Recently I had this problem. My Mac would turn on but it would get stuck on the white screen upon startup after chime. This means that OS X can’t start because of problems with the system’s hardware or software. If your Mac fails to start up normally, there are a few things that you may try to troubleshoot.
Check out or Step-by-Step Video Tutorial or follow along with the detailed instructions below.
First of all, there could be many issues, so fixes described here may not fix your problem. If you are having this problem, try steps below until your issue is resolved:
Contents
1. Try a Safe Boot
Mac OS X 10.2 and later Safe Boot includes disk checking and repair. First start your Mac in Safe Mode. To do this, shut down your Mac. Now Turn on your computer by pressing the power key while holding down the Shift key. When you see the Apple logo, release the Shift key. After your Mac fully starts, restart your computer normally without holding any keys/buttons during startup. Note that Safe Boot is slower to boot.
2. Run Disk Utility
Turn your Mac off by holding down the power button for a few seconds. Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command and R keys until you see the Apple logo. Then you should see a “Mac OS X Utilities” window. Select Disk Utility, click your OS X hard drive and select verify/repair disk.
3. Reset PRAM
This may fix your boot failure. PRAM (“parameter random-access memory”) stores some of your settings. You may reset PRAM. To do that, turn off your Mac. Now turn on your Mac. Then, immediately, hold down the Option-Command-P-R keys until your Mac restarts. When your Mac is starting up, release the keys.
4. Using Terminal in Single User mode
Most times, the steps above will usually fix your problem. However if it did not work for you there are a few additional steps that you can take before you decide to Reinstall Mac OS X on your machine.
The first three steps help you launch into the single user mode on your Mac.
Step – A. Shut down your Mac.
Step – B. Press the power button to start up your Mac.
Step – C. Immediately Hold down Command-S for single-user mode.
Now you have launched your Mac on a Single user mode. The next few steps will help check for file system consistency and remount the boot volume.
Step – D. On the terminal window Type fsck –fy and press return
Step – E. Type mount –uw and press return
Step – F. Type touch /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press return
Step – G. Type exit and press return
These Seven steps above should help your Mac deal with the White Screen issue. If you are dealing with white screen after install El Capitan, you may want to check our article that specifically addresses the El Capitan issue.
5. Reinstall Mac OS X
If nothing above works, you may try this. Your Mac needs to be connected to the Internet. See number#2 above. Follow the same steps. Restart your Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key until the Apple icon appears; when you see the Mac OS X utilities window, select the Reinstall option.
Updated: 4/17/2016
Related:
I’ve been through all of the basic remedial tests – resetting the Parameter RAM, resetting the PMU. The laptop boots to the Logo screen, but then hangs at a white screen prior to the login window.
I tried safe boot, and after the initial white screen I get a different (brighter) white screen with a pointer (‘Yay, success’… I thought) which then switches to a low-res blue stripy screen (‘boo, failure’) where it hangs.
Option-booting is showing up both the main partition and the recovery partition, but selecting either from there won’t get me past a white screen.
Command-R booting to access the recovery partition gets me to a…. you guessed it… white screen. I always said it was a stupid idea to follow the idiocy of Microsoft in using a recovery partition rather than physical media for emergency boots. And because it can see a partition there it doesn’t want to let me go online and try to recover from the remote servers… Apple now employ IDIOTS!
Suspecting a damaged hard drive I grabbed a copy of Ubuntu via another Mac and set up a bootable USB pen drive as a ‘LiveCD’, but the Mac doesn’t seem to want to boot beyond the initial GRUB loader (black screen this time, although it does turn on the keyboard backlights). The USB stick will boot another Mac, so it’s just this machine at fault.
In a last ditch attempt to get something to work I Command-S booted into single user mode and ran fsck. The initial run found some errors which it repaired, as a second run verified by reporting the drive seemed to be OK. Rebooted… same old same old white screen of tediousness.
The fact that I’m getting some life in terms of the logo screen kind of says that the CPU/logic board is OK, and the screen displaying any of this stuff in a decent res tells me the video card is OK. The only other thing I could think might have failed is the RAM. I’ll try removing and reseating it in the off-chance it’s come loose, but is this a common symptom of a RAM failure?
Any other feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Follow up… tried to run the built-in hardware test, but once again hit a white screen before getting to it. Left the machine running Memtest86 overnight for about 10 hours but it threw up no errors with the RAM. It’s not guaranteed that one or more of the memory modules isn’t damaged or malfunctioning somewhere, but I’d have expected to see at least one error flagged up after that amount of time. Oh well, time to try pulling the hard drive and hooking it up to another Mac to see if it’s faulty, otherwise it looks like it could be something much more terminal with components on the logic board.
Any luck.?.? I have the same problem. I pulled the drive and hooked it up to another Mac, booted just fine. It’s gotta be hardware related.
I too am having this problem on my mid-2011 iMac 27″. Let us know if you were able to find a fix!
Hey guys i finnaly brought my macbook pro back to life : Startup on single-user mode (cmd-s the turn on) the terminal will show up then type : fsck -fy , press return, type mount -uw, press return, type touch /private/var/db/ .AppleSetupDone, press return, type exit, press return. Hope it works just as it id to me! cheers!
Andre – THANK YOU. My computer went crazy two months ago and NOTHING was working, until I saw this. I just used your solution and it brought it back to life! I can’t thank you enough for posting this!
Andre, thanks. This did it for me.
Thank you Andre. For me the commands where supposed to be /sbin fsck -fy and /sbin mount -uw / which removed 2 files it said shouldn’t be there. The third command gave an error so I suspect this did nothing but
ITS ALIVE
I did these steps and then it says Read-only file system. Is that normal? I typed exit and return and it says logout and then does nothing. I tried to hard reboot and I still get the white screen with the apple logo and spinning progress bar! Ugggh! Please help!
