# Mac not working - white circle and bar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294 "2018-11-10T13:25:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/1 "2018-11-10T13:25:54Z")
Weird thing with our Mac - after entering the user password, it comes up with a black screen with a white circle and bar (like the red symbol for “no” only white. Anyone have any idea why? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2018, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/2 "2018-11-10T13:28:27Z")
According to Apple support, it’s a problem with MacOS > **[If your Mac doesn't start up all the way](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156)** > > If your Mac doesn't start up all the way or needs you to do something during startup, it might stop at one of these screens. If you scroll down here, there are some suggestions on a fix [MacBook Pro / Circle with Slash on Startup - Apple Community](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8297759) (No clue how useful they are though) ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/3 "2018-11-10T13:30:31Z")
Yeah, that’s bad. That means the machine got a kernel panic early in the boot process. You need to re-install the OS from the recovery partition. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/4 "2018-11-10T14:26:04Z")
Thank you. All I really understand is “that’s bad” Off to the Mac shop we go for the repairs. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/5 "2018-11-10T15:00:39Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Yeah, that’s bad. > That means the machine got a kernel panic early in the boot process. You need to re-install the OS from the recovery partition. basically the Mac version of a Blue Screen of Death. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/6 "2018-11-11T01:21:43Z")
Mac guy said that it needs to be re-loaded with OS, plus there may be some physical damage … Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/7 "2018-11-11T01:37:58Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Yeah, that’s bad. > That means the machine got a kernel panic early in the boot process. You need to re-install the OS from the recovery partition. I back up my Mac to an external drive using Time Machine. In the event this ever happens to me, can I boot from the external drive? (If so, how?) ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/8 "2018-11-11T02:33:44Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I back up my Mac to an external drive using Time Machine. In the event this ever happens to me, can I boot from the external drive? (If so, how?) A Time Machine backup is not bootable. It’s a pile of incremental backups that get re-assembled when restoring to a fresh drive. I use Time Machine for long term backups (“pretty sure I had the file I need four months ago” type stuff), but for emergency bootable backups, I have Carbon Copy Cloner make a complete, bootable backup to an external drive every evening. And since fire or theft or earthquake could wipe out both backups at the same time, I make sure that everything that would be hard to recover (not apps, not the system) in the cloud as well. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/9 "2018-11-11T03:33:12Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I back up my Mac to an external drive using Time Machine. In the event this ever happens to me, can I boot from the external drive? (If so, how?) You can’t boot from it, but you can use the Recovery Partition (boot with the cmd-R keys held down) to restore from it. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/10 "2018-11-11T04:06:30Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > You can’t boot from it, but you can use the Recovery Partition (boot with the cmd-R keys held down) to restore from it. I had no idea such a thing existed. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/11 "2018-11-11T04:08:33Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I had no idea such a thing existed. It’s pretty handy. It will even allow you to re-install from the Internet (direct download from Apple’s site), as long as you have working WiFi or Ethernet. Not the fastest way to recover, but better than staring at a dead machine… ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-not-working-white-circle-and-bar/824294/12 "2018-11-11T21:27:13Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > It’s pretty handy. > It will even allow you to re-install from the Internet (direct download from Apple’s site), as long as you have working WiFi or Ethernet. Not the fastest way to recover, but better than staring at a dead machine… Similarly, there’s a recovery partition on the Mac’s internal drive too. So if somehow the system becomes corrupt but the drive is still good, you can boot and reinstall just as **beowulff** described.