Loading only halfway after entering password

Question

Loading only halfway after entering password

My mid-2020 Macbook pro (16", latest OS) is loading only halfway after I enter my password.

Since there is no menu on the screen anywhere, I cannot go to disc utility to attempt a recovery/repair. No other keys are responsive.

The only way to get it to respond is by pressing & holding the power button to turn it off. I can get it to restart again, but my only option then is to enter my password. Once I enter my password that progress bar slowly goes to halfway & stays there.

The only message when I restart and get to the password screen is "If you're having a problem entering your password, press and hold the power button on your Mac to shut it down. Then press it again to start up in the Recovery OS."

I chose the option to restart from upper left corner. After unlocking my hard drive I chose restart again.

Around I go again. after entering my password, it loads about halfway and stops.

After that I wasn't even able to get to the Recovery OS screen.

Any options?

Am I looking at the prospect of a new laptop?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.3

Posted on Jun 9, 2026 4:42 PM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

107,353 points

Jun 10, 2026 3:59 AM in response to phoebedeheron

" Once I enter my password that progress bar slowly goes to halfway & stays there. "

Is it possible the computer has run out of Free Space and thusly can not even load the operating system ?

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode

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Answer 2

Owl-53

Level 10

107,353 points

Jun 10, 2026 1:14 PM in response to phoebedeheron

Thank you and great work improvising with the camera

I may need some help from my colleagues as it has been some time since looking at an Intel computer drive structure

From your images, I see it has found only 2 containers where as on Apple Silicon there are 3 contains

In the First Container

Size (Capacity Ceiling):1470103552 B (1.5 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes: 1334865920 B (1.3 GB) (90.8% used)

Capacity Not Allocated:135237632 B (135.2 MB) (9.2% free)

disk2

Meaning , the machine is definatly in trouble visa vie Free Space

To compare Intel to Apple Silicon for the first container

APFS Containers (3 found)

+-- Container disk3 1A9B9327-9B9A-44CB-81F9-B02910B88A08

====================================================

APFS Container Reference: disk3

Size (Capacity Ceiling): 494332366848 B (494.3 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes: 60220624896 B (60.2 GB) (12.2% used)

Capacity Not Allocated: 434111741952 B (434.1 GB) (87.8% free

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Answer 3

Jun 10, 2026 5:22 PM in response to phoebedeheron

It appears the seal on your boot volume is broken which is preventing macOS from booting. You will need to attempt to reinstall macOS over top of itself which you will need to do while booted from Recovery Mode.

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Answer 4

Jun 9, 2026 5:03 PM in response to phoebedeheron

Try booting into Safe Mode.

Is this an Intel Mac?

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Answer 5

leroydouglas

Level 10

203,500 points

Jun 9, 2026 9:29 PM in response to phoebedeheron

phoebedeheron wrote:

My mid-2020 Macbook pro (16", latest OS) is loading only halfway after I enter my password.

Since there is no menu on the screen anywhere, I cannot go to disc utility to attempt a recovery/repair. No other keys are responsive.

The only way to get it to respond is by pressing & holding the power button to turn it off. I can get it to restart again, but my only option then is to enter my password. Once I enter my password that progress bar slowly goes to halfway & stays there.

ref: If your Mac doesn't turn on - Apple Support

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way

If your Mac starts up to an Apple logo or progress bar - Apple Support

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Answer 6

Owl-53

Level 10

107,353 points

Jun 10, 2026 7:20 AM in response to phoebedeheron

Back in Recovery Mode

When your Mac has successfully started from Recovery, it shows a window with utilities such as these:

Disk Utility, which you can use to repair your startup disk.

How to repair a Mac storage device with Disk Utility

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Answer 7

Owl-53

Level 10

107,353 points

Jun 10, 2026 7:43 AM in response to phoebedeheron

Add on and yes back in Recovery Mode >>> Terminal

diskutil apfs list

APFS Containers (3 found)

|

+-- Container disk3 65AF6D83-5416-4DE8-925D-ECB2A531240B

====================================================

APFS Container Reference: disk3

Size (Capacity Ceiling): 494384795648 B (494.4 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes: 67308941312 B (67.3 GB) (13.6% used)

Capacity Not Allocated: 427075854336 B (427.1 GB) (86.4% free)

This may give us a good idea if the machine is running Low on Free Space

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Answer 8

Jun 10, 2026 9:15 AM in response to Owl-53

Thanks.

I went to Terminal and tried to search "diskutil apfs list" but I'm not seeing anything.

(I suspect that may be user error or user ignorance.)

I have also gone to Disk Utility & Repaired everything successfully.