NOTHING was working for me now my computer is on!!! Made sure to copy the exact spacing for it to work….thank you so much!!
Andre, I typed in exactly what you said to type in but it’s just still on the same page .. Do I like have to shut down the computer after typing in the required text or just wait for it to load up?
Hooray Andre! I and so happy I stumbled across his solution before my Mac sat for 2 months, because I would have had to have bought a new one. It did seem to be a problem involving an extra file in the directory, perhaps associated with a recent SharePoint file I had left open. Thank you!
What does “the terminal will show up” mean? I don’t see anywhere I can type.
It worked for me…!! But My curiosity raised the next question as to why this happened? I mean what did I do which casused this problem? I am using m,y mac for very personal and important research purpose and I dont want this to happen in future. Any suggestion? my mac is 2008 macbook *white one”
any suggestions?
Andre, tried all of your examples…. Still nothing … Still a white screen
Thanks Andre, This seems to have worked for me, I’ve had the strangest Mac evening Ever, Both of my Macbook Pro’s appeared to develop the same issue, they wouldn’t boot past the Grey progress bar, i was unable to boot in recovery mode on both computers too, I also appear to have an issue where both of my LaCie Firewire drives are no longer recognised
It worked for me! I tried everything for hours. Thank you. Don’t give up. I contacted a friend from Apple and he told me he is 100% needs to be taken in , no hope for it. It is very slow but at least it gives me time to make sure my back ups work and finish my work I was on a strict deadline, thankful this thanksgiving day !!
You’re a lifesaver!
My portable hard drive died about a month before this so I knew when my computer wouldn’t start that I would loose a lot of data I couldn’t replace, from uni work, family photos, work and so on.
Not the greatest feeling in the world 🙁
I tried a lot of trouble shooting but it was this comment that got everything up and working again so thank you very much.
I have no idea why it crashed to begin with but I’m backing up everything that I would miss straight away.
Cheers
Hi thanks Andre! You Saved my MacBook from a hefty kick!
Woohoo….thanks bro!!! Tried heaps of other ways.
I’m back! ….for how much longer I don’t know?. There has to be a reason for the problem initially.
Cheers 🙂
I have the same or very similar symptomps, but it turned out to be a hardware problem. My MBP (early 2011) symptomps:
When turned on I have grey screen for few seconds, then apple logo grey screen with progressing bar under the logo as loading system, then when the bar reaches about 50% it stops for few seconds and the laptop restarts. I did reset PRAM, SCM, did the commands from Andre using CMD-S, but none of it helped. I went to Apple store and the hardware test failed on video system. Good news: Repair is free, because it is internal hardware failure. Otherwise I would have to pay about $350 for replacing the motherboard.
Bad news: I have to wait about 7 days to get it back repaired from Apple Repair Center. It is actually not that bad.
Thanks for the tips even though didn’t work for me, but was worth to try it first.
Thanks!
Can you plz let me know how to start on single user mode from turning it on?
Andre you are a lifesaver! Thankyou so much
Thank you Andre! This worked for me! Great tip!! I followed your instructions on the Command S screen and my computer is back!!
thank you mine just came on
im having the same problem with me 2012 iMac,let me know if there’s a soloutin 🙂
Hi all,
Had the same frustrating issue with my MBP Early 2011 this morning. Was working OK the night before and today, when booting I get the pixelated grey login screen. I tried everything on the internet: PRAM reset, SMC reset, Trying to log in Single User Mode didn’t work for me, neither verbosе mode (CMD+S and CMD+V whilst booting). What worked for me was holding alt/option + N which is a start up from a NetBoot server using the default boot image. Strangely after it the login screen was no longer pixelated and worked just fine.
So if anyone else is having this issue try the Alt/Option + N on start up
Thank God it worked for me option N
Running the same script over & over repairing volume, rechecking volume, checking, checking, checking…
Bless your soul Oleg. I tried all the troubleshooting I could read up on. At some point I was starting to lose hope and then I came across your comment. It is so I was sceptical, but I friend it anyway and IT WORKED. THANK YOU:)
Did you get the mac fixed? I have exactly the same problem now with my mac.
Thank you so much for CMD+S it saved my computer!
Hi Patrick what did u exactly do to fix this problem? I did CMND+S and this black screen came up with all the white text. What do I do next?
Me too booted into command – s. It ran stuffs in command line didn’t know what to to except to type exit at the end and viola my MacBook Pro is up and running. Can someone explain what happened here
I’ve been trying to restart my computer for hours…. What is the best solution for this problem????
Thank you thank you thank you! The safe boot worked the first time!
I had the exact same problem on my MacBook pro late 2011… This one solved it for me, at least i thing so! But why did I have to do this?
Thank you 😀
Exactly the same problem, have followed all the steps exactly as you did prior to reading this and was looking for the next step, even brought a bootable USB device with OSX on. Did you find a solution to this or is it really going to require a replacement of Logic Board? have even tried booting in 2-3 other MAC’s and have replaced the hard drive multiple times trying it with 10+. Please get back to me if you found the solution to this everlasting White screen.
Thanks, Jason
thank you very much, the first step was effective. I was so scared!!
now I breath again!
Man. That is great to hear. I just came across this problem yesterday and still no luck
fix #1 – safe start worked for me. thanks!!
thanks – ctrl +R worked a treat
Stradegy number one worked for me! Thanks so much!
