Macbook Air 2019 will not boot from USB or complete Internet Recovery, Exhausted options

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Internet Recovery fails. USB Boot fails. Target mode won't mount.

Macbook Air 2019 TrueTone, ran before I deleted the SSD (stupid). Battery shot, requires power supply to run.

  1. Tried Internet Recovery with CMD-R, OPT-CMD-R, SHFT-OPT-CMD-R. All run download with progress (about an hour), then remain at full progress bar for days until I shut down. Reset PRAM. Tried various Internet, including Gigabit speed. 20 tries or more, occasional dropped Internet error -2003F on lousy WiFi.

  2. USB boot defaults to Internet Recovery. USB Drive is recognized, chosen, goes directly to Internet Recovery. Created several USB boots with several sticks and several apps, including manual w/ Terminal. Chose various erase formats (GUID, etc). Chose several OS installers (Catalina, Mojave). Latest USB stick with Mojave boots older 2014 iMac, but not the new Macbook.

  3. Will not mount in Target mode. Macbook displays target mode, but will not mount on iMac. Bought a new wire.

Beautiful, new, clean laptop, hardly used, left discharged for months, thus bad battery.

Can anyone think of anything else to try? Apple Store, maybe? Would they do anything I haven't? Does a dead battery affect these things?

Best Answer

Call Apple or chat online with service would be my next step. Ask for a mail in repair if available and convenient. #3 is really unlikely to be anything easy if you have charged it for 2 to 4 hours.

Flat rate repairs for these are quite reasonable amd it would cover things like battery and or cpu board. Possibly under warranty or a program, worse case you get a quote for a professional battery repair.

A totally flat battery can drag the whole controller and board down. Hard to say until it’s in the shop with known good parts to test things out internally.