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I have a Macbook Pro 2018 13 with Touchbar. I had bootcamp + mojave installed, but accidentaly removed the macos, mac recovery and bootcamp recovery partitions ... Im left with a non working bootcamp and stuck.

what i’ve tried:

resetting nvram reinstalling windows by bootable usb* reinstalling macOS by bootable usb* cmd+r for recovery* cmd+option+r for recovery* cmd+shift+option for recovery* use of internet recovery* tried booting gparted by bootable usb* cloning an existing mojave drive (another mac that works) to an external drive and tried booting*

  • all of these where tried holding the option key during startup, but no matter what I boot to, I always get to internet recovery. Once in internet recovery (after trying with multiple wifi networks and the router being at 10cm of distance), The globe just starts spinning, with no progress bar. I left it for more than 14 hours and nothing. I have 50mbps internet.

How can a “new” mac become unrepairable?

sigh

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2
  • Where did you get the macOS bootable USB from? How was it created? What country are you in (shouldn't matter, but it might be a regional thing)? Do you have a backup?
    – Allan
    Commented Apr 16, 2020 at 21:12
  • I used another mac that had the full Install macOS Mojave.app (6gb), located in Mexico, I only have a backup of my work info.
    – Alberto Lopez Rodriguez
    Commented Apr 16, 2020 at 21:16

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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For anyone facing this situation, the fix is this:

Note: This has been tried with a 13 MacBook Pro 2018 and 15 MacBook Pro 2018. This should work on any bricked T2 device.

Requirements:

  1. Another working macOS computer (PC-1)

  2. USB-A to USB-C cable or Thunderbolt 2/3 to USB-C

  3. Bricked macOS computer (PC-2) that wont boot external drives and Internet Recovery is not working.

  4. Apple Configurator 2

Step 1: Download “Apple Configurator 2” to PC-1 from App Store

Step 2: Connect PC-1 to PC-2, if your PC-2 is a MacBook Pro 2018+ (4 Thunderbolt ports), you need to connect the Power Supply to the LEFT TOP port of the PC-2 and the USB-C to USB-A to the LEFT BOTTOM port of the PC-2.

Step 3: Open “Apple Configurator 2” in PC-1

Step 4: While connected (step 2) power off PC-2 pressing the power button for around 5 seconds

Step 5: While off, press COMMAND+OPTION+RIGHT SHIFT+POWER until PC-2 appears in PC-1 as “DFU”.

Step 6: Once “DFU” appears in PC-1, select it and go to “Actions > Advanced > Remove Data & Settings”.

The drive will be wiped and an error will appear in PC-1 when trying to re-install macOS (THIS IS OK) and PC-2 will just restart.

Step 7: Disconnect PC-2 from PC-1

Step 8: Power off (if it’s on) PC-2

Step 9: Boot PC-2 with COMMAND+R, internet recovery should appear.

Step 10: If on wifi: enter credentials

Step 11: Internet Recovery will show a progress bar and a timer, follow the instructions and restore your macOS.

Internet Recovery failing happens because PC-2 detects more than 1 partitions in the hard drive, that’s why we wipe them out with Apple Configurator 2 and then try again to restore from internet.

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