MacBook :: Blank Screen/Blinking Folder Icon At Boot?
Sep 22, 2010
White MB about three years old. Was watching something on Hulu and HDD started making strange noises and screen froze. Forced reboot and only got white screen. Couldn't even get into single user mode. Got a new WD hard drive thinking it would fix the problem. Put in my backup of the Install Disk (lost the original like an idiot) but all it shows when I hold down the C key is a large blinking folder icon with a question mark on it. Still can't get into single user mode. I may have screwed up the backup of the Install Disk or am using the wrong DVD since I forgot to label it.
disk utility is unable to repair the "Macintosh HD" disk. Re-installing mountain lion is not an option due to the computer's inability to detect the HDD disk. How do I differentiate between a corrupted (dead) hard drive or a broken SATA cable (in which acts as a medium)?
I had only Windows 7 on my HDD for the past few months. I wanted to reinstall mac osx so I restarted it and tried to install it on a partition I made in 7 but to no avail. The disc reformatted the HDD as BOOTCAMP with the old data on it and I lost the extra partition. I placed the HDD in an exernal bay that I have. I backed up what I needed and reformatted. It's being read as G: (NTFS) on my PC and it works. I rebooted witht eh DVD in to reinstall MAC and redo the BOOTCAMP system but the blinking folder comes up.
My Mac just made my heart jump. When I rebooted, it just showed a blank grey screen for about 15 seconds. It then showed a folder with a blinking question mark. I had seen this before on iBooks at my school, and knew it wasn't a good sign. I held down the power button, and rebooted. This time, it started up without a hitch.
My Friend gave me his Old IMac G5 and when I boot it a question mark and the finder folder blinks. My friend says to install OS X because its running on nothing and I have been trying to install. OS X 10.6 but it wont respond to the Disk it just keeps blinking after a while it starts making this. Loud noise as if its running something, the furthest I've got it to a blue screen with a replay icon button. Towards the left and an arrow button pointing right but cant do anything after that, I don't know what to do. My other problem is the I have the latest wireless keyboard and wireless magic mouse so I cant connect them thru wifi until I have my imac running so im using a normal Dell Keyboard....
I'm running OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard (I also BootCamp to Windows XP on occasion if it matters) on a 20" Intel-based iMac (the first aluminum series when there was still an aluminum border around the screen). I have had it since mid-late of last year, and it has been running fine aside from a few common issues. The issue I've run in to now is that the folder icons have vanished from everywhere; the desktop, the dock, the finder, etc. They are replaced by either just a blank space, or the question mark. Upon closer inspection, diving into the system files, I discovered a number of the system applications are also lacking icons. Here is a screenshot to illustrate my point: [URL]
I have done a fair bit of crawling around and discovered a few methods to correct this, but to no avail. I have... 1. Simply tried restarting the computer, multiple times. 2. I have tried Force Quitting the Finder. 3. I have tried going into the Terminal and typing 'killall Finder'. 4. Deleting the various .plist files that have been suggested for similar problems. 5. I tried repairing the permissions through the Disc Utility 6. There was another very long command that was recommended be put into the Terminal as well, but I can't recall the command at the moment.
Another concerning fact about this whole mess is that I jumped into Candybar, more out of curiosity than anything, and the place where the Folder icons should have appeared doesn't even get displayed anymore, as though they don't exist. I'm not using any different programs for Spotlight, or anything of the nature. The most I've done is I have CleanMyMac that I run pretty regularly, and the last thing I installed before the issues began was iStat for the Dashboard. I know that my end all solution would be to just back up the files that I need and reinstall SL, but if there is a way to fix this without it coming to that, I would prefer to go that route. In part because I don't have the restore disc with me, stupid move on my part and I recognize that.
I'm having an issue with my PowerBook G4. It wouldn't turn on at all before, so I installed another motherboard. Now it will power on, but it only shows this folder icon that blinks. I'm a complete n00b to macs. If this were a PC I would of fixed it by now. I need some help. I've tried the installation disk, but when I hold down the C key, it takes longer, but it just shows that folder again. When I hold down the Option key, it only gives me a reload button, and an arrow button, but no boot up options. Do you think it could be a problem with this other used motherboard? Or is it that I just didn't put it in right? I've double checked all the hardware, and it seems to be all connected. The keyboard lights up, and the trackpad works, and it makes the boot-up sound.
Just came back from the Genius Bar at Apple Amsterdam. Both iTunes and iPhoto had problems launching and libraries were not loading. Ruled out hardware problems so they tried installing OS Snow Leopard over my 10.5.8 in a way to keep my documents safe. All went well until halfway it said it couldn't install succesfully. Made a new appointment for in 3 days from now. They would then overwrite the current OS with the new one so i should go home and make sure to back up all my files in the meantime. Problem is that when i came home and started my laptop i got a blank/white screen with a blinking documents folder symbol with a question mark in it! Does anybody know what it means and will i be able to ever make a back up of my documents?
