Catalina Recovery Mode Is Broken

[ab123]

Hey all. I think my recovery mode is broken.

I have installed a new SSD, and I am trying to boot in recovery mode by powering on with Command+Option+R pressed. It prompts me for internet recovery which I proceed with. After the spinning globe downloads for a few minutes, I get to a screen with the apple logo, that just stays there forever.

I walked away and it was still stuck there 45 minutes later. I need to be able to get to the disk utility screen so I can format the new SSD and put my time machine backup on it.

TLDR:
Anyone know how to get recovery mode to work properly? It seems broken for me. All the YouTube videos I have seen people instantly get the "macOS Uitilites" window... which I am not .

(https://support.apple.com/library/c...na/macos-catalina-recovery-mode-reinstall.jpg).

 

[ab123]

I have found a solution, a dumb solution, but a solution. This appears to be a software bug. The solution is to retry, retry, and retry.

1. Shut down mac
2. hold down Command+Option+R and press power button
3. release Command+Option+R when you hear the mac boot tone
4. when you see the Earth picture, select wifi network, and input password
5. wait ~5 minutes for it to download.
6. mac freezes on the black screen with the white apple logo.
7. frown, hold the power button down to shut off the mac, and then repeat the above steps

6 alternate: The black screen with the white apple logo has a white loading bar beneath it (this is good!).
7 alternate: Wait for the white loading bar to complete like 2-4 times. Behold, the Catalina macOS Utilities screen.

I tried like 8-10 times before it suddenly worked. Super lame, non-deterministic, but at least I got it to work. I hope this helps out others.

Edit: A BETTER SOLUTION!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have a second Mac and a big USB flash drive. You can create a Catalina installer flash drive. You can make the drive using this guide: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

After you create the installer, you can boot the mac with the flash drive plugged in, and you need to hold down the Option key. This will show the Catalina installer as a boot option. Click it. This will show the "macOS Utilities" every time you boot, unlike the broken boot software described above. Then you can restore from time machine backup or re-install Catalina.

 

[me55]

Did you try booting from the Time Machine drive? Plug it in while powered off and hold the option-key when turning it on. I read somewhere that Time Machine makes the USB drive its on bootable.

 

[HenryAZ]

Command-R is the key combination for Recovery Mode.

 

[Rdavis1964]

None of this works for my iMac 2015 with fusion drive running Catalina 15.4 ugh I tried all the above

 

[cbc1128]

Has anyone had success with these instructions? It is not working for me. I have read all over the internet looking for a solution. I accidentally removed my HD or partitioned it or something like that. Have been trying to get it back to normal since and was hoping I could wipe it clean and reinstall everything. None of the recovery options are working for me, including the above.