My Screen dint turn on one day. But the external monitor worked fine. I tried PRAM reset, restarting in safe mode. Both did not work. Then i tried SMC reset a couple of time (with a interval of 5 minutes), then the issue got resolved. I got the same problem again for two three times in a span of 20 days and i used the same solution. Now it works fine for about one month now.
SMC Reset:
Mac portables with non-user-removable batteries (MacBook Air and some late 2009 MacBook Pro models):
Shut down your Mac.
Connect the MagSafe power adapter to your Mac and to a power outlet.
On the built-in keyboard (this will not work from an external keyboard), simultaneously press and hold the left shift, control, and option keys while you press the power button. Release all keys at the same time. You will see a colour change of red to green from the power plug.
Wait for five minutes.
Press the power button to start your Mac.
Prakash,
Your solution worked for me. Thank you.
Here is what I did:
On the built-in keyboard , I simultaneously press and held the left shift, control, and option keys while I pressed the power button. Release all keys at the same time. You will see a colour change from orange to green from the power plug.
Wait for five minutes.
I pressed the power button to start your Mac and it worked.
John M.
So mate , after I press all the buttons , will green go back to orange or will just stay green
Thank you soooo much Prakesh. I had tried everything else and nothing worked. This did!
Tried everything. Every time I boot it it has a white screen and it won’t go any further than that. Have s 08 MacBook pro
I tried…it….the mag safe power adapter even turned green while I holded..the left shift-control-option ….and pressed on the power button. ..it the adapter again turned on to green. ..within a minute I left the power button…I waited for 5 mins…but I still did not turn..on..please help me…
It still show a blank white screen when turned on….please help me..out..
I have a Macbook Pro w/ white screen problem. Shut it down earlier today and on turning it back on few hours later got the white screen. Tried steps 1, 2 , and 3 above w/out help.
I do have a Mac OS X startup “disc” on a USB drive.
My question – if I reinstall Mac OS X will I lose all my other programs, data, photos, etc or does it just reinstall the OS w/ out reformatting/ erasing my other data?
@Alan
I have re-installed OS X as #4 without losing any kind of data.
But it is recommended yes, that you back up the important stuff – just in case.
Though I’m back now in the situation with the white screen, which really is annoying me, since I got exams coming up…
So anybody who knows how i can solve this? I ran an EtreCheck also, and it only showed “failed” at Daemons. Which i also had the first time, where the problem got fixed…
I am now thinking it may be the RAM as it says there’s inserted 4 gb, but only about 200 mb avaiable on the EtreCheck.
I have an Imac that gets to the white screen with the apple logo, have tried all the above mentioned strategies with no success. is there anything else that I could try? I do not recall what ios version the comp currently has.
Having the same problems as the original two posts. It’s been happening increasingly over the past couple of months, and various methods mentioned above have temporarily solved it. But yesterday no methods would work and it just wouldn’t boot; just the white screen, sometimes an apple logo first then white, sometimes just white. I then booted in target disk mode from a friend’s computer. Both drives were mounted and checked out fine in Disk Utility. After unmounting and restarting, it booted fine. Now some resets get me back to the white screen, sometimes I’m able to boot normally; very hit or miss at this point. Any other info or solutions? WTF Apple?
I haven’t used my MacBook Pro in a while. It turned on fine. I decided to check for software updates. I had 4 which required a Restart. Watched as the software was downloaded, files written, etc. When it restarted, I got the beach ball then the white screen. Step one did not work. Step 2 (utilities disk) would not verify Base disk (greyed out) check other disk and it said it needed to be repaired, then did it couldn’t and u need to back it up.
BUT I CANT GET PAST THE WHITE SCREEN !!!! If anyone has any ideas, HELP oils be GREATLY APPRECIATED.
My deceased husbands photos are in here and I can NOT lose these or his voice which I recorded.
Please advice
Dear Lisa,
Very sorry to hear about your troubles — all around!
The good news is that with this sort of problem, it’s highly unlikely that your precious data is lost. Your tape is still good — just your player is busted.
If you still can’t get your Mac to boot, you can remove the hard drive, put it into an external USB case and access the recordings of your husband on any computer.
Of course, your first order of business then should be to make several backups!
Best of luck!
Djuna
Or you can just press and hold T while starting up, which starts your mac in Target Mode – essentially making it an external harddrive. You then connect the mac via firewire to another mac and transfer all your data.
You can actually even boot your system from the other mac by holding down the Alt key while turning the other mac on and then choosing your computers drive as the startup disk.
For saving your important data, this is the most useful information on this whole page as far as I am concerned. My July 2011, 27inch iMac 7600, has refused to maintain Time Machine backups. After five or six backups, I would get a window saying that the Time Machine backup had failed. I could only get it to work again by reformatting the external HD and starting all over. Each time, continual backup failed. Hence, I wasn’t able to back up my files on a regular basis. So, it was brilliant to be able to get my data off the iMac when it become un-bootable. It would have cost me up to £80 to have a Mac repair centre retrieve my data, but using Target Mode with FireWire was dead easy. The most important thing in this case is to actually find a Mac with a FireWire port. Fortunately, I still have my 7 year old MacPro with a FireWire port. So don’t get rid of those old Macs!
Thank you Jonas Rose Høeg for that brilliant suggestion.
Spell check changed some words
After 3 attempts #1 was successful. God bless your brain. Thanks
I have the white screen of death, no logo, on a 27 inch iMac which I bought in about 2008. It has taken a long time to boot in the past, but has been pretty good for a while. I usually leave it on and only reset when it seems to be slowing down. This time I was getting the button rainbow swirl thing and a note on blocked videos. I have tried three of the options above with nothing going past the white screen. Please advice?
