I recently had occasion to install Snow Leopard on an older MacBook Pro. I put in the install DVD and started the process going. After it rebooted, the startup sound played, the Apple logo showed, the activity animation spun around for a bit… then the screen went black. I let it sit for a while, assuming things would happily re-appear. No such luck. The machine was running and sounded active, but nothing ever appeared on the screen.
After some consulting with good friend Google, I gathered that this same behavior was witnessed by a number of people (blog, forums). Older MacBooks upgrading to Snow Leopard sometimes apparently fail to engage the backlight.
Thankfully, there was a lo-tech and amusing workaround: a flashlight!
With the assistance of this external lighting I could see enough of the install screens to complete the process. It’s easiest to see holding the light not too close to the screen and at a steep angle to avoid glare. Not that anything really helps, this is an annoying and slow process. Finding the mouse cursor by having to scan the whole screen bit by bit, not so fun.
Joyfully, after the final reboot, the backlight returned from its slumber:
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F*cken Apple won’t even acknowledge this problem!
F*cken apple won’t even acknowledge this problem.