MacBook :: Flashing "?" On Gray Folder -- Does Not Start Up
Apr 30, 2012
Saturday, my Macbook was working ok and I left it for a few minutes. When I returned, it instructed me to press and hold the power button to restart it. I did, but the only thing that came up (and still does) is the gray folder with a ? flashing. I took it to the Apple store and they said the hard drive was dead and wanted to sell me another hard drive. A different computer repair person (not at Apple) told me that he could re-install the operating system but that all the files would have to be wiped from the hard drive.. Now, I'm just a bit confused and think this hard drive might be salvagable. The Apple store said the hard drive is not even visible with the test they ran. However, Apple.com gives me an option to insert the installation disc and try rebooting. I bought this remanufactured and it did not come with a disc. I do NOT have those discs.
Question: is there anything that I can do to recover the hard drive, or, at least, the files I stored there? I just restarted it, held down Cntrl C and the screen is gray with no flashing ?.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.3)
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Apr 11, 2012
All of a sudden screen stays gray and flashing folder with "?" on it
Info:
MacBook
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Jun 17, 2012
I just bought a new iMac. I have been trying all week (with no success) to transfer files and apps from my previous iMac. The last time I tried to transfer, I used target mode on the old computer. It looked as if it was finally working, so I left with 2+ hours remaining on the transfer. When I returned, the computer was frozen and nothing would work. So I held the power button to turn it off. When I tried to turn it back on, there was only a gray screen with a flashing folder with a question mark. I feel like I have tried everything listed in other discussions. The only thing I am not able to try is to reinstall Lion because the new computer did NOT come with an OSX disc of any type.
Info:
iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Sep 1, 2009
I have a 13" unibody MacBook running 10.5.8
When I start it up I get the Apple "chime" then the flashing folder with a question mark. Have tried all the standard procedures, ie. reset PRam, try to reboot i safe mode, single use mode etc... to no avail.
I can reboot from the install drive.
When I go to disk utilities my System Hard Drive shows up, passes Repair Disk Permissions as well as Repair Disk.
I can even go into Images>Scan Image for Restore and see all the files on my HD are still there - Documents, Photos, Apps, Desktop, Music. It shows how many folders and files there are. I can aslo go into System Profiler from the startup disk and the HD structure seems fine. So, I don't believe I have a catastrophic HD failure, but something else with hardware etc... Is there a ROM chip on a Mac that holds boot info similar to a Windows machine that has a BIOS chip? IF so, has anyone heard of these going bad?
I am not a hardware guru, but it seems it is not reading the startup files. So, I reinstalled the system using Archive my data and it still will not boot. I really need to save the data off this HD. It is under warranty.
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Mar 19, 2012
Today my I had used my macbook like normal and all of the sudden it was frozen for an extended period of time and would not respond so I had to hit the power button. When I turned it back on a folder with a question mark flashed on the screen. I did some troubleshooting and tried "safe booting" but it took forever and it didn't fix anything. I don't have my original installation DVD because I am a college student at home for spring break and it is at my house back at school.
Info:
MacBook Pro
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May 6, 2012
my macbook won't start, instead a picture of a file folder with a ? on it keeps flashing
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Jul 11, 2009
I have recently come across an extremely cheap ibook (free) which i was able to keep if I got it too work. Well I've been successfully fairly by using it for a few weeks, then it just died. Not sure how it did but it did. The problems seem to be with the flashing (Finder/?) folder on a gray screen back ground. I've already run through the [URL] tutorials of what's wrong and have successfully done a PRAM and a PMU reset with no result. One of the times that I restarted the iBook and after the flashing folder got two new separate folders. One with an arrow turning clockwise on the left, and another folder with an arrow pointing right on the right. Both in blue folders as the flashing folders. Now I believe the problem is that the iBook is unable to find and utilize the Startup Disk. Forums I have read state to put in the reinstall disc, which I don't see how that will work on account of the CD tray not responding to anything I've yet put in there. Not trying with disc until i know that is the only possible solution. Don't want to loose my disc. Maybe some of you have come across this situation and know of a sure fire way to fix it. If not, Ill have to just send it in to some site.
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Sep 22, 2010
my Macbook wont start-up. When I switch it on it comes up with a flashing folder with a question mark in. I have been advised to start from my Mac OS X installation disk.
However, the website says "Insert your Mac OS X installation disc (if you have discs with both versions, use whichever is closest to the Mac OS X version installed on your Mac; do not use a startup disc which came with a different Mac or which contains an earlier version of Mac OS X)."
My original installation disks are Mac OS X 10.4. But I have been upgrading my system. My last upgrade was to Mac OS X 10.6.
Which disk do I use? Do I use the 10.6, as this is the one with the current operating system or do I use 10.4 as this was the original disk that was bought with the macbook.
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Sep 9, 2014
I replaced my hard drive after it crashed. I formatted the new drive and installed mavericks from a bootable flash drive. I first tried installing lion over the internet, it took over 40 hours to load on an ethernet cable and quit when it was 98% done saying it could not download additional components. I then tried the flash drive thing, which was just as painful as a process. It would not install on my hard drive, saying the partition was damaged and needed to be repaired, however disk utility could not repair it.
I recreated the partition about 50 times and it never worked. Then I erased the hard drive and started over, and mavericks was able to install. I used my computer for about an hour, setting everything up and what not. I then opened my computer for the first time since, and nothing would work. It wouldn't even restart or shut down. So I forced the power off and when I turned it back on I saw the flashing file with a question mark again.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012)
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Sep 11, 2014
on startup, macbook pro showed flashing gray folder with question mark, but no startup. After several retries, now shows circle with diagonal diameter, and still no startup. worked fine yesterday.
