My computer begins the boot process, displays the apple logo and progress bar, but then quits before completion and displays a white screen. After a few seconds it starts the boot process again with the same result. This goes on and on for hours. Is there a way to identify what is causing this issue and how to fix it?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13
Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?
Reboot loops on 2011 MacBook Pro 15” is cause by a GPU fault. Look at the dump that it produces because of the forced reboot. Apparently, it is a well know problem with the 2011 model.
Should talk to Apple.
I would suspect your hard drive is failing. I hope you have a backup.
See if you can run the Apple Diagnostics/Apple Hardware Test. The diagnostic will not catch all drive failures though.
1. Start up from macOS Recovery
To start up from macOS Recovery, turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold the following combinations on your keyboard.
Option-⌘-R
Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.
Any Luck yet?
No. Boot process progresses further, but still ends with a blank light blue screen
Ran the extended hardware test (1.5 hours) and no errors were detected...
Replaced the original hd with a hybrid drive about a year ago...
The drive could still have an issue even though it is not very old. If you want to check the health of the hard drive, then create a bootable Knoppix USB drive. Use the downloaded Knoppix .iso file as a source for Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux). Option Boot the Knoppix USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the Mac may appear to be frozen on the boot picker menu so make sure to give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.
If Knoppix boots to the desktop, then click on the "Start" menu icon on the lower left corner of the Taskbar. Navigate the menus to "System Tools --> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the laptop's hard drive icon to access the drive's health report. Post the full health report here. GSmartControl also allows you to run the drive's internal self-diagnostics.
If Knoppix doesn't make it to the desktop and drops you into a black screen with a command prompt, then let me know as I can provide other instructions to access the health report using the command line tools. If Knoppix drops you to a command line, then it may indicate an issue with the GPU as well.
Once you confirm the health of the drive, then it makes it easier to figure out how to proceed.
MacBook Pro 15" early 2011 boot loop issue -- is there a fix?
