2016 MacBook Pro and the display has died. Functioning fine when connected to external display but when I try booting into Recovery mode, it will not recognize external display. All peripherals including monitor are connected via thunderbolt hub. Any suggestions for erasing this laptop?
You can try putting the laptop into Clamshell mode. For this you will need to connect a wired USB keyboard & mouse and Power Adapter. Then close the Clamshell lid so that the video goes to the external display.
You could put the 2016 laptop into Target Disk Mode and connect it to another computer. Use that other computer to erase the 2016 laptop's SSD.
Do you remember exactly which 2016 Macbook Pro this is. Some variants that year had slotted solid-state drives (SSD) but the SSDs were soldered to the logic pboard in others.
From a popular Mac upgrade parts site, it appears the 13-inch Function Keys (NON-TOUCHBAR) 2016 Macbook Pro had a slotted SSD.
If that is yours, you can open the bottom plate and remove the SSD from the logic board. No data will remain in the device.
Command-BrightnessDown should toggle the sense of "Mirror displays".
Clicked once, it should combine both displays. Clicked again, it should separate them into an Extended Desktop.
Dead Display Intel MacBook Pro and need to erase hard drive
