive in this article may not always work especially for an external drive, plus it depends on which version of macOS installer you end up booting when booting into Internet Recovery Mode. Some Macs may only boot to the online installer which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory...in that case you will need to review my instructions in a previous post on how to properly prepare the external destination drive using Disk Utility. Scroll down to the section "If you are using any other Mac" as that is the section which applies to your older Intel Mac:

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can tell which version of macOS you are booting by looking at the utilities screen once booted into recovery mode. One of the options is "Install macOS xxxxx", where the "xxxxx" tells you the version of the installer (aka the version of macOS which will be installed).

Sorry this is so complicated, but Apple has made lots of changes over the years and some Macs will behave differently regardless of the special keys used to boot the Mac. And the instructions in Apple's recent articles are focusing mainly on the more recent versions of macOS forgetting that many people may be using older computers & installers.

As long as you can boot to a macOS installer and you only erase the external drive and only select the external drive as a destination, you can experiment as you wish or need to. Removing the internal SSD would ensure that you don't accidentally erase the internal SSD by taking out all risk in experimenting with installing macOS to an external drive.

Good Luck.

Ah, then we can not use it for the Crucial SSD, but you can use it for an external macOS boot drive where you can install macOS to it to test the laptop.

Here is a USB to SATA Adapter you can get & use if you want to remove the Crucial SSD from the laptop to test booting it externally (or to perform a clean install of macOS the Crucial SSD if it still won't boot from the aborted installation). This adapter supports the UASP protocol for optimal USB3 transfers (not very many do):

https://tripplite.eaton.com/usb-3-0-superspeed-sata-iii-adapter-cable-uasp-2-5in-3-5in-sata-black~U33806NSATAB

Yes, you can use the Dell Seagate HD as an external boot drive....it may be a bit slow, but that doesn't really matter since we just want to test the ability of this laptop to boot a full version of macOS.

Is this Dell HD one that was pulled from a Dell computer? If so then you could try putting your internal Crucial SSD in place of the Dell Seagate HD to try booting (or installing macOS to the Crucial SSD while connected externally). This is a good way to determine whether the Crucial SSD or the internal SATA Cable are the problem.

I would really like to see the SMART health report for this Crucial SSD. We can retrieve the health information from the SSD if we can boot to a full version of macOS (internal or external drive), or from a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick, or even from a Windows system if you can remove & connect the SSD to it. I can provide instructions for any one of these scenarios.

Even if it does not see the drive on the laptop, I believe it should still show that some device is connected.

More than likely you will need to remove the drive from the laptop & connect it externally to get a final answer here.

nayr497 wrote:

Hmm, the TM drive? Not sure what that is, sorry! But yes, I'm try to start up without anything connected, aside from the power cable.

Time Machine drive.

I can run or do anything with First Aid when I cleck the 960 GB Crucial. Verify Disk and Repair Disk are greyed out and not clickable.

What is the make & model of the Crucial SSD?

When I click on Mac OS X Base System I can click Verify Disk and it runs and then gives me a message in green. "The Mac OS X Base System appears to be OK."

This is the macOS installer. Ignore it. You only need to worry about the Crucial SSD and the hidden APFS Container on it. Running First Aid on the hidden Container also runs it on all APFS volumes within that hidden Container.

Just a blank grey screen, no progress bar.

When booting into Recovery Mode, are you booting into local recovery mode or into Internet Recovery Mode? If your laptop is not using an Ethernet cable, are you seeing a spinning globe symbol or being prompted to select WiFi?

Again: Do you by any chance have a USB to SATA Adapter, SATA drive dock, or external drive enclosure handy? Or a spare external USB hard drive or SSD that can be erased? This is important to know so I know what you have to work with to try & troubleshoot here.