Q: Blank Screen on Failed Boot Camp Installation

Notes:

• I have actually solved this issue, I just wanted to post this here for anyone who may have had this same issue happen to them as well.
• I have a 13-inch MacBook Air (Mid-2013), 256 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, OS X Yosemite (at the time of the issue)

Scenario:

I wanted to install Windows 10 on my MacBook Air via Boot Camp. I had downloaded a legitimate copy from Microsoft’s official website. I followed through with the standard Boot Camp procedure, copying the Windows .ISO and Boot Camp drivers onto a flash drive and choosing the size of my Boot Camp partition.

So, the Windows 10 installer appears after my MacBook Air restarts, and I followed through with the standard installation. I formatted the Boot Camp partition and was ready to install Windows to that partition. It doesn’t work. I get a message saying that Windows cannot be installed to the disk. It prompts me to restart my machine, I do so, and when it starts back up, there is no Apple logo. I held down the Power Button to shut the machine off and started it back up again. I hear the startup chime… then nothing. I decide to wait a while. After 30 minutes… nothing. No Apple logo.

I shut the machine off again and decided to try holding down the option key on startup… nothing. Reset PRAM… nothing. Try booting into Safe Mode… nothing. Target Disk Mode… nothing. I followed every single startup key combination on Apple’s website: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255 and nothing worked.

I did some quick web searches for similar issues and one person said that they solved this issue by disconnecting the battery from the logic board, removing the flash storage module, holding down the Power Button for 20-30 seconds, then reconnecting the battery and SSD module. I did that… nothing.

I tried something else though. I removed the flash storage module, then started my machine up, and lo and behold the machine boots into the Windows installer (off of the flash drive). But then I couldn’t install to the SSD because it was removed. I figured that I may have permanently damaged the SSD, so I took my machine to the Apple Store.

I met with a Genius, and they said they were unable to flash my SSD, and they said that because the screen was black on startup, that meant the graphics chip on the logic board was fried and that it would cost approximately $600 to replace. I thought this was somewhat ridiculous because when I upgraded my machine to OS X Yosemite, the startup screen is now black with a white Apple logo. I told the Genius that the Windows installer would appear when I removed the SSD, but he was insistent that the logic board needed replacing.

I decided to try one last thing.

On another Mac, I downloaded the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple’s website: OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0

and installed it onto a USB flash drive. I removed the flash storage module from my MacBook Air, and plugged the OS X Recovery flash drive into one of the USB ports on my machine. I plugged a second USB flash drive into the other USB port. Upon starting the machine up, I held down the option key. I see the OS X Recovery Disk and boot into it.

The speed of the USB is extraordinarily slow, but I finally manage to get into the OS X Recovery mode and I am able to install OS X to the other flash drive. After about 12 hours, it finally installs and I am able to login. I go into System Preferences, and under Startup Disk, I set the machine to boot up off of the flash drive. I shut off the machine, then plug the flash storage module back into the logic board. I boot up the machine, it boots into OS X off of the flash drive, and FINALLY it recognizes the SSD. Luckily, I had a Time Machine backup, so I proceeded to erase the SSD and reformat it. Then I used my Time Machine backup to get everything back up and running again.

This was the single most difficult computer issue I have ever had to deal with. I am especially upset that the Apple Genius declared that the graphics chip was fried when the black screen is just how the MacBook Air starts up now after OS X Yosemite.