Regards,
Sandy Harper
I’m having exact same issue. can’t get past white screen.
Tried all the above ….disk utility will not even appear so attempt a re- install.
Any on the suggestions,
Desperate for a solution thanks
Michelle
Thx so much I have done it with first step and worked well
Hi All
I tried all the recommendations above several times and none work. I couldn’t even reboot from my OSx DVD or restore from my external Time Machine recovery.
Would be grateful if anyone has a working solution. Thx.
M
I had all the same issues with my mac pro book quad core. After trying for two weeks….one day I was fed up….put the laptop on my desk with a “tap” towards the bottom end of the screen edge…..and….whala! The white screen disappeared! I was putting the laptop down and the bottom hit my desk with a little force thsn normal. I know the last time i did that and went to bed when i tried using it in tge morning….black screek action.
The normal screen came on. Then…it went off again. I tapped it again….and it stayed!!! I guess it isn’t a hardy device. Something is obviously loose. Don’t know what but…I’m going to strictly use it as a desk top now!!!!!
Me too Martin. If someone helps you out please pass on the fix. Thank you
macbook wont start up past white screen , apple logo and spinning grey wheel , no recover discs available tried all usual command R etc nothing , could it be hardrive defunked ?
My 2009 MacBook pro has a white screen, no apple logo. Instead it is flashing a picture of a folder with a question mark in it? Anyone know what this means? It is Christmas day – of all days for this to happen! Will I need to take it back to the apple store? I’ve tried all the suggestions above and none are working.
Any luck Allison or info to pass Allison? I just got the same problem. Thanks.
This happened to me. You need to replace the hard drive cable. You can get it on ifixit.com for $50! This worked for me, and I hope it helps!
Hi,
I solved the problem with the white screen on my iMac like this:
– boot in safe mode (Hold SHIFT key during boot untill the Apple logo shows up)
– go to the user account and turn off all progs which are loaded automatically at startup.
– delete all items in /library/startupitems/
– Reboot (no safe mode, standard boot)
– now Mac OS works as it used to without the white screen !!
It worked for me, I hope it will help others as well..
This worked for me! Thank you so much! Just seeing my computer again in Safe Mode was such a relief.
Thank you
Number three worked for me. I tried the first two… No go… With the 3rd (re-set PRAM) after figuring out to simultaneously hold the command & r on one side and the option & p on the other :-)… The screen flickered a couple times… I let go turned off computer. Turned it back on and viola! Thank you!!!
Hey guys, i’m just wondering, if the white screen still persis even uou have tried everything above, what is actually happening to my mac? It says the mac having graphical problem. Do i have to replace my ram?
Pls2 help me…
Just installed new solid state drive after being told my HD was shot when I kept getting a gray screen at boot (this was per techie at Genius Bar; he ran utilities to check hardware but when it got to the HD the utility check just hung). Did the whole Option+Command+R to connect to internet and install recovery.
Connected without an issue and files downloaded, however once that was done, I got the apple logo, the screen flashed black, then the gray screen returned and nothing has happened since. HELP!
My 09 macbook pro was working fine this morning when I shut it down, when I turned it on again it is white screen. I have tried all the options but no result. I get a folder with question mark. Not today which is my birthday. HELP
I have the same problem. I start up my MacBook Pro and is comes up with a white screen and the grey Apple logo but also has a loading bar underneath and when the loading bar gets to about half way the macbook shuts down. Someone please help.
Hi Robert,
did you find a solution for that, i have exactly the same error
I have a mbp 2011 and connect it to a 27″ apple display. My laptop was working just fine then I heard a weird buzz and saw my external monitor get weird lines so I disconnected it. Laptop still was displaying properly. I rebooted and ran tech tools to check the hardware and ram. No issues. Restarted fine, reconnected the external monitor. Again problems so I disconnected, shut down and rebooted. I get to the login screen, select user and enter my password. Continues to startup, but the black profess bar gets about halfway then the white screen. Have tried all steps but no luck. I also noticed my user login icons have faint lines going across. Could this be my graphic card? I read 2011 mbp had problems with the graphic cards. Any ideas?
I have the same problem. Did you get any solution?
Did you ever figure it out? You described my exact issue. Horizontal lines. External monitor. Started a few more times not nothing but white screen of death.
i followed 2nd step there was no option for repair but to verify disc..so i verified the disc..but what next ?? its still not working
i have tried all of the above, and I still cannot get my system to work. Any other suggestions?
I have been forced to buy Windows system to continue my classes, but most of my info is on my MacBook.
My confidence in Apple has been undermined.
Hi all, I have an old MacBook Air when I turn it on it has the usual start sound followed by a grey screen with a flashing Apple logo that contains a no entry sign (a circle with a diagonal line across) and a question mark within the Apple logo.
Can anyone help?
Regards Aubrey.
Please help I am having the same problem as everyone else. None of the steps are working . I get the apple gets about a1/4 of the way then shuts Back off. Was working fine this morning. Please help all of my company’s business is on this computer…….
I tried all this and it did not work. When it starts up I get the app and then black screen with cursor. Help
thank you thank you. fixed it with safe boot. have no idea what started it but thank you!!!!
Thanks a lot! Had same issue, but OSX reinstall seems to have worked.
William,
Did you lose your files and applications after re installing OSX?
my macbook pro!!! I install windows 7 on new partition !!Now mac is stop black screen when restart!! I can’t do nothing!!How can i reinstall OS X and windows 7
Now isn’t this interesting. Here we have an ‘apple toolbox’ site with a million questions from very anxious Apple clients – and not one official technical reply from those who ought to be concerned about losing said clients.
