So basically what happened was I was updating my Mac (2016 Pro 13") and the installation got stuck. Upon rebooting, I couldn't get past the log in screen, safe mode wouldn't work, and neither would Recovery/Internet recovery. The battery will not charge and it won't recognize my bootable USB and I've already tried resetting the PRAM/SMC. On top of that the battery is down to ~10% so it doesn't have much time left for me to troubleshoot. I had originally thought that the logic board gave out, but I've had an issue like this in the past and reinstalling MacOS suddenly made everything work again, but this time I can't get into the recovery drive. Is there some way to use Target Disk Mode on another Mac to reinstall MacOS before I get stuck taking this back to Apple for an out of warranty repair?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Reinstall MacOS using Target Disk Mode?
- Thread starter Tmelon
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So update on my situation in case anyone has the same issue in the future. I got home last night to do try this out with 2% battery remaining and of course the battery died. Somehow once the battery was dead I was able to reset the SMC again and it miraculously started charging, but still wouldn't boot into recovery or internet recovery. At that point I was able to go into target disk mode and restore from a time machine backup using the recovery drive from my second MBP. After ~6 hours when the backup was restored I was able to get into the recovery drive on my main MBP and reinstall MacOS. Long story short, everything seems to be working now and I saved myself a hefty sum of money for a repair.