The macintosh blue screen of death; it’s truly one of the scariest sights for any Mac user. The screen doesn’t care what project you were working on or its increasingly close deadline, it’s here to shut you down. On first seeing a bluescreen on Mac the instinctive response is to panic. But don’t worry, all hope isn’t lost! There are steps you can take on seeing the screen that can hopefully get your machine running back to normal.

Here’s what you need to do to troubleshoot a blue screen on your Mac.

The Bluescreen Of Death: What is a Bluescreen on Mac?

A bluescreen on Mac is a sign that something to do with your system hasn’t loaded properly. It typically happens during start-up and is often to do with either an issue with the start-up drive or a problem with one of your peripherals.

The MacBook blue screen is one of several notorious computing problems, like the “red ring of death” which happened when old Xbox 360 consoles stopped functioning. Despite how people like to claim these sights mean the death of your machine, in your Mac’s case that may not be the case.

The good news is that is you’re seeing a blue screen your Mac is still technically working. It has been able to power up and attempted to load from the start-up drive, meaning there isn’t any serious issue with your hardware. 

If your Mac isn’t even starting up to show you a blue screen, you have a whole different problem entirely.

With the blue screen problem, you need to take the appropriate measures to ensure the likely start-up drive or peripheral error can be fixed. 

How Do I Fix a Blue Screen on Macbook Pro?

The first thing you need to do is find out if this is a peripherals problem or if it’s been caused by the start-up drive.

Your peripherals are things such as USB sticks that have been inserted into the Mac itself. If this is the problem, then it’s a fairly easy one to solve. Make sure that you shut down your Mac first, to make sure you cause no further problems whilst the computer is powered up.

Once you’ve shut down, you can simply disconnect the peripherals attached to your Mac then power it back up. If it restarts normally, you know that your USB stick or whatever else was connected to the machine is likely defective. This can often be the cause of a problem with your iPhone not charging, also.

If this is the case and you have multiple peripherals, you should reboot with each one inserted, to figure out which is causing the problem.

However, if the blue screen returns, you can rule out your peripherals having caused the problem. You’ll then need to move on to looking at your Mac’s start-up drive.

This is unfortunately where the repair process can get more complicated.

What Do I Do If The Blue Screen on my Mac is a Start-up Drive Problem?

To be absolutely certain that the issue is with your start-up drive, you should first attempt to start your Mac in safe mode. To do this you have to hold the shift key whilst powering up.

Starting in safe mode can sometimes solve the problem, meaning all you need to do is restart again and you hopefully won’t see the blue screen.

If safe mode doesn’t solve your problem, you need to start properly looking at your start-up drive. You can often fix the start-up drive through Apple’s Disk Utility or other third-party apps. Apple has an extensive Disk Utility guide to help explain how it can be used.

But first, you must have the means of booting the system with a separate start-up drive. Otherwise, you won’t be able to access the disk utility guide and will have no way of repairing the start-up drive. This can be done in several ways.

You can use a bootable start-up drive, which is found on an external hard drive or USB. You will need to insert this into your Mac then hold the option key when you start-up. This will allow you to select this device to start-up, rather than your faulty start-up drive.

You can also use an OS X Install DVD, which is inserted into your systems DVD drive. You must hold down the c key to start-up from a DVD drive.

You can also boot up from what’s known as a Recovery HD, but you have to have created this before your mac displayed the blue screen.

Another option is to start your Mac in whats known as “single-user mode”. Because single-user mode doesn’t need to use the start-up drive, you should be able to access it despite your blue screen problem. From the mode, you can use commands to repair the drive.

But even if you can get into your Mac through one of these methods, you’ll likely need to hire an expert to complete the repair process. As can be seen by the different methods you can take above, repairing the start-up drive is a far more intensive repair process than just removing your peripherals. 

What Do I Do If I Can’t Repair My Mac?

If you have a bluescreen on Mac and haven’t been able to solve the problem through peripherals or fixing the start-up drive yourself, the best thing to do is contact an expert.

The last thing you want to do is to try and fix the machine yourself and make the problem worse.

At Fruit Fixed we provide a professional technical repair service with a lifetime warranty. If you have a blue screen or any other problem with your Mac that is fixable, we can fix it.

We’re even continuing to operate during the COVID-19 outbreak because we know how essential our repair service is to our customers.

You can use our website to find the model you need help repairing. Or, if you’d prefer, please contact us directly using our email or phone line.

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