I have seen many forums when, for example, hosting game servers for my children and needing advice, in which most queries are given answers either from volunteers or those responsible for the programs people are querying about. Those are youngsters, yet they have shown far more responsibility than Apple itself. On no Apple forums of any kind have I seen ‘technical experts’ attempting to answer anyone’s queries. So I’d really like to know, what the point is of these forums? To distract us like children? Make us think someone gives tuppence for our issues after we’ve bought our little Macs and gone away?
I was a huge Mac fan. I am now lost to it. As a graphic and digital artist, this was my livelihood. But my fairly new iMac has died; nothing above has worked; my time capsule stopped working six months ago and I’ve been too busy to stop and sort that; now the iMac itself, as life’s true irony and a lesson to me. Two lessons, in fact: to sort backup systems as a priority as soon as they go pfutt, and to leave Apple behind, because PCs can now use all the software I need, such as Adobe Creative Suite.
You have let me down, Apple. Help used to be easy to get, that was one of the main reasons I stayed with Apple since the early Mac ll! Goodbye, I’ll take my chances with PC and Nortons to protect it.
Thanks for sharing these steps. I tried Steps 1 & 3 which didn’t work for me, but I was able to get to the Disk Utility using step 3. It shows OSX base system and the main HD and partition are OK, but the Macintosh HD came up Unable to verify completely, then it said volume repair complete but got hung up updating boot support partitions for this volume. Got ERROR, disk utility can’t repair, backup, reformat disk and restore backed up files.
Then I noticed the Permissions Verify button and decided to try that; it has found a HUGE amount of errors and is still “verifying Permissions (estimates over an hour to complete). When it finishes I’ll try to Repair Disk Permissions, but if that fails I’ll try the reformatting.
I make to the part where I log in but get the beach ball. It won’t do anything. Sometimes I get a circle with one of these / were the apple should be. I have tried many if not all these steps with no success.
I have the same problem
I get the boot sound and the white screen but no Apple logo.
I was trying to clear up a calibration issue with a new external monitor (otherwise the computer worked fine) and did a PRAM reset. The system has not booted since.
I am working with a Mid-2010 13′ MBP running Yosemite and 8GB RAM.
My question: Did the PRAM reset also reset the speed on my RAM?
I have been running two 4GB 1333MHZ RAM cards for over 3 years that I had to change settings to take because the max recommended is only 1066MHZ.
I did a safe reboot, followed by a restart and all is now good. A message appeared following the restart that there was an issue with the Message app and to select the Quit button, which I did. The Message is the new app that allows access to SMS on all Apple devices.
All is good for now.
Victor
2011 iMac 27″ with the latest Yosemite OS
Step 1 worked for me. Thank you VERY much…was going a bit crazy for a second.
Thank you so much for the help. The first step fixed my problem. I have this page bookmarked!!
My iMac has been doing the same thing. It finally rebooted after bding off all night and using the OCRP reset. After using it for about 2 hours it started the reboot sequence again. I think it might be a heat related issue since the top of my Mac is really hot. I did the hardware check and the fans increased and decreased in speed during the test but run extremely slow during operation. Is there a way to adjust the fan speeds manually?
Went through all steps to no avail after the white screen, logo & spinning wheel on my 2010 MBP. At one step there was a flash of big blocks but then back to white screen. Took it to a shop that refurbishes Macs & they said the hard drive was shot, so replaced it with a solid state HD-they said Apple put these not-great Toshiba HDs in Macs for about a year & they’ve replaced probably 500 with SSDs in the past 3 years! Now I have a new HD & OS so it’s working great-just always back up…
My MacBook Pro mid 2012 will boot on but white screen and when I press command-R it shows the OSX utility’s and I also tried to boot up in safe mode but still Sorry , next I tried shut down and booted up apple logo appears with the loading below but after sometimes it shuts off again, please anyone any Eureka solution ? Help 🙁
I have a Macbook Pro. It turned off and never turn on again. When connecting the power the LED indicator is green. I can hear fan noise for a very short time but it starts and stops and when using power adapter it repeat again and again.
Also there is an LED indicator in right that it turns on and off with fan at the same time.
please help me and let me know what shall i do to fix the problem.
thanku!!! safeboot worked 🙂
I have a 2013 Mac book Pro. It worked perfectly without a hitch until I upgraded to Yosemite. I switched the machine off and when I switched on again, it keeps going to RESET PASSWORD screen with no options that are live. No matter if I try CMD-S or CMD-R, none of the options work. It just goes back to this screen. Can anyone help with a suggestion on how to overcome this problem?
I had this same problem with the RESET PASSWORD screen and I finally just clicked on the top left apple logo and it gave me RESTART as an option, so I clicked on that and at least it got me away from the RESET PASSWORD screen . . . still have trouble with a white screen but I’m done with trying to fix it myself so it goes in to Apple today!
Same woes…… White screen, after I attempt to get past admin login. Have tried every solution listed above. Problems began with an error message 36 when I tried to empty the trash. Installed MacKeeper and was talked into letting an ‘Apple certified technician ‘ service my Mac. They did get rid if the error message and have had no more problems there but subsequently have run out of memory for basic tasks. never had earl memory problems before. Then today suddenly, the white screen…….any suggestions or ideas…please??
same experience for me. the McKeeper guy did “optimize” my disk, and the system was slower than ever before. The guy on the remote help gave up and suggested it was a disk problem. Got my disk mounted and could retrieve all data, but still struggling with the booting and white screen. None of the above so far worked. Glad, I got my data secured, but annoying to not get beyond the white screen w apple and progress bar.