Info:
MacBook Pro
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Apr 27, 2012
I had this previously and did a complete erase and reinstall. This time I have reset my NPRAM and used disc utility, but no issues found. On console I have this message recurring com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.SystemStarter) Failed to count the number of files in "/System/Library/StartupItems": No such file or directory?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Jun 11, 2012
I can't start up my laptop, it has a flashing picture of a folder with a qustion mark inside,
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Sep 17, 2010
I have a lamp style iMac and when I boot it up I get the flashing folder from the mac face to the question mark. I booted it up with the OS X DVD, but a padlock comes up. I have never set a password for this computer, except to login, and that password isn't working. Is there a way around this? I've tried everything I can think of.
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May 25, 2012
I have not been able to startup my iMac for 3 days. When I turn it on all I get it is a white screen. After about 10 minutes a folder with Question mark inside apears in the middle of the screen and it just stays like this. I unplugged everything from the computer except for the mouse and keyboard. I had this computer since 2008 and never had a problem until now.Please help
Info:
IMAC 24 2.8, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2 GB RAM
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May 24, 2010
Today I turned on my Macbook Pro and all that was displayed what a flashing question mark, what does it mean?
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Jun 25, 2012
Well gang the problem has been resolved by starting up while pressing command V. Worked like a charm. I don't know why the "genus bar" folks did't try it but it worked...I'm just saying.
Info:MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.3), in safe mode QT,Iphoto,photo booth
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Jul 4, 2012
i have recently bought a macbook white late 2009 from amazon,the macbook came without a hardrive and when i bought one all that came up is a flashing folder with a '?' following the guides online i bought a mac osx snow leopard disc to try and fix the problem but when i insert the disk on a reboot it just ejects, iv tried holding c on the reeboot but it still does the same thing,
Info:
MacBook
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May 5, 2012
i just move to dominican republic and here you guys dont have apple store i have macbook pro and A flashing question mark appears when start my Mac i have lion cd and everything is any way i can do to fix my computer
Info:Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Aug 2, 2010
first i'd like to give you a few pieces of information on what was going on before I restarted my mac. 1. My mac is a 13'' late 2008 mb with 2gb of ram (running leopard). 2. I JUST had my hard drive replaced due to a failure. 3. Before i restarted my computer i was having several "system extenstion" errors and when i tried to repair i recieved the message 'Underlying task reported failure on exit.' At the time, i was also trying to install Adobe CS5 Master Collection trial and i couldn't get past a password screen. This also prompted me to restart. Once the computer began to restart, it began updating boot caches. This was taking a very long time so i walked away from the mb. When i came back i realized the battery had died and when i plugged it back in and tried to get it to boot, it would get to the gray screen with the apple and the spinning logo underneath. But then it simply reboots.
I've tried restarting the pram. I've tried rebooting in single user mode (cmd + S) and got to the point where i could rebuild the tree (fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2) and that did it's thing for about ten minutes and it didn't fix the problem. I don't have my install disk but apple is sending me a new one and will be here by friday.
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Mar 17, 2012
I was browsing with safari reading email from my msn account when safari failed to load the page. I then decided to do a force quit. Usually, when I hit command option escape, it will show me the programs then show which program was not responding, this time, it did not say that Safari wasnt responding. After waiting for at least a couple of minutes, I decided to restart the Mac by pressing on the power button to shut down. When I powered up after a minute, the gray screen with the apple in the center appeared and the cursor was forever spinning. After waiting, I decided to shut down again and then tried to zap the PRAM. This did not work so I shut down again and tried to reset the SMC.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.1), 2 gb ram
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Jun 17, 2014
I bought a used MBP (early 2011) with OS X 10.6.8. It's been running just fine, but last night moving files the screen suddenly went black. I rebooted and it will come up to a gray screen and then sit there. The fans start revving up and it gets really really hot. Of course I haven't done a backup recently, so I need the information on the computer.
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Apr 10, 2012
Getting flashing folder with ? When booting up
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)
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Mar 29, 2012
My computer started getting really slow all of the time and then it froze with the spinning rainbow. Normally if I simply press and hold the power button to restart it, the computer is fine. This time when I turned t back of I got a grey screen with the flashing question mark.
Info:
MacBook
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May 21, 2012
what should I try? I did try restting the eprom by removing he battery and hoding the power button for 30 seconds.
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May 21, 2012
Tried everything, the shift key at startup, the c key at start up, with the disk installed, disk is brand new no scratches. Gray Screen still on, no movement of the optical drive or HD apparent Is my HD screwed ?
Info:MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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May 24, 2012
when i start my macbook pro i get the gray screen before loading. start up is very slow.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Mar 29, 2010
Anyway I got the flashing folder error, booted from the snow leopard install disc and want to get a dmg of my hd so I can recover files if possible. I get Input/output error while trying to create the dmg. I get invalid b tree node size error when verifying and I can't repair it.
Is there another way to backup at this point or salvage files without buying/using other software? I'm at college so resources are limited. I don't have a backup so it's fairly important that I can somehow recover files. Also I've tried resetting PRAM with no luck. Is the drive busted beyond repair or is there something I can do?
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Mar 19, 2012
I have a flashing file folder wheni boot up my MacBook pro
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Apr 11, 2012
My MBP (mid 09) is showing a folder with a flashing question mark. I tried the usual things like PRAM Reset and booting with a external drive. I also changed the hard drive and could use it as a external drive on an other Mac - so this seems to work. Another drive could not be used too. The Apple Hardware Test does not work - my Super-drive is broken.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), MBP mid 09
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Jun 15, 2012
My wifes mac book worked fine yesterday and earlier today. During her last session (probably surfing the net) mac locked up. She attempted to restart it and now she has a flashing folder with a question mark. Of course the HD is full of info, pictures etc.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)
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