BUT, in Disk Utility when I clicked on Show All Devices, I get the following:

1.

Apple SSD...

Container disk3 Free: 661.96 GB. Used 338.29 GB

This contains the Mac HD volumes 1) Mac HD, 2) Mac HD - Data

2.

Apple Disk image Media

Container disk2. Free: 135.2 MB. Used: 1.33 GB

This contains the macOS Base System.

I suspect this could be the problem, but I do not know what to do about it.

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Answer 9

steve626

Level 6

15,905 points

Jun 10, 2026 1:31 PM in response to Owl-53

Hello Owl-53. I have a 2019 Intel 16" MacBook Pro, 26.5.1. I do not know how to help the OP but I entered the "diskutil apfs list" command in Terminal on my Intel Mac (note: not in Recovery, simply booted normally and using Terminal) and got the following, which might be helpful as something for you to compare Intel to Intel (instead of Intel to Silicon). Mine returned 3 APFS Containers, not 2 as happened with the OP, so maybe there is something there ...

APFS Containers (3 found)
|
+-- Container disk1 0F4F1EAC-5536-45CD-999A-F2B8FE054CAC
|   ====================================================
|   APFS Container Reference:     disk1
|   Size (Capacity Ceiling):      1000240963584 B (1.0 TB)
|   Capacity In Use By Volumes:   492269150208 B (492.3 GB) (49.2% used)
|   Capacity Not Allocated:       507971813376 B (508.0 GB) (50.8% free)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Store disk0s2 3463CAA3-95D0-4CAB-97C3-5A33624141F7
|   |   -----------------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2
|   |   Size:                       1000240963584 B (1.0 TB)
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s1 AE80193A-E189-4FFD-95B9-3566F85400D9
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (System)
|   |   Name:                      Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         12566110208 B (12.6 GB)
|   |   Sealed:                    Yes
|   |   FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)
|   |   |
|   |   Snapshot:                  7EFB4BE8-D87D-48FA-8942-3DE5C11404DB
|   |   Snapshot Disk:             disk1s1s1
|   |   Snapshot Mount Point:      /
|   |   Snapshot Sealed:           Yes
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s2 BBD3538C-137B-40F2-A60A-2543492979BA
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Data)
|   |   Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         472965349376 B (473.0 GB)
|   |   Sealed:                    No
|   |   FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s3 03A2B6F7-0C38-4AA8-BF64-0FA4DF030733
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Preboot)
|   |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Preboot
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         2919075840 B (2.9 GB)
|   |   Sealed:                    No
|   |   FileVault:                 No
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s4 9E42D69F-0DEC-4439-8451-E3347E15E29F
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (Recovery)
|   |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         1459736576 B (1.5 GB)
|   |   Sealed:                    No
|   |   FileVault:                 No
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s5 567653D8-4C3F-463D-87B9-B9966975EAC2
|       ---------------------------------------------------
|       APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s5 (VM)
|       Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
|       Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/VM
|       Capacity Consumed:         2147504128 B (2.1 GB)
|       Sealed:                    No
|       FileVault:                 No

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Answer 10

Jun 10, 2026 7:00 AM in response to HWTech

Hi, yes, this is an intel mac.

I already disconnected it from everything else, i.e. the external monitor; I turned off the bluetooth mouse and keyboard so I'm only using the laptop keyboard.

I cannot get it to boot into Safe Mode. It still goes to my login screen. This only shows my name & then the space where I enter my password, a "Shut Down" and and a "Restart" option. No Apple logo or anything else on the top of the screen to give me any another option.

I was finally able to get to "Recovery Mode" again.

If I hover over the Apple logo in the upper left corner I see the options Startup Disk, Restart, Shut Down.

If I hover over the "Recovery Assistant", I see the options "About Recovery Assistant", "Change Language", "Erase Mac". None of those apply. I have no reason to change the language and I don't want to erase anything.

So I think the only option is the click the "Startup Disk" under the Apple logo.

The Startup Disk option also offers the Target Disk Mode. I don't think I have run out of free space because I primarily store things on the cloud. The one big item I have on it is Parallels so I can run Windows 11 to use an application called Articulate 360. The last I checked, I wasn't running out of space. My only option if I were to transfer to another computer is to an older intel imac which very well could run out of space if I tried transferring anything like Parallels to it. So I don't think I can use the "Target Disk Mode".

The "Choose Startup Disk" says to select the system to start my computer. There is just the one. I choose "Unlock" and enter my password. Then the only option is "Restart".

It restarts.

I get the login screen. I enter the password.

The progress bar starts...and goes halfway.

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