Macbook fails to boot. Can hear only a chime but nothing shows up. Not even recovery

[thesituation]

So I was in the process of reinstalling el Capitan off USB installer.

Everything was going well, I deleted the hard drive, set to installing and then the computer freezes.

I restart and macbook does not recognize my ssd. I tried disk utility, etc but nothing worked.

And then it got worse. Now my computer is completely dead. Nothing boots up. All I hear is a single chime and nothing else. The computer doesn't want to read anything. I can't even get recovery to boot. And I've also tried all the reset options.

I took it to genius bar and they think the video card melted into the logic board and want $500 to get it fixed. And they only think, not hundred percent sure why the computer isn't booting up

But I'm thinking how can this happen when all I was trying to do was doing a clean install of the OS.

Is there anything I can do?

 

[chscag]

Is there anything I can do?

See if you can boot the machine from a bootable external USB hard drive. If you can boot the machine that way, the SATA cable which connects the internal hard drive to the logic board may have failed. If the machine fails to boot from an external hard drive, then the problem is more serious.

 

[Daniva]

So I was in the process of reinstalling el Capitan off USB installer..
But I'm thinking how can this happen when all I was trying to do was doing a clean install of the OS.
Is there anything I can do?

Most likely something went wrong during re-installation.
The single start-up chime is a good news, so first of all try to reboot in safe-mode:

1. Start your Mac.
2. Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key.
3. Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.

I deleted the hard drive

Perhaps you meant that you have correctly initialized the drive

Now my computer is completely dead. Nothing boots up

Anyway, if the SSD is broken, consider the Drive Replacement Program if your MBA were sold between June 2012 through June 2013.

 

[thesituation]

See if you can boot the machine from a bootable external USB hard drive. If you can boot the machine that way, the SATA cable which connects the internal hard drive to the logic board may have failed. If the machine fails to boot from an external hard drive, then the problem is more serious.

so the computer does boot up from external drive running el capitan. but the macbook refuses to acknowledge that an ssd drive is there.

so does that mean that my hard drive is toast? I don't know how this happened. I knew that the apple rep wasn't sure the problem and i would have been out $500 for fixing something that wasn't broken.

and my computer was purchased september 2013 and it doesn't fall under the ssd replacement program.

 

[chscag]

so the computer does boot up from external drive running el capitan. but the macbook refuses to acknowledge that an ssd drive is there.

so does that mean that my hard drive is toast? I don't know how this happened. I knew that the apple rep wasn't sure the problem and i would have been out $500 for fixing something that wasn't broken.

and my computer was purchased september 2013 and it doesn't fall under the ssd replacement program.

Again, check the SATA cable which connects the SSD to the logic board. That particular cable is very fragile and might have failed. You can purchase a replacement and install it yourself as it is not a difficult task. Go to www.ifixit.com and look up the procedure. You can purchase the cable from ifixit or from any supplier of Mac parts.

 

[iMacC2D]

Removed.

 

[Daniva]

so the computer does boot up from external drive running el capitan. but the macbook refuses to acknowledge that an ssd drive is there.
so does that mean that my hard drive is toast? I don't know how this happened. I knew that the apple rep wasn't sure the problem and i would have been out $500 for fixing something that wasn't broken

Now you are certain that the GPU soldered with the logic board is healthy

...and my computer was purchased september 2013 and it doesn't fall under the ssd replacement program.

Please, don't consider june 2013 as the deadline of SSD Replacement Program because "The program covers affected MacBook Air for three years after the first retail sale of the unit. Apple will continue to evaluate service data and will provide further updates to this program as needed"

p.s. you still haven't said which model you have. If it's a Mid-2012, Apple will replace your SSD for free

 

[thesituation]

Now you are certain that the GPU soldered with the logic board is healthy


Please, don't consider june 2013 as the deadline of SSD Replacement Program because "The program covers affected MacBook Air for three years after the first retail sale of the unit. Apple will continue to evaluate service data and will provide further updates to this program as needed"

p.s. you still haven't said which model you have. If it's a Mid-2012, Apple will replace your SSD for free

it is the mid 2013 model, the ones that were released with the Haswell processors. I believe the SSD on mine is Samsung. Not too sure however, I can't check because the drive is not working at all.

Is there any software that I can use that will bring my SSD alive?