MacBook Pro (snow leopard) 2006 has begun to turn off attached Cinema Display over the last two days. Comes back on on restart. This morning, the MacBook screen also went blank white on restart. Tried to use Snow Leopard CD to restart but it was ejected and folder with ? is only thing that displays. Will not restart. Have replaced hard drive 6 months ago. I need this computer for work.
I'm trying to fix my GF's Macbook Pro. This thing since day 1 has had so many little issues she's replacing it with a Dell. Anyhow, I want to try to fix the computer and I'm very good with computer hardware, just not familiar with troubleshooting Macs. The computer when turned on doesn't make a sound, it just sits at a blank screen with the power LED on the front lit solid. I have tried resetting the PRAM, resetting the SMC, and reseating the memory. I even swapped the memory.
It's the same behavior each time, just sits there, nothing comes on the screen. No noises. It does get quite warm sitting there powered on, though not obscenely hot. I can power it off with the power button as well. I have heard of trying to boot off of the restore CD or something but I feel that won't work and the problem is most likely hardware related. Nothing strange happened before this computer stopped working. It was not dropped, no water, or anything like that.
Specs are the machine is as follows: 15" Macbook Pro 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB, 128MB VRAM, 120GB 5400 RPM Drive
All of a sudden my 13" MacBook pro (2011) takes a long time to shut down. And on boot up it remains on a blank white screen where all I can do is move the mouse around. It may or may not boot to the desktop. At the moment I'm leaving it on sleep and it performs fine, apps load like normal but I'm afraid to shut it down incase it won't boot up again. The shut down takes so long that I need to hold the power button to shut it down. I've read around that it could be hardware failure but like I said I have it on sleep and it performs fine when I wake it.
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
My MBP 13" Retina just stopped rendering the screen. On boot, it chimes and the back light comes on but that's it. At first I thought it was non responsive, but when I connect an external monitor I can see that it works fine. It's just the primary display that doesn't render anything (only backlight with blank, black screen).
A few details worth knowing:
1) Last time I saw my primary display work, I had 10% battery left, I shut the lid. Next time I opened the lid, around 2 days later, it was just blank and backlit. I did a forced restart and from then on it only gave me a blank backlit black screen.
2) Works well if i boot it with an external monitor connected. when the chime comes on, I immediately shut the lid and use only the external display with external keyboard and mouse.
3) Video gets laggy when I use it on dual monitor mode (not the case before this problem happened). I boot up the macbook with an external display connected. No video on both screens. I have to login blindly before the second monitor gets video. Primary display still doesn't render anything, albeit showing a lighted blank black screen.
4) I've already tried resetting the PRAM. didn't work.
My Macbook will not boot up. I am now faced with a plain grey screen with no apple logo, chime sound or activity wheel appearing.
Like most Macbook users I know, I rarely go through the booting up process from day to day use unless the System Updater requires a restart, but this time there was a different reason for me restarting the system.
When I was expanding an archive with Stuffit Expander, the app froze up. I went and deleted the archive file knowing that it was corrupt, but I did this too soon before the app had a chance to close down properly. It became stuck as a process that couldn't be closed down. Its dock icon didn't have a 'Force Quit' menu option so, I chose to perform a restart.
The Macbook went through the startup process but took a very long time. (I guess after reading around the forums this was fsck attempting to scan and repair the potentially damaged hard drive). I mistakenly performed a hard reboot thinking the system had hung.
The second time, it displayed the apple logo and wheel for about 2 minutes before showing a circle with a line through it and no further activity. When I rebooted again the apple logo and wheel were displayed with the hard drive activity audibly in a repetitive on and off state. I left this for about 15 minutes before deciding to turn it off. At the present moment it starts up to a plain grey screen as mentioned at the beginning. I tried experimenting with removing the extra 2gb memory module but there was no difference with or without it. I tried resting the NVRAM with Option-Command-P-R but all I got back was the startup chime (i.e. the muted volume I had it at has now reset to the default level).
When Option is held down on booting, the mouse cursor is visible over the same blank grey screen. No volumes show up. I have selected the Finder Preferences option to hide all volumes from showing up on the desktop, but I doubt this would affect volumes from showing up on the boot up screen.
I have tried booting from the 10.4 CD that came with the Macbook and the 10.5 (retail) DVD. The 'C' or 'D' keys do not have any effect either.