Very strange that Apple itself does not comment at all.
i also had the no entry circle and a white screen and tried option 3and it worked great. Coincidentally all these issues started when I updated to snow leopard . I now update regularly and my Apple works great. Thank you forum. Ps I almost took my computer to the Apple service depot where I am sure I would have spent many $$$
I have tried all the above suggestions. When I run the SMC and PRAM resets, my screen turns to black. Then, safe mode doesn’t seem to work, it hangs halfway during safe booting. I have also tried single mode (Control+S) but still my mac does not book. It’s already been 24 hours and I desperately need to get into my desktop as I have work to submit on very short deadlines. Please help guys !!!
FYI: I live in Ivory Coast( West Africa) and there is not apple store around. Please I need your help and suggestions. Thanks in advance !
I have a 1 mac A1076 made in 2005 i think its Snow Leopard , was working fine until i tried to update , now its just the white screen with apple i can not get the repair screen , I got to white screen never a black screen , I found i tried this
mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -h now
its not working any can help ?
After endless attempts to reboot to get out of the dreaded white screen I was ready to kick my IMac in the bin…
Then I stumbled across an article from apple ,all Mac’s built or sold between May 2011 and October of 2012 have a faulty video card installed. Apple instigated a replacement program at any service centre free of charge as in my case, when I questioned my authorised repair consultant about it his response was that apple didn’t want to make this public knowledge in fear of getting thousands of Mac’s back for repair all at once and some of the cards would last longer than others depending on use.
To find out when your Mac was built hold down command + V and reboot this should bring up a black screen with white text , about halfway down the page you will see your Mac’s build date if it’s within the above date’s you will get a free replacement card and be back up and running.
Good luck there is hope :-))
I have a large 2010 MBP 17″, working fine with a newer SD drive until today. Tried although steps above with white screen on start up. All manner of apple logo, grey Barry , black screen with white text… Nothing stayed up longer than a few seconds.
THEN, I tried Command+ V and reboot. Took three cosequtive Ttempts, then my computer fired up with my normal screen again.
Keep you all posted as I keep working!
Please Help! I have a white screen, the apple logo, and the bar that loads about a third of the way and the pinwheel that just continues to spin. Tried all the fancy safe mode boots and steps above with no results. Any other suggestions would be great!!!
Thank you all.
I have an Imac that gets to the white screen with the apple logo, have tried all the above mentioned strategies with no success. is there anything else that I could try?
I have tried all options on my iMac & finally got to Disk Utility;repair disk only to have an error msg come up saying: disk utility can’t repair this disk. back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, then restore your back up files. The only problem is I cannot do anything to back up my files. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
The apple logo didn’t come up bit a globe of the earth did??? Is that good or bad??
Thank you so much! Safe boot worked!!
I have a mid 2007 imac. I had upgraded from snow leopard to Yosemite 10 10 2 3 months ago. At first it ran like new. Over the last few weeks it has gotten very slow spinning color wheels were commonplace. No today 4 June, I have nothing whatsoever but the white screen I’ve done the SMC and PRAM resets to no avail. Please help!
I have the same problem. cant conclude it so i left my mbp for almost a year… tried all this fix but still wont work… any other suggestion? burn it? 🙁
Thank you! Step #1 worked like a charm.
I’m having a same problem right now . Last night , I shut it down without any problems , but this morning , it started to show the white screen with an apple logo.it’s been for at lease 3 hours .. I tried the solution which given above , but it seems didn’t work for me . So any idea or suggestion that can help me out ?
If none of the steps worked it could be of a faulty AMD GPU which was the case in my problem. There is a recall on certain Macs on this issue.
https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/
There is also a go around quick fix on YouTube that I found that worked.
http://youtu.be/xze1WHCFfag
Step 1 worked for me instantly. Thanks
I can’t thank you enough for taking time to write and publish such useful information. You single-handedly saved me a load of time and money. I followed your guidance with precision and my MacBook Air works again!
Thanku soooo much!! It totally helped!
Hi there! I did the option 1, then option 2, then option 3, then option 1, 3, 1, and 3 again over and over, and now the green lines/stripd have all disappeared from my iMac. Thanks for this value hints!
Fix #3 worked for me
Thanks
I had the white screen no faults found during test nothing else works consistantly had some blue lines then tried swapped ram HD then Apple service center confirmed my video / graphics card/ mother board is going out yippe! Thanks and good luck to.you all
So I decided to leave a comment because this was the web page that helped me the most. So thank you to everyone for sharing your tips. I have a 2011 Macbook pro 13.” I got that white screen of death, and tried all of the above tips in the comments and in the post. I tried them hundreds of times and finally got it to start (with command R, after I did it like 20 times haha). But my laptop kept freezing, and I would have to power off and I probably have gotten that white screen like 4 times since. And thats when I found a new trick. I am not a computer person so if this is bad for it then sorry.
So my trick is, when you get the white screen, leave it, leave your laptop on, take out the charger, and let your laptop die with the white screen on. And you should hear the fans going as you let it die. Once you think it died, start it up without the charger to make sure it is completely out of charge. Then put the charger back in, and start it up like usual. It has worked for me every single time it happened. Hope I helped.
Last night my computer start acting up so I had to tune off manually, since then my screen stay blue.
I have try #1 and it worked but what do I need to do to get back to my normal screen?
I have tried every solution on this thread with no luck. I have a 2009 MacBook Pro running mavericks. I am getting white screen, apple sign, spinning circle and a loading bar below that. Nothin loads, and after a few minutes it turns off even with the charger plugged in. Anyone else with the same model and year found a solution?
with safeboot nothing happens, I can’t run disk utility holding the keys and nothing, when i reset the pram the macbook pro just reboot’s i tried many many times, even hold it for multiple reboots but nothing, and how to reinstall when I can’t go to disk utility
Cmd r works for me! Thank you!!
