Wi-Fi not working in recovery mode

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When a MacBook enters recovery mode or the boot menu it cannot rely on drivers from MacOS, and instead the platform must initialize model specific drivers during the UEFI DXE boot stage; because of this, a MacBook can only initialize a model specific driver for the wireless card that is specifically designed to be in THAT MacBook. The MacBook EFI is an optimised firmware, and would be wasteful to bloat it with unnecessary drivers.


Here is a real world example; the Wi-Fi card in an A1502 will fit nicely into an A1398 and work in MacOS, however, when recovery mode is booted, i.e., Internet Recovery, no wireless networks will be discovered you'll more than likely encounter the following error codes:-

  • -1005F
  • -1005U


If any of this read looks familiar, you should check your Wi-Fi card is compatible with the MacBook it's installed in, else you'll have no access to networks in the boot menu, internet recovery or diagnostics as the EFIROM contains no driver to initialize the Wi-Fi hardware.

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