Retina Macbook Pro White screen with rEFInd
An EFI boot manager utility
Status: Beta
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I have a Retina Macbook Pro and rEFInd is installed. It was working fine for a few hours, however, after booting Linux and after a normal restart, the white screen appeared. At this white screen I am unable to use any of the normal hotkeys the Mac usually allows at boot such as option and cmd+r. NOTHING WORKS! When I boot, the chime sounds and then the white screen stays there forever... I read on another thread that the drivers were a problem? I am wondering if there is any safe boot or anything similar with rEFInd. Please understand that I am no expert, but I am willing to try anything.
Thanks.
Last edit: Enrico Borba 2013-07-14
Try resetting your PRAM, as described here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
If this gets your system booting again, you can try again, but without the drivers. (For added safety, try using a rEFInd USB flash drive image; that way, if it flakes out again, you can just pull the USB flash drive when you reboot.)
Thanks for the quick reply, but unfortunately, the system still won't boot. The PRAM definitely resets since it restarts as it should during the reset. I've tried many, if not all, of the boot shortcuts... Is there any way to force boot from a USB so I can use Gparted or something to format the drive. Btw I don't mind if I lose the data on the HDD. I just need the computer back...
You could try plugging in an external disk (a USB flash drive, say) or a CD-R with an EFI boot loader and hold down the Option key. I'm not optimistic about this, though, since you say the Option key isn't working for you. Beyond that, I'm not an expert at Mac boot shortcuts, so I'm not sure what to suggest. Certainly the Option key should do its thing before rEFInd executes, so if it's not working that means that something's been fouled up in the NVRAM/PRAM.
My only remaining thought at this point is to pull the hard disk. Unfortunately, Apple makes this notoriously difficult to do on many of their models. If yours has an easily-removed hard disk, though, it's definitely worth trying.
I was afraid that that would be the only option... Especially because the Retina Mac Models are so tedious to deal with internally. Thanks again and I'll post if I make any progress.
I fixed it! Those darn drivers! I was able to access the SSD (Retina Macbook Pro 15") on an Ubuntu live USB. I had to buy 2 screw drivers just to remove the thing… Apple uses the most uncommon screws in the world! It took quite a bit of work to be able to delete the files since the permissions on the SSD were all set. But once the drives were deleted, the Mac lived! Thanks a ton Rod!