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dlw1984

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 23, 2021
4
0
I have a MacBook Pro 2009 or 2010. It will only boot in single user mode. How can I get it to run normally?
 
Clearing nvram should help. This is ehere the Mac stores boot parameters (such as single user mode). Try powering up and holding down cmd-opt-p-r until it reboots again.
If that didn’t help, try again except keep holding down the keys thru three reboot cycles/chimes, releasing after the third chime.
 
We’ve got it to boot in recovery mode but can’t erase the hard drive. We have another MacBook Pro 2019 with similar issues bought last year. We think a special ex someone is compromise
 
Clearing nvram should help. This is ehere the Mac stores boot parameters (such as single user mode). Try powering up and holding down cmd-opt-p-r until it reboots again.
If that didn’t help, try again except keep holding down the keys thru three reboot cycles/chimes, releasing after the third chime.
Clearing nvram should help. This is ehere the Mac stores boot parameters (such as single user mode). Try powering up and holding down cmd-opt-p-r until it reboots again.
If that didn’t help, try again except keep holding down the keys thru three reboot cycles/chimes, releasing after the third chime.
We’ve got it to boot in recovery mode but can’t erase the hard drive. We have another MacBook Pro 2019 with similar issues bought last year. We think a special ex someone is compromising all of our devices. Any suggestions??? They are developers btw
 
OP wrote:
"We’ve got it to boot in recovery mode but can’t erase the hard drive."

IMPORTANT QUESTION:
When you boot to recovery, are you booting to "the recovery partition", or are you booting to INTERNET recovery?

There's a BIG difference.

If you want to erase the internal drive, do this:
1. Boot to INTERNET recovery:
Command-OPTION-R
...at boot.
2. You'll need your wifi password, and the internet utilities will take a while to load.
3. Once the internet utilities are loaded, open disk utility.
4. VERY IMPORTANT: go to the view menu and choose "show all devices".
5. NOW look at the list on the left. You should see the physical hard drive as "the topmost item".
6. Click it and click erase. I believe you want "APFS, GUID partition format".

Does this work any better?
 
OP wrote:
"We’ve got it to boot in recovery mode but can’t erase the hard drive."

IMPORTANT QUESTION:
When you boot to recovery, are you booting to "the recovery partition", or are you booting to INTERNET recovery?

...
OP states it is a "2009 or 2010 MacBook Pro", which will be too old for Internet Recovery boot, and, even then, the option to format the drive to APFS probably won't appear (2009 is limited to El Capitan, which won't show that option - and 2010, with High Sierra, probably not necessary. In any event, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format will be OK for the purpose.
OP really needs an external drive with a bootable OS X system installed, or even a USB thumb drive with an OS X installer supported by that MBPro. I would suggest that "Yosemite", OS X 10.10, would be a good choice to completely wipe the internal hard drive, as that still has the old style Disk Utility. It is, IMHO, a little easier to use for a full erase of the drive than newer versions.
 
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