I just wanted to quick tell my situation.
So When I got to the ‘repair disk’ part, when I tried to repair my Macintosh HD disk it it said it was broken but could not be repaired. So what I found out worked was we had to erase the entire disk, then when I verified it, it was fixed. Awesome!!!
So I restarted the computer and we got this flashing image of a folder with a question mark. Great.
We turned it off and back on with Command + R and and tried to re-install IOS. It said the Mackintosh disk wasn’t Libraried (or something like that)
We went BACK to the Disk Utility and at the top bar we clicked the green button that said something like “Enable Library” I don’t really remember. Doing THIS, PLUS having the disk in Extended IOS (Libraried) format allowed us to reinstall IOS. From there is was easy going.
We did have to erase the hard drive, but our computer is alive!!!
So, in re-cap, what worked for us is:
1. Erase your hard drive disk (For us it was the Macintosh HD) make sure it is in Extended IOS format
2. Click “Enable Libraried” (or something close to that, not sure) on top of the window
3. When in the reinstall IOS window, select the disk you just erased.
4. Once it’s downloading, you got it!
I have the exact same problem, I just found out about it 5 minutes ago. I’m going to try to back it up first though.
I tried number 1 three times it did not work. I tried number 2 three times it did not work. I tried number 3 three times and on the 3rd try it is up and running. Before I did steps 1-3 I did the command S I did not type the info described above I just typed exit. I hope it continues to work. Thanks.
The steps worked thanks a lot
Hi Serhat Kurt,
Thanks for your valuable information to recover our Macbook….!
Thanks a lot once again.
Regards,
Ravin.
Hi all, I have a 2010/11 macbook pro. While it was on and I was using it as normal (surfing the internet, etc), the screen went black (not completely off, it was still lit, but with black color), and wouldnt respond. Physically closing the laptop didn’t result in sleep mode, the apple logo stayed lit, and upon opening it the black screen was still there. I powered down by holding the power button for a few seconds. When I pressed the power button to turn it on, it didn’t make the usual physical ‘disky’ sound (the sound similar to when you insert a dvd into the dvd-drive) which it always makes upon pressing the power button. So I got startup chime, apple logo, then white screen. I tried safe mode and it starts up in safe mode, but still not in normal mode. I tried resetting the pram, nothing. I verified the hard disk and got “seems to be ok.” I ran hardware test (including the extended one) and got “no trouble found.” Kind of stuck for what to do, as I don’t hear a physical sounds that it used to make on start-up, I figured it might be hardware. Any ideas? Thanks!
Thank you so much! Safe boot worked!!
God bless you for your support.
You saved my day.
I have stepped into the world of Apple because the problems with Windows OS. Ten years ago I had a lot of problems with my PC, so I bought an Apple. Until now I were very happy, but unfortunately I upgrade my working machine with OS 10.11 to 10.11.1 and my mac did not boot again. Now I have an unuseful computer. My mac did not boot for a month. I am thinking to throw away my mac. Bad move from Apple !!!
I have a MBP 2011. Ive tried all of the solutions (I appreciate all of you who posted these)! I tried all of these multiple times and unfortunately none of them worked. All roads led to the frozen tundra (white screen:(.
Q1: Besides buying a sledge hammer, has anyone found a solution to this problem?
Q2. Where in the H-E-double hockey sticks is apple when there are so many customers facing the same (URGENT) problem?!?
got white screen and am running my mac pro on an external drive with the down-loaded files from the internet. this is, so far, how i start my mac and did my work. as i tried to fix my mac so it will run the normal way, after i did the cmd-s i got a message that i have incorrect number of thread recods. the number is 4, 22879. it did few checks and repaied the volume but still has the white screen.
I’ve been using my nieces MacBook pro & got the horrible white screen & freaked out after trying almost everything. Finally I tried step 3 & it WORKED!! Definitely suggest you try this. I turned it off, then on again while pressing option, command, P & R keys till apple logo appeared & cant believe it worked. Hope it works for you too.
This may work for some of you if you have a policy banner on the machine such as a domain machine, but what you can do is T-Boot into the machine with the WSOD go into Macintosh HD > Library > Security and remove whatever your banner is and reboot. As said before this worked for our older machine that had policy banners and began getting WSOD after upgrading the version of OSX.
I got stuck like this following an El Capitan update. Resetting the PRAM worked for me and that NEVER works. It’s like the lupus diagnosis in episodes of House.
Thanks very much for your help!
Thank you so much! This has never happened to me before so when it did I was like okay what’s going on. I tried the safe boot and it worked immediately! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
FREE APPLE LOGIC BOARD REPLACEMENT ENDING IN FEB for MacBook Pro’s with the known graphics card issue. It covers MacBook Pro’s
https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/
Affected Models
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2011)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15 inch, Early 2013)
For those that continue to have issues after trying every solution offered her and/ or elsewhere it may be that the graphics chip is causing the fail. This was the case with mine. In the end I bit the bullet and took it to a certified Apple service centre who plugged it in ran some tests and told me what I already knew, that the problem was going to be expensive to fix as a new logic board was required. The next bit surprised me!
I was told that the repair would be for free!! I bought mine second hand, late 2011 15inch model and the warranty had long expired so I had to ask again. FREE? Apparently it wasn’t widely publicised at the time the recall was announced. I can’t say if it was or wasn’t, this is what I was told at the repair centre. The other thing I learned was that this offer from Apple ENDS IN FEB 2016.
If you even remotely think or suspect you might have a graphics card issue, assuming you’re able, get it to a certified service centre ASAP as there is a good chance the problem will rear its head again post any temporary fix, as was the case with mine. Hope this helps someone.
