MacBook Won't Boot Into Recovery Mode? Try These Simple Solutions

macOS Recovery Mode can be a lifesaver when your MacBook won't turn on. It can help you factory reset a Mac, restore a Mac, fix errors on the startup disk, etc. But the damn macOS Recovery is not working at the critical moment when you need it. What should you do now?

Thankfully, you are in the right place. This article will tell you how to fix the MacBook won't boot into Recovery Mode issue. And also, it can help you restore your Mac or reinstall macOS when macOS Recovery is not working.

Table of Contents:

• 1. What is Mac Recovery Mode?
• 2. What happens when Mac recovery mode doesn't work?
• 3. MacBook won't boot in Recovery Mode, what to do?
• 4. The recovery partition not working, use Internet Recovery to restore Mac
• 5. Internet Recovery Mode not working either, how to reinstall macOS
• 6. FAQs about Mac Recovery Mode not working

What is Mac Recovery Mode?

Mac Recovery Mode is a special mode on a Mac computer that relies on the recovery partition on your Mac. Even your Mac won't boot, it still can start the problematic Mac from the recovery partition and offer the recovery utilities to help you solve the internal hard drive (SSD) issues.

This special mode can help you reinstall OS, wipe a MacBook, factory reset your Mac, check and repair the errors on the startup disk, restore your Mac from Time Machine backup, and more.

So, when you face problems like the Mac boots into a black screen, macOS Monterey cannot be installed on Macintosh HD, Mac stuck on login screen, etc., troubleshooting the possible glitches with Recovery Mode is the prior measure.  

What happens when Mac recovery mode doesn't work?

Commonly, after you press down the Command + R keys during your Mac startup, you'll see the macOS utilities or Mac OS X utilities. That means your Mac starts in Recovery Mode successfully.

However, if you run into one of the following situations, it means that the Recovery Mode probably doesn't work on your Mac.

• Your Mac boot into the normal mode - the familiar Desktop appears.
• macOS utilities in macOS Recovery Mode are frozen up.
• A blank or black screen occurs on your Mac after you follow the way to enter into macOS Recovery.
• You receive the error code -2003F on the screen.

MacBook won't boot in Recovery Mode, what to do?

If your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or M1 Mac fails to boot into Recovery Mode, you can troubleshoot the possible issues with the following solutions. Then, you can start your Mac in macOS Recovery successfully to reset or restore your Mac.

Check if your Mac has the recovery partition

macOS Recovery is launched in 2010 with OS X 10.7 Lion. For Mac machines run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and older, they are not delivered with a recovery partition.

That's why you fail to start in Mac Recovery Mode. You can upgrade your Mac to use macOS Recovery to reinstall macOS or use other recovery utilities.

Check if your way to enter into macOS Recovery is correct

Perhaps, there's no any issues with the macOS Recovery. The booting failure is due to your wrong way to access Recovery Mode. It is worth noting that the way to boot an Intel-powered Mac into Recovery Mode is different from that of an M1 Mac. So, that may be the case why your M1 Mac Recovery Mode is not working.

Here's the detailed way to enter into Recovery Mode, you can take it as a reference.

To boot an Intel-based Mac into Recovery Mode:

To start an M1 Mac into macOS Recovery:

Check if Command R not working

Command R keys are vital for entering an Intel-based to enter into Recovery Mode. If the Command R not working and you fail to start your Mac into Recovery Mode, you'd better have a carefully check.

You can press the Command and R keys separately to identify which one is damaged. If you use a Bluetooth keyboard, you can check your Bluetooth settings in System Preferences and reconnect the keyboard. If you use a wired keyboard, reconnect it to another USB port on your Mac.  

If the Command R still doesn't work, change a keyboard.

The recovery partition not working, use Internet Recovery to restore Mac

If your macOS Monterey or Big Sur still can't boot into Recovery Mode after trying the above fixes, you might have mistakenly deleted the recovery partition on your Mac. Or, the recovery partition on your Mac is already damaged.

In this situation, how can you restore your Mac or reinstall macOS?

Mac Internet Recovery mode is the best alternative. The Internet Recovery Mode connects directly to Apple's server to offer the recovery utilities as Recovery Mode does.

With Mac Internet Recovery, you can restore your Mac from Time Machine backup, reinstall OS, use Disk Utility to check disk errors. The requirement for using Internet Recovery Mode is the available network. It only supports networks using WEP and WPA security.

To boot into Internet Recovery, you should follow these operations:

Then, if you want to reinstall OS, select the Reinstall macOS utility and follow the onscreen steps to reinstall a new copy of macOS.

For an M1 Mac, if the Recovery Mode is not working, it always auto-boot in Internet Recovery Mode. The precondition is that your Mac is connected to the Internet well.

Internet Recovery Mode not working either, how to reinstall macOS

If unfortunately, the Internet Recovery on your Mac still not working, your Mac probably won't boot up either.

But don't worry, there still have solutions to start up your Mac and restore your macOS. For an Apple M1 Mac, it has the second Recovery Mode that called 'Fallback Recovery OS Mode', which is a fallback mode just in case Recovery fails.

Or, you can also boot your Mac into DFU Mode (Only available in macOS 10.15.6 and later). It is a state without loading the OS. You can do some slight changes in DFU Mode to make the Recovery Mode back to work and restore your Mac as well.

If the mentioned two modes are not available on your Mac, try the following solutions to restore your Mac.

Solution 1: Use Time Machine backup

The precondition to use Time Machine backup is you have backed up your Mac to an external hard drive or USB drive. If you haven't backed up your Mac recently, you can jump to the next solution.

Here's how to restore your Mac with Time Machine backup:

Then, your Mac will boot from the OS installer on your backup drive.

Solution 2: Create a bootable installer

If you don't have an original disk preinstalled with an OS installer, and the Internet Recovery Mode also not working due to network issues, the last way is to create a bootable USB installer and install macOS from it.

Since this method is complex, here we show a video about how to create a bootable installer for you. You can follow this video carefully.

Or, the following part will offer the detailed steps.

Preparations:

1. A USB drive formatted as Mac OS Extended with at least 16GB (For Big Sur installer, 64GB is better) in size.

2. Get macOS installation files. Find a healthy Mac, download the current macOS of the healthy Mac, like Catalina in the App Store. Note that don't click on install at this time. If you want an update of the current system, go to System Preferences > Software Update. Then download the macOS installation files. The installation files are in the Application folder by default.

3. If your Mac with Apple T2 or M1 chip (Check in Apple menu > About This Mac), you should enter macOS Recovery Mode > Startup Security Utility > check Allow booting from external media.

Next, create a bootable installer:

When the copy work is done, it will show "Copy complete and Done". Now, you've created the macOS bootable installer on your USB drive successfully. You can eject the USB drive.

The last, install macOS from the bootable USB installer:

For an Apple Silicon M1 Mac and Intel-based Mac, the operations are different.

For an Apple M1 Mac:

For an Intel-based Mac:

After reinstalling macOS or OS X, you can restore the data from your backup (If had).

Final thoughts

With a set of recovery tools, macOS Recovery plays an important role in restoring your Mac. However, a MacBook that won't boot into Recovery Mode is not a rare problem, which brings a lot of troubles for you.

Hopefully, you can try the solutions in this article to fix this issue. Moreover, you can get some alternatives to reinstall macOS and restore your Mac when Mac Recovery mode not working.

FAQs about Mac Recovery Mode not working