HELP!! My late-2013 MacBook pro won't load past black screen

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HELP!! My late-2013 MacBook pro won't load past black screen

It started last night. My MBP froze, but I could move the cursor around the screen. When I'd bring the dock up there was a normal arrow, but as soon as I moved it back over the screen where the program was open, it would change to the color wheel loading cursor.

So I did a hard reset (held the power button for 5 secs) and tried to restart it.

The start up sound chimed and the Apple logo on the black background came up, with a progress bar underneath. It stopped around 50% after about 3 minutes of loading and that's as far as it would get.

I tried to boot up into safe mode but it seemed like it wasnt even trying to, as I got the same result as before with the logo and status bar.

So I tried cmnd-r to see if I could use time machine or reinstall the OS, but it wouldn't load any backups, and when trying to reinstall the OS, it said I didn't have enough free space to do so.

I haven't the faintest idea what to do. Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro with Retina display

Posted on Feb 8, 2015 6:25 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 8, 2015 6:38 AM in response to Rockstar831

Try booting with the Option key held down. If you see two hard drive icons, select Recovery and continue.

On the next screen, select Disk Utility and continue to the DU screen.

There select the hard drive, First aid and click Repair Disk.

When complete, quit DU and restart as usual.

If the computer boots, the first thing you should do is to trash as much as you can off the hard drive, and empty trash.

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Answer 2

Rockstar831 Author

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Feb 8, 2015 6:56 AM in response to Eustace Mendis

I only get one icon for the Macintosh HD and the option to connect to wifi. No recovery disk icon.

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Answer 3

Feb 8, 2015 7:07 AM in response to Rockstar831

The wifi connection that you see is to get you to internet recovery. But it seems you already tried that and got the message there is not enough free space.

Do you have access to another Mac? You could try connecting your computer to another one using Target Disk Mode. That will let you look at your clogged up hard drive and get rid of some stuff you do not need. Once the drive has sufficient free space you can try again to get internet recovery working.

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Rockstar831 Author

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Feb 8, 2015 7:47 AM in response to Eustace Mendis

I did read about that and thought maybe there was a way around it because I didn't have the cables to do it. My girlfriend has an rMBP also so it's possible. Which cable would I get or be better - Firewire or Thunderbolt?

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Answer 5

Feb 8, 2015 7:56 AM in response to Rockstar831

The cable you use depends on the ports that are available. If the ports are available, either firewire or thunderbolt will work. Check both computers.

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