Hi John, Thank you so much. We have posted this notice on the front page of the site for all the readers. We really appreciate you sharing this important tip!.
Cheers, AppleToolBox.
would that work for iMacs as well? I can mount my hd and am already lucky I got my data saved but with all the tips not restart the sucker.
Hello I am having to same issue with my MacBook! Not sure what model, but it’s white 13inches and from 2009. It restart itself yesterday and was loading on the startup screen but only got about 1/3 of the way there before it shut off. I thought it was going to restart on its own, but it did not. Later in the night I turned it on and it only got the 1/3 of the way again and just shuts off on me.I had just finished playing league of legends. Idk if that has anything to do with it, but I want to be able to use it.
my mac 27″ has just suddenly reverted to a white screen with the apple logo – nothing happens, it even turns itself off. really worried about losing my data, any help, thanks
My mac is showing s white screen , loading but it failed to open I tried all the steps provided it failed , am scared loosing my data and songs gir my clients . What should I do?
#3 worked for me
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE POSTING!
MY MAC IS BACK TO NORMAL
For fsck sake. Thanks for this tip. It worked after three tries. Thought my MBP was a goner !
Thanks andre.
Seemed like everything was going ok then it keeps repeating “installGTK: GTKinstalled” then several lines of program language then back to the same.
Is it getting better or…..
Even when I type exit it keeps doing that. Any ideas… I’m so behind because of this mess.
And what is weird when I installed El Capitan it went smoothly. This all happened when my computer suddenly froze, but I still was able to make it restart and that is when I got the screen with the apple and the progress bar that goes until the end and then nothing happens. I believe I had downloaded an update.
So even after leaving itfor 24 hours nothing happened and that is how I’m trying your option, nothing else has worked.
Any ideas?
Hi Guys my screen on my imac went white. After 10 to 20 min I gave the cable and plug a wiggle and the computer fired up. It’s OK now. Don’t know what the problem was but it had to have something to do with the cable or plug.
Thank you so much Andre for that coding!!
Got my computer back to life, now time to back it up!!
Have a early 2011 MacBook Pro. Going to take it to apple cuz it won’t work. Hope they replace it even though I’m 2 months late.
My MacBook is so old I’m holding the battery in with duct tape! Had white screen, followed #4 steps A-G. AMEN it worked. THANK YOU!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved the day!
After trying all online troubleshooting, I almost gave up and decided to take my laptop to London Drugs. They have a computer service shop, and diagnosed the issue within 5 min. The videocard was broken, and this was a known warrantied issue. late 2011 macbook pro, fixed for free within 4 days! Couldn’t be more happy.
The Control + Options + P + R combination that resets the NVRAM on the mac worked where all other things had failed.
Thanks
I had to unplug a usb stick, started up fine after that.
thank you thank you thank you running disk utility fixed it thank you again
hi, i need help my mac book pro has a blank screen and i don’t know what to do i shine a flash ligt on i can see my screen saver and all. my brightness is on full i tried the command option p r but does not work. do you have an alternative way to help me.
I rebooted, didn’t work on 2011 Macbook pro. Start up holding down command an R keys brought internet recovery which left me with a white screen after 1 hour of attempted recòvery. How can I reinstall OS 10.8.6 if I can’t get on the internet?
Safe Boot saved the day for me (well, not completely). Was upgrading an iMac running 10.7.5 to El Capitan 10.11. Somewhere in the installation process the computer would boot and would get stuck on the gray screen. I booted to Safe Boot by holding down Shift on startup. Eventually a window came up and said “Completing Installation”. It finished and all was well.
Then I came to type this reply. As I was doing that I was running all the updates from the Mac App Store, including the 10.11.5 update. Gray screen again after boot after the update install. Safe Boot solves it again.
Don’t know what the next update will hold. Ugh.
I took the 2011 Macbook Pro to a Apple Repair Shop in Pattaya, Thailañd. Needs a VGA chip, $400. Getting a Asus AIO instead.
Thank you! The safe mode reboot worked for me. Took a couple of tries but I’m back up and running. Woohoo!
Thank you so much! You have saved me numerous times with the white screen problem! 🙂 Have a great day!
Thank you Prakash, the smc reset worked perfectly! Was truly worried about my laptop!
In my case the 2009 MacBookPro rebooted normally after repeatedly getting stuck on white screen (no apple logo), but it took several attempts with the CMD+S procedure. It finally worked when the procedure removed 2 files. Resetting the PRAM worked once, but then opening GoogleCrome just recently installed caused a new blank screen on rebooting. What causes this problem? I’m going to upgrade the OSX alltogether now.
Thanks Andre, I now have a happy wife
Hi guys, same problem showed up again (I have actually a 2011 McBookPro, with a permanent white screen of death). This time it seems the only solution is the replacement of the video (or graphics) card, apparently it’s due to the use of unalloyed tin in the soldering of contacts. For a number of products, Apple has actually a free of charge recall program: http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/
Thanks much. My imac was starting with a fuzzy screen and the would to to white blank screen. Resetting PRAM worked for me. well, for a few minutes and then went back to this fine checkered screen with moving matrix kinda thing then freezes. i’ll keep trying the reset.
Andre, I did the cmd-s, turn on, then type fsck -fy etc. My MBP late 2011 started up, type my password, but alas. . . the black pointer stopped moving after it’s about 1/3 of the line.
Prior to this I tried booting in Safe mode, then in Recovery mode – nothing helps. The black pointer just stopped moving halfway and left the building.
Any clue what’s causing this ?
Thanks for any help.