MacBook erased by mistake to .iso, white screen without logo

I think I just made a very big mistake! And I wonder it there is any way to get my MacBook back to life?

I connected an old MacBook (the white one) I just got from a relative, to a Linux notebook by firewire, it worked all fine. But wanting to write an .iso on an USB key, I unfortunately clicked without checking the destination, and it took the MacBook! Overwrote it in about 30s, said «*success*»!

Now whenever I try to turn on the MacBook comes a white screen with no logo.
I read all the posts I could find about it, tried to start it with R, S, X, C with a boot dvd, T with a firewire cable... nothing more than white screen!
I’m running out of inspiration...

Is there anything else I can try before to throw it away?

I can put a dvd in, hear it spin inside, and take it off by starting with the eject command.
I also marked that if I press the start button when just started, it turns off instantly, otherwise I need to press long to force it to turn off.

Welcome to our forums.

I really don't understand what happened as your explanation is not very clear. But it does sound like the old white MacBook may also have hardware problems. If you can get hold of a proper boot DVD for the MacBook you can test it that way. If the hard drive was wiped, you'll need to find some way to boot the machine either by a proper DVD or USB. You stated that you tried to boot with a firewire cable (T) which means Target Disk Mode. Do you have another Mac?

Also you might try a nvram reset: How to reset nvram.

Of course, all the data on the MacBook is gone. So we're not in any sort of data recovery position.

Much like your Linux, the OS that comes with Macs can be "installed" provided you have a media. OS X is not copy-protected or restricted in any way with keys or anything. The physical device itself is the 'license'. That said, the old white MacBook is limited on which versions of OS X it can run. Those *usually* cap at OS X 10.11, El Capitan. If you know someone who has had a Mac for a while, they likely had El Cap in the past and can get it again from the App Store. It can be written to a USB stick: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Alternatively if you have an OS DVD you could use an externally DVD drive if the internal one is faulty.

Yes, I have access to my girlfriend’s MacBook Pro, can it help?
I tried nvram reset but nothing changed.
I’ll try this week-end to get an old OS X version and write it on usb or dvd.
And hope for the best

I’ll get back to you about that

Well I found OS X El Capitan and even Lion, but the computers don’t want to download them : I find them in the Apple store, press Download, Confirm, but nothing happens.
The computers are a MacBook Pro and and MacBook Air.
Is there something I missed? Or the AppleStore having a bug?

Thanks for your answers

Benitost said:

Well I found OS X El Capitan and even Lion, but the computers don’t want to download them...

Click to expand...

You can only download an older OS if you downloaded it previously...or if it's the newest OS your computers can run (you didn't tell us what exact models these computers are).

El Capitan is an older OS version (OS 10.11...newest is High Sierra 10.13)...and can only be downloaded by someone now if they downloaded back when it was the lastest OS...or if it's the newest OS a particular Apple computer can run.

Lion (OS 10.7) is a much older OS version...and is an OS version that needs to be paid for before downloading (about $19.99)...or can be downloaded again if it was paid for previously.

- Nick

p.s. If these computers aren't too old...and were running a relatively recent version of the Mac OS...there's a Recovery Partition on each computers storage which makes reinstalling the OS easy.

Thanks for the last tips Nick.
There is some hope!!

I did a recovery of El Capitan on the MacBook Pro,
Wrote it on a USB key,
Place this USB key in the problematic MacBook,
Restart pressing the option key,
And directly end on the Boot menu with two options : “Sans Titre” which is the name of the key and “Recovery 10.11.6”
And with a moving mouse arrow!!(it’s been a while without seeing it!!)

Now unfortunatly I’m stuck there.

I click on one or another,
After 15s the screen freeze (cannot move the mouse arrow anymore), as if it would work?
Then nothing happens.
I let it run the whole night, but this morning it was still there on the frozen boot menu...

Any idea?