Mac won’t boot into recovery or usb installer

AndyKirby wrote:

The revive didn’t change anything.

The restore I am not confident that worked as the instructions say the Mac will reboot at the end. It didn’t and the Apple Configurator showed a padlock icon instead of the DFU.

The "Restore" option works the same way in Apple Configurator as the "Revive" option you already performed. It can be tricky getting these Macs into DFU mode. Sometimes it may take several attempts because there is no way to know what the Mac is doing since there are no LEDs, or lights, or text showing what is happening. Everything relies on what Apple Configurator shows. I've even had to quit Apple Configurator and relaunch it.

Think how "fun" it is when trying to do this on a Mac with more serious issues....obviously no one at Apple has ever thought about this or even tried it, or there would be some major changes to their designs.

Any other suggestions?

The "Restore" is the last big step just before getting the laptop repaired or disposing of it since it is resetting the T2 security chip and restoring the Mac to a factory condition. If factory condition does not work, then obviously there is some hardware issue either internal to the laptop or external.

Unfortunately I've been seeing a lot more Logic Board repairs with these 2018+ Macs than I have ever seen with any other older models...probably because Apple is cramming everything onto the main board making it much more complex and much more likely to have a failure (before on older Macs a smaller component would fail which could be replaced, but now that smaller component is an integrated part of the main board...the more expensive part has become even more expensive). I think the security enclave and/or the integrated SSD is causing most of these Logic Board failures, but hard to say since nothing works at all when these 2018+ Macs except being able to put them into DFU mode (again, not easy).

AndyKirby wrote:

MacBook Pro 2018 was running fine - left the room for a moment - when I came back it was sat with the black screen and the folder with a question mark indicating it can’t find a boot volume.

The SSD may have died. Most SSD failures occur suddenly.

next idea was to get a friend to make me a bootable usb stick. This is recognised and I can start to boot but again at about 2% progress it restarts the macbook

Unless you previously adjusted the Mac's security settings to allow for booting from USB, then this will not work now since the only way to change the security settings is from Recovery Mode. If you attempt to boot from USB when the security settings have not been adjusted to allow for booting from USB, then it will boot into Recovery Mode to tell you about it.

About Startup Security Utility on a Mac with the Apple T2 Security Chip - Apple Support

final thing - I tried the diagnostics - which download from the internet and does run successfully finishing with ref code ADP000 (no issues found)

so hardware is ok…

No, that is not what a passing diagnostic means. A passing diagnostic only means that no issues were detected at the time of the scan. I've run diagnostics in loop mode and errors will either show up in the first pass, or they won't show up until after a 100 passes. In fact the only useful diagnostic is one which produces an error or one which freezes the system during testing.

but won’t start recovery, internal drive not recognised as bootable and won’t boot from bootable usb.

what should I try next?

The only thing left is to try to "Revive" it, but more than likely you will need to resort to a "Restore" of the firmware which will reset the T2 security chip as well as pushing a clean OS to the internal SSD. A "Revive" should not affect any data on the SSD, but a "Restore" will destroy all data on the internal SSD.

Revive or restore an Intel-based Mac using Apple Configurator - Apple Support

If a "Restore" is not successful, then the only option left is to have Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider examine the laptop to provide you with a repair estimate.

I hope you have a good backup of this laptop because it is doubtful any data will be able to be recovered. You can check with a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers. They provide free estimates and are also recommended by Apple and other OEMs.

Hi,

1. Connect a different keyboard to your Mac. If you're using a Bluetooth keyboard, swap it for a USB keyboard if you can.
2. Try booting in safe mode. ...