Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!

Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >

Related Article: If you forgot your Apple ID

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Apple ID and Firmware password lock.

Current Apple products I own and I'm using are: the iPhone 8, MacBook Pro Retina late 2014, MacBook Air early 2015, iPad Pro 2017 (with apple keyboard and pen), Apple TV (Gen 4 & 4k models), Airport Extreme 2TB, Airport Express, and the newest Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.


I list ALL of these products to show I am familiar with the Apple ecosystem. I am specifically underling the MacBook Pro because this is the machine in question, and I cannot "rescue" it from any of the others.


.:| QUESTION .:|:. PLEASE HELP |:.

As of now I have Verbose Mode turned on [i cannot turn it off, luckily i had it turned on]. When I turn the laptop on it cannot or will not mount my drives correctly, then goes into some kind of kernel panic before restarting and repeating this cycle until it just turns off. I am not upset with this part. I intentionally tried to wipe my disk. This was after several attempts at holding the Command + R buttons together during boot up to get into recovery mode in order to do a fresh install. The reason I tried to wipe my drive was due to --> a padlock with a small dialogue box under it and an arrow next to the box. With that being said, I've set a firmware password in the past; this looks a bit different. And as far as setting a firmware password this was only to force my MacBook Pro to do a factory reinstall from High Sierra. BUT before I did that particular "restore" I removed the firmware password after formatting the disk. As a matter of fact you have to in order to proceed. Back to the current predicament. I cannot hold shift to select a different drive either. I still get the padlock. As a matter of fact I cant get into anything. Not even BIOS.


Okay... the reason I mention all of my other products. I can see the MacBook Pro via "Find My Mac" on my iPad and iPhone. It says offline. I can also see the MacBook Air BUT it shows me where it is and there is a button that says "Lock" (along with other products). If you hit that button I am assuming you'd have to put a random password sent to your phone to login? NOTE; ITS NOT ONLINE SO THE LOCK BUTTON IS GRAYED OUT. I am asking this because I know for A FACT I did NOT set a firmware password. HOWEVER, one of my nieces or nephews could have been playing with my iPad or iPhone and MAYBE hit the "lock" button. Again that's a stretch and I am not sure. I have tried every combination of startup characters and every single one brings up this black screen with a padlock in the middle of the screen with a text dialogue box under it and to the right of the text box an arrow. At this point ANY HELP at all would be helpful. The closest Mac store for me is 2 hours away. I REALLY do not want to have to drive down there and then drive back to pick my computer up when it's fixed. Please read this question in its entirety and comment. I am desperate at this point. Thank you in advance.

MacBook Air, macOS High Sierra (10.13), (13-inch, Early 2015)

Posted on Mar 5, 2018 7:28 AM

Reply

Similar questions

There are no replies.

Apple ID and Firmware password lock.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.