can't open my macbook air after upgrading to macOS catalina

[Ahmed ELGohary]

this is early 2015 13' MacBook air







after upgrading to macOS catalina







it rebooted but it never opened again and shows this image and I can't access recovery or boot menu


how to solve this problem

 

[flaubert]

Do you have a bootable backup? If so, you should try booting from that, and restoring your disk back to the state it was in before the attempted install. If it was me I would restore back to Mojave, and just run with that for a while until Apple works out the bugs in Catalina; you’re not the only person I’ve heard of that has had a completely failed install of Catalina.

If that is not an option you could also try going forward with Internet Recovery, as detailed in this Apple Support article:

If you can't start up from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Learn what to do if you can't get your Mac to start up from macOS Recovery.

support.apple.com

See the second section where it tells you what your options are if Recovery Mode has failed (as it apparently has for you).

Worst case would be no backup, and Internet Recovery Mode won’t work; in that scenario I would enlist the help of another Mac-owning friend. Have that friend create a bootable disk for you, and then focus your efforts on getting a copy of your data onto a second external drive (you can use a utility like SuperDuper to clone the internal disk to that second drive). Once you have a backup, even a backup of the failed install drive, then you can try moving forward with the internal disk, either to reinstall Mojave (recommended) or Catalina. If the installation works there will be a point in the process where Migration Assistant will offer to transfer data from an external disk, and that’s when you plug in your backup and tell it to use that.

 

[Ahmed ELGohary]

Do you have a bootable backup? If so, you should try booting from that, and restoring your disk back to the state it was in before the attempted install. If it was me I would restore back to Mojave, and just run with that for a while until Apple works out the bugs in Catalina; you’re not the only person I’ve heard of that has had a completely failed install of Catalina.

If that is not an option you could also try going forward with Internet Recovery, as detailed in this Apple Support article:

If you can't start up from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Learn what to do if you can't get your Mac to start up from macOS Recovery.

support.apple.com

See the second section where it tells you what your options are if Recovery Mode has failed (as it apparently has for you).

Worst case would be no backup, and Internet Recovery Mode won’t work; in that scenario I would enlist the help of another Mac-owning friend. Have that friend create a bootable disk for you, and then focus your efforts on getting a copy of your data onto a second external drive (you can use a utility like SuperDuper to clone the internal disk to that second drive). Once you have a backup, even a backup of the failed install drive, then you can try moving forward with the internal disk, either to reinstall Mojave (recommended) or Catalina. If the installation works there will be a point in the process where Migration Assistant will offer to transfer data from an external disk, and that’s when you plug in your backup and tell it to use that.

what if there's no friend with a mac can i do it on windows as i've a behemoth of pc HP Z640 workstation can i create a bootable macOS installer on windows?

 

[flaubert]

what if there's no friend with a mac can i do it on windows as i've a behemoth of pc HP Z640 workstation can i create a bootable macOS installer on windows?

The short simple answer to that is, unfortunately, no it isn’t possible to prepare a boot disk on Windows. Windows doesn’t understand either of the Apple file system formats (APFS or HFS+), plus there aren’t any utilities that I’m aware of that can read a .dmg file, etc etc. The only way I can think of to do that would be to create a Virtual Machine using Virtual Box or VMWare, install MacOS into that, then use that MacOS system to download and prepare a MacOS installer on a thumb drive. That’s kind of ninja-level MacOS work.

Are you near an Apple Store? Perhaps you could make a Genius Bar appointment, explain that you tried to update to Catalina, and the failed install left your disk non-bootable? The trouble with going to them is that they’re not going to be very sympathetic to the fact that you don’t have a backup of your data, i.e., you might get them to re-install Catalina on there successfully, but they probably won’t want to do one little extra bit of work like saving your data along the way. You could try going to them with a 16 GB thumb drive that you purchase, and ask them to put an installer on it and do nothing else. Then you could boot from that, and try and do the install again yourself. Also, if you manage to get it booted off a thumb drive I can give you instructions on how to save your data off to a second drive by typing commands into the Terminal (the installer gives you access to the Terminal).


No doubt about it, you’re in a pickle.

 

[objektør]

I got the question mark as well when I installed Catalina. Luckily I installed it on another volume on my harddrive.(not a partition but APFS Volume).
Hard shutdown my rMB. Turned it on again and pressed option key directly after the chime.
There I could still choose Mojave.
Probably does this not work for you but maybe worth a try?
Good luck!