I think my options now are either to try and obtain a firmware reset CD which might make it possible to recognise volumes again, or there's the possibility that I'll have to get a new hard drive. Can you suggest anything else I might be able to try?
On the subject of hard drives, if it turns out that the Macbook's hard drive is beyond repair and I need a new drive I only have a caddy for 3.5" PATA drives which I use for Time Machine. With an appropriate 2.5" SATA caddy is there any way I could access the filesystem in Windows? How else could I format the drive to the correct FS?
I came home for lunch today, and found my Mac Mini G4 with the fan running, and a blank screen. It was obviously locked up. System has 10.5.2 with all of the latest updates. This is not my primary system, I have an MBP for that.
Here is what I did:
Force a power off/on, and I get the normal gray screen with the Apple, and spinning gear, but it never stops spinning.
I have a G5 that has started intermittently booting up with a totally blank screen - not blue, no video at all. Sometimes on reboot or after resetting the PRAM it works again.
From time to time, now, on my recently-acquired 2008 2.8x8 Mac Pro, it'll boot to a blank white screen, no Apple logo, no spinning indicator. It does not have Boot Camp set up. A single press of the power button will turn it off and it'll boot fine the immediately subsequent try. The console doesn't show anything.
Some weeks ago the screen on my iMac started to go blank. The only way to recover was to re-boot. The problem got worse until the machine became un-usable. I tried everything I knew, including switching off and unplugging to reset the pram as suggested, but eventually took it to the Apple Store where the 'expert' reset the pram the old way holding down the cmd/opt/p/r keys on startup. Problem solved (why do Apple give bad advice to clear the pram?).
Something had corrupted the software that drives the screen. The only program that I could think might have done that was ScreenRecycler which I have now stopped using. However, the problem has started to re-appear, the only new program I have used is Audirvana which being a music program should not affect the screen.
Info: iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), printer, scanner, ATVs, external hard drives, USB DAC
I just bought a powerbook, and I'm trying to get it to turn on. It doesn't have a hard drive, so obviously it won't be able to get it to boot. I just want to be able to get to the flashing folder. When I press the power button, the computer does nothing, not even the fan spins. The only indication I have that it is on is the caps lock light turns on. I've tried resetting the pram, but the screen stays blank and does nothing. I don't have any ram modules in it, so it shouldn't be a ram problem.
I did some reading online, and know that the flashing question mark basically means that there's either a problem with the OS installation or the hard drive itself. I borrowed a friend's Snow Leopard installation CD (mine didn't come with the CD) to try to boot from it, but it refuses to boot from the CD.
The only keyboard bootup control that does anything so far as I can tell is the alt key (using a windows keyboard), which results a long delay while booting, followed by a blank screen with a mouse cursor. Everything else just ends up with the flashing question mark. If I try to hold C to boot from the CD, it sits there for 3-4 minutes with the occassional CD whirring sound, then ejects the CD and goes to the flashing question mark.
My macbook pro doesn't boot beyond the grey screen with apple icon and spinning wheel. I used the "Option" button to access the Disk Utility function and run Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions. Should I restart my computer?
So I kinda want to explain my saga of my (late 2009) Macbook Pro.
I got the first generation of the MBP shortly after it came out.... I actually purchased it on Black Friday.
Anyhoo- -The specs: -15" Glossy Screen -2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Due -2 GB 1064 MHz DDR3 -NVIDIA GeForce 9400M -Toshiba 250gb HDD (So as you can see, pretty basic machine.)
Anyway, I'd only had the computer a few months when I started getting the blinking folder on startup. I brought it in, and they verified the HDD was going bad, so they gave me a new HDD. About a month later, I had the same problem happen again. The "Genius" I talked to said it was probably my Logic Board, so they replaced that. However, after getting my computer back from the shop, on my first startup, I got the blinking folder. So I TOOK it back AGAIN, and they replaced my HDD again.
A few months later, I started having issues with both the HDD not spinning up and my USB affecting my iSight camera (weird I know) so I brought it in again, and they finally just replaced my whole computer.
Everything worked great for a while, until once again, I started getting the flashing folder on startup, I took it in and they replaced my HDD again. (Yeah, this is like HDD number 3 for me now)
Since then, I have had the HDD replaced two other times, along with my superdrive, and MagSafe adapter.......I'm not exactly liked at my local Apple Store.... they know me by name... I don't exactly like going there anymore...
I also want to note that I literally baby my computer; I almost polish it daily, and am extremely careful with it
So my current list of repairs looks like this: � 5 HDD replacements � New Logic Board � New Super Drive � MagSafe adapter � New Computer
ALL that being said, I plan to sell my computer as soon as Apple Care expires; I can't risk having a flakey computer on my hands... I can't afford to pay for all the repairs. My Apple Care will expire next December, so I'm hoping I can sell it around late December- early January and be just in time for the new MBP refresh, which I'm hoping that year will include possible:
Why I'm posting all this is mainly just because I wanted to hear if anyone else has had anything similar happen to them.... I'm a sucker for when it comes to first generation Apple stuff, but now I know.
