Macbook air mid 2011 stuck on blank grey screen at start up. will not respond to recovery or safe mode commands

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Level 1

8 points

Macbook air mid 2011 stuck on blank grey screen at start up. will not respond to recovery or safe mode commands

mid 2011 macbook air is stuck on blank grey screen at startup. it will not respond to any bootup commands apart from NVRAM and SMC reset. this occurred whilst the macbook tried to restart after installing Macos Sierra.

it turns on with the normal start up chime and then goes to the blank screen.

twice in about 60 restarts the apple logo has appeared but nothing happened after that.

i have tried verbose, recovery, safe mode, etc. all to no avail

it also has no peripherals plugged into it.

any help would be appreciated, the macbook has had no problems up until this point

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Sep 26, 2016 4:44 AM

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Answer 1

kaz-k

Level 9

51,246 points

Sep 26, 2016 6:56 AM in response to ollie262

You'd better make Genius Bar appointment to show them the circumstances you face with now.

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Answer 2

pogster

Level 5

5,123 points

Sep 26, 2016 7:29 AM in response to ollie262

When you say stuck on a blank grey screen do you see the progress bar at all? Is the progress bar going part way across, stalling, then the mac shuts down? If so the only solution that worked for me was to do a clean install of the OS.

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Answer 3

ollie262 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 26, 2016 10:11 PM in response to pogster

no. unfortunately there is no progress bar at all. there is nothing on the screen, just plain white/grey.

how can i do a clean install?

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Answer 4

ollie262 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 26, 2016 10:13 PM in response to kaz-k

unfortunately i live 2.5hrs away from the nearest genius bar, so taking it there right now is not an option 😟

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Answer 5

pogster

Level 5

5,123 points

Sep 27, 2016 7:17 AM in response to ollie262

I don't know what version you are running but here's a couple of links on how. The first one explains the how and benefits of a clean install. The second is from Apple. You probably know this but a clean install erases everything on your hard drive including your data so after doing the install you'll have to import your data from your backup. The second link explains how to reinstall the OS over your existing one. Depending on whats wrong like a hard drive failure you may or may not be able to do it.

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