MacBook Air boots with black screen and cursor
MacBook Air will not boot up past black screen and cursor
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
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I had the same issue with my 2008 iMac and Apple support walked me through the fix yesterday...
1. Shut the computer down by holding the power button for 10 seconds
2. Restart the computer and press shift at the same time until you see the progress bar start moving
3. Once you reach the point where your screen goes dark and you see the cursor, type the first letter of the username for your computer, then hit Enter, then type your password, then hit Enter.
4. After a moment, you should see the spinning beach ball
5. Your screen should then move on to something along the lines of "Completing OSX Installation" (I can't remember the exact wording). Let it finish. After that it should go to your normal desktop and the issue should be fixed. (If your screen goes pitch black during this process, hit the space bar. I thought it wasn't working, but the screen was just sleeping).
Apparently it's an issue with an automatic update that never quite got past the login screen.
Hope this helps!
47 replies
jesseinma... your suggestion worked perfectly, thank you so much! I also had to perform one more reboot to get the speakers to work. Thank you!
Same issue on iMac 27 (2009 ) - boot to safe mode alter the keys , that caused to continue the installation procedure..
reboot again - and back to business
thanks
Thank you Jesseinma! The "hit the space bar" your screen is sleeping was also critical. This worked perfectly.
Worked for me too! THANK YOU!!!!
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Excellent - thanks!
Your a star... saved everything and solved problem... Thanks loads. Michael
This fix just worked for us on our MacBook Air. The update pushed out today seemed to be the issue. Thanks!
Thank you very much for saving my day. Awesome booting technique
Dear all, I cannot get past a full black screen. It never gets anything on it but the fan starts and the machine was working until we tried to do a factory restart
Are you on a laptop or a desktop? This sounds like a different problem, but have you tried booting in safe mode? (Hold down shift when pressing power button)
Worked! Thank you for sharing and posting!
Thanks for the help...This just worked on my new MacBook air so the information still is helpful.
Great. Big help! This worked for me!
this solution worked for me. thanks
MacBook Air boots with black screen and cursor