My macbook is about two years old and recently have encountered problems. When I turn on the computer all I see is a blinking folder and question mark. I have tried putting in the install cd but it does not work. I try to reinstall mac os x but it tells me it could not be done. I have tried repairing the disk and numerous other things. I did not have anything truly important on the computer so I am not worried if I lose it.
I Don't have a lot of knowledge of computers so I apologize if any of this doesn't make sense. I have an exactly 2 year old White Macbook. To make it short....screen froze....restarted...eventually got blinking folder with question mark. Tried all the various ways/modes (safe,single,etc) to restart the computer and nothing. Read the macbook booklet and it said to enter the Mac OS X disk 1 and I did that. It eventually worked, the disk that is. Went to Disk Utility and tried to repair Mac OS X Install Disc 1 and get ERROR:No valid packages. In the column of choices there are 3 other options for me to click and repair. I don't know if these options are confidential and need to be kept private but I will omit some of the numbers/ letters. These are the other 3 options: GB Hitachi HTS....( this is what I get when I try to repair: Invalid B-tree node size Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit......also.. 1 HFS Volume checked .....Volume needs repair disk0s2 ......this option when I try to repair gives the same exact error as the one above. GB MATSHITA.... this option gives the same response as when I try to repair the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 ......ERROR:No valid packages. Also I tried to reinstall Mac OS X by following the installer and clicked English and then get to Select a destination volume to install the Mac OS X software and there are NO options available for me to click. I am so desperate right now.
I Was skyping with a friend went to do something came back i was signed out of skype and my computer froze i restarted then it gave me a blinking file witch means failing hard drive so i put in my old hard drive that i knew works and still gives me a blinking file macbook pro 08 running on mavericks osx and something been running down ram for awhile to where it was not usable i had to keep running memory clean ...
My computer seemed locked up, nothing would open. I had to force quiy everthing. I tried to normally shut it down and it wouldnt shut down. I held the on off power switch. When I tried to turn it back on It stays tuck on the white screen with a flashing folder icon with a question mark in it . Has my hard drive gone bad?
On Sunday night I found my macbook pro ("13, mid 2010, refurbished) in a frozen state a few seconds after waking it from sleep. So I did a forced restart and then my macbook wouldn't boot (blinking question mark folder). I troubleshooted with the OSX Install DVD on my own before taking it to the Genius Bar (disk utility & TDM could not find the hard drive), and we both came to the conclusion that I should install a new drive. So yesterday I bought a new drive, did a fresh OSX install and managed to migrate all of my info from my presumed damaged drive to the new one. Everything went smoothly and the computer was in working order all night. That is until this morning when I shut it down before bringing it to work. On my lunch break I decided to fire up my newly upgraded macbook only to find that it once again would not boot, still with the blinking question mark folder. I also tested to see if I have faulty RAM and it doesn't look like it (unless both sticks are fried).
I woke up to my MacBook fan going nuts. Had an error message on the screen that said something about a disk error. The machine wouldn't do anything (force quit, launch app) so I hard powered down. Now.....NOTHING. All I get is the white screen, followed by the flashing folder. Here is what I have tried so far.
I already booted from the restore cd that came with it and opened disk utility. The hard drive shows up as something like disk1 but not "Macintosh HD."Tried to repair permissions and got an error message. Thought then to do an archive and install......and the HDD isn't even a viable option to install the OS on.
I had the original (but smaller) HDD that came with my MacBook, so I put it back in and everything booted up just fine and is back up and running. (Thank God for MobleMe that had all my contacts, etc on it). But I still have some info on that other HDD that I need. I ordered a usb enclosure for the drive to maybe try some recovery, but it seems to me that the HDD failed or something. Is there anything else I can do?
So, I was on windows, using bootcamp, and I was creating partitions on a pen drive with it, and then it asks me that it needs to restart to apply changes.
But then, while restarting, a blue screen occurred (**** windows).... And I forced the shutdown pressing the power key.
Then, I simply turned the MacBook on, trying to boot on my snow leopard and I got a flashing folder with a question mark on it. Now I can't access any partitions on it, if I press option key on startup I get a blank window!
I tried to reset PRAM, repair the MacOs partition using the snow leopard DVD (it shows up fine, along with windows partition and EFI partition), and I still don't get my startup disk showing up...
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Snow Leopard with windows7 bootcamp
