Chosen Solution
Hey Everyone! The Issue: So, I have a 15” Retina MacBook Pro (Late-2013). The SMC is interrupting the Boot Process, according to the Verbose Output that I read. Here’s what’s happening: • MacBook Pro CHIMES with Successful POST • Mac OS X Begins to Load Macintosh HD • Fans Begin Running on HIGH • Apple Logo Appears and Loads Mac OS X • Progress Bar HANGS at 75% Loading The MacBook will then stall for HOURS if left like this. I once left it like this overnight when it first began to see if it would eventually boot. It didn’t. Symptoms I’ve Noticed: • I CANNOT Boot into Safe Mode • I CANNOT Boot into Recovery Mode • I CAN Boot into Verbose Mode • I CAN Boot into Single-User Mode • I CAN Use Target Disk Mode • I CAN Boot into MacOS via Target Disk Mode from Another Mac What’s I’ve Tried to Fix It: • Reset PRAM (I’ve heard the 2nd Chime indicating Success) • Reset SMC (MagSafe Indicator Light Turns from Amber to Green and back to Green, indicating Success) • Accessed Target Disk Mode to Rule Out Hard Drive Failure • Ran Disk Utility to Repair Disk (Several Times) • Ran Disk Warrior 5 to Rebuild the Directory • Removed Boot EFI File in Application Support > Core Services (To Be Rebuilt by Mac During Boot Up) • Attempted to Boot a separate instance of MacOS from a Bootable Thumb Drive (Unsuccessful, Same 75% Loading then Restarts) • Ran Apple Hardware Test, Results State Issue with SMC, No Descriptive Information Given What I’ve Found: It appears that the SMC Controller is preventing the MacBook Pro from Booting up. I’m seeing lights on the Keyboard, images on the Display, but the system is stopping itself from booting. I can also boot the system from the Hard Drive in Target Disk Mode on my other MacBook Pro. I just can’t get the MacBook Pro to boot from it’s own physical hardware. I’m suspicious that it could be a hardware issue, but I’m not familiar in where to start to diagnose and troubleshoot and issue. Any advice in regard to this issue would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you so much!
- Brandon
OK, that’s telling me your systems firmware was not updated when you upgraded it to High Sierra or newer. Basically, your systems firmware doesn’t understand how to boot up the drive as it was upgraded from another mac system to APFS which the firmware doesn’t know anything about as it still thinks you have a HFS+ file system on your drive.
can you check where u get stuck on verbose mode? If your SMC turns Amber-Green-AMber, i think you are ok. Your boot drive seems to be ok. Your RAM seems to be OK. Your network ports seem to be ok (you did a diagnostic / recovery boot successfully). Your keyboard seems ok. Your connectivity ports seem ok. Some of these point to an SMC which is ok. Did you repair your logic board recently or interchanged parts? if so - it could be the DSMOS (Dont Steal Mac OS) that could be holding up your boot process. Or it could be a faulty graphics card. Take a hi res video during verbose booting and try to see which line your process is getting stuck. I have the similar problem (multiple) but my issue is a bad SMC.
