2013 Macbook Air can't get past grey screen

Question

We were camping, I was trying to pull up a movie and it froze. It was completely unresponsive, I didn't see the kernel panic message but I forced a restart by holding down the power button. On booting again, it went straight to the "prohibitory symbol." I forced another restart, and since then, the screen has just been grey. No Apple logo, nothing. After 30-45 minutes, I get the flashing question mark folder.

I have reset the SMC and NVRAM. Resetting the NVRAM seems to work, it does the startup chime, the screen flashes, and then shortly after it chimes again. It didn't help.

I can't boot into recovery ⌘ CommandR., Internet recovery ⌘ Command⌥ OptionR, or diagnostics D. Safe mode ⇧ Shift and single-user mode ⌘ Commands didn't work either.

I have tried booting off of a Lubuntu flash drive ⌥ Option and a SliTaz live CD via a USB CD drive C; neither of those did anything either. If I leave it for a while, the flash drive will start blinking and the CD spins up, but the computer is still grey and unresponsive. I have a Mac at work, so I might try creating a bootable flash drive from that once I go back.

I've ordered one of their cursed pentalobe screwdrivers; does anyone know if this machine has diagnostic LEDs like the older iMacs? I'm thinking it's definitely a hardware issue at this point but I don't know how to move forward, I figure I can at least recover the SSD.

Thanks in advance, let me know if you need any other details. I haven't seen anything like this before.

I think it was running 10.8 or 10.9 but I don't know for sure, I haven't really used it in a couple years. Model is A1466, EMC 2632.

Answer 1

... does anyone know if this machine has diagnostic LEDs like the older iMacs?

There are no diagnostic LEDs on the logic board.

I'm thinking it's definitely a hardware issue at this point but I don't know how to move forward, I figure I can at least recover the SSD.

This is a big jump in determination when two very conspicuous clues were presented:

• A prohibitory symbol means that it cannot find a boot volume

  • Fix a sometimes happening prohibitory sign 🚫
  • No entry sign on 2017 Macbook Pro--will replacing the hard disk work?
  • Can't format my Macbook, HDD and mac Utilities won't load, “blocked” sign after trying to boot usb

• A folder with a flashing question mark means the file system on the boot volume was corrupted.

  • Unable to boot up my Mac. Getting a flashing folder with a question mark

  • iMac only show flashing folder with question mark after formatting OS X partition drive

  • Not seeing my HD in the disk utility

Now, I'm not ruling out hardware - it's entirely possible your drive has failed. But breaking out the screwdriver prior to doing any sort of diagnostics or even examining the symptoms a bit more is putting the cart before the horse. You can run Apple Diagnostics by holding D while booting from a powered off state.