OS X :: MacBook Dropped - Flashing Folder Icon With Question Mark
Sep 7, 2010
I dropped my MacBook from a fairly low height the other day. Now when it boots up, the Flashing Folder-? Icon pops up. bummer. I've read around and tried everything I can find to try. I've read over posts such as: [URL]. Nothing works. My only problem is that I can't get it to boot the DVD startup disk at all. Everything I try ends with the disk being kicked out of the drive, or spinning for a while and then doing nothing.
I dropped my BlackBook, and now when I start it up its stays gray screen for a little while, and then a folder with a flashing question mark comes up. I researched it and it said to run off the restore disk and then run disk repair. Well I did, and I got "Invalid Node Structure, Volume check failed. Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed." I even tried going in to single-user mode with CMD+S, but it didn't do it. Same with safe mode. Could DiskWarrior help me or is my hard drive permanently damaged from the impact? Do I have to erase and restore? Or will that not even work?
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.
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.
I have a problem at the start up of the Macbook. It shows a flashing folder with a question mark. I don't have the installation disk that came with it. It was running Leopard OS X 10.5.8. If I buy Snow Leopard OS X 10.6, will it work?
i have an early 2011 macbook pro 2.7 i7 i have a folder with question mark flashing, i have replaced hard drive and also hard drive cable but can't see the hard drive, if iuse the old hard drive from usb the mac boots up, re fitting the old hard drive still does not show,
well i just got back from vacation and I tried turning on my macbook, but it wouldn't startup. it made a clicking noise and all that appeared was a white screen and a folder with a flashing question mark inside it. I then put in the apple disk it came with and went to 'disk utility,' but it wasn't able to find my hard drive. Is there any way of retrieving the data on my hard drive, or even better, fixing my macbook? luckily, for me, my warranty just expired while I was on vacation, and I'm not able to talk to apple customer service without paying 50 bucks.
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.
My MacBook was fine until it fell last night. It wasn't a big fall. It had actually been very close to the floor, but now when I try to start it a flashing folder with a question mark shows up. There is no clicking noise. It makes the sound like it is going to start. I started it up while holding the option key and Macintosh HD shows up with an arrow underneath it. However, when I click on the arrow, it freezes, eventually disappears and then the computer shuts down.
I am currently in Spain and my installation discs that came with my computer are back in the US. Is my best bet to have someone send me them or is that not even going to help? I also read a post that someone took out their hard drive, reseated it and then when they turned their computer back on everything was fine. Could this be a possibility? Would I need my installation discs after doing that?
I've had my mac for about a year after someone gave it to me. I think it's pretty old, I'd say about 5 years maybe. Its using snow leopard right now. I was on safari yesterday and once I opened my email the computer froze. Mouse and everything. So I held the power button down to turn it off and when I turned it back on there was a flashing folder with a ? on it. I looked this up on google but every thing I found told me to put a disk in the computer. I can't do this because I don't have the disk and the disk drive is broken anyway.
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.
I turned on my computer this morning (it has been working fine until then) and a flashing folder with a "?" appears. White screen. I don't know what to do, I held the Alt key at startup and that just gets me to a gray screen with my mouse.
when i restarted my computer last night a white screen appeared with a flashing folder and a question mark. I'm just trying to determine what the issue is, is the hard drive shot? I've inserted my installation disc to re download the software but it will not recognize anywhere to download the software to...
My macbook won't boot. A folder with a questionmark keeps flashing...What do I do, so I don't lose my documents?If I send it to reperation, will they see the last thing I did on it? Cause it was quite private...
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.
I turned off my macbook pro last night, then when I went to turn it on this morning, I got a flashing folder with a question mark. So I ran lion internet recovery. Disk utility came up and so I tried to repair the disk and reinstall lion osx, the problem is my mac HD isn't showing up, so I couldn't run either. I haven't turned off my mac in a few weeks, I usually just put it to sleep at night or let it go idle. How to back-up my files.
I just replaced my SATA drive. When I went to restart my computer I got a flashing folder with a question mark in it. What is happening and what to do now?
My computer froze on me and the rainbow cursor appeared. I forced my Macbook Pro to shut down and when I restarted it, a grey screen appeared with a flashing folder that has a question mark inside.
I tried the following:
1) restarting it holding down the "shift" button and nothing changed
2) restarting while holding down opting+command+p+r until I hear it ding 3-6 times - nothing changed
AND what causes this? This is not the first time I have heard of a Macbook Pro doing this...
Over the weekend I install Snow Leopard on my MacBook and all went fine and it rebooted automatically after Snow Leopard was installed. However on Sunday when I turned on the MacBook it booted and all I had was a flashing folder with a question mark. I have read several suggestion and so far have tried:
1)Holding down different keys (C, D & X) to specify the disk but it doesn't seem to find the hard drive at this points 2)Booting from a flash drive & Install DVD and use Disk Utility to verify/repair the disk 3) re-install Snow Leopard 4) re-install Leopard 5) Erase hard drive and re-install Leopard 6) Reset PARM (?) Think that's what it was called... 7) remove hardward and re-install (memory & Hard Drive)
The hard drive appears and shows as verified in DU and repair does not give any errors but if I try to boot using the hard drive, I get the flashing "?" I've tried re-installs of the OS but once it's done and reboots I get the flashing "?" I just can't seem to get by the problem but the hard drive appears "OK" when verified or repaired.
Had to perform disc repair a couple of weeks ago and reinstall to defaults. At that time had spinning wheel when trying to start. Now have flashing folder icon with question mark, and cannot enter utilities or start from recovery USB.
Yesterday my G5 (Dual G5 2 Gig, 10.4.1 OS) hung up while running illustrator 7, did an escape quit. Now the computer will not restart - a hard drive icon appeared with a flashing question mark. Ran the apple restore disk and the all hard ware pieces checked out fine. When I tried to reinstall the OS it does not open past the install icon. Startup utility does not find the one and only hard drive.
I recently purchased a Quicksilver machine from the original buyer. It came equipped with Panther. After getting it online I contracted a virus (should have loaded an antivirus program first). So I did a hard shutdown, since I couldn't close anything. When I restarted I went to options and made a bonehead move in selecting something that doesn't let me restart any farther than a "flashing folder with a Mac icon and question mark on it. How to rectify this?
I am getting the flashing mac folder with the question mark when trying to boot up. It started the reboot after I (unsuccessfully) tried to remove iTunes 8.2 so I could go back to 8.1. I was following some instructions from another site, but interpreted the code to be segmented and not to be entered as one large command. So I entered this into terminal while iTunes was still running. "sudo rm -rf /Applications/iTunes.app /System/Library". I think the system was hanging, so rebooted the computer and that's when this started. I can't enter single user mode, diskwarrior has rebuilt the directory successfully, but no luck. I'm on a 12" Powerbook 1.5GHz with 1.25 GB RAM, Leopard 10.5.7.
Basically, I hadn't used my MBP in a couple of days and it was sitting there in sleep mode and I thought nothing was wrong but I came to use it today and it had frozen so I restarted it only to have a flashing folder with a question mark appear.
I Googled around a bit and I thought that a quick repair disk in Disk Utility would fix it as it has for others but when I tried that I get this error:
Code:
Invalid B-tree node size.
Volume check failed.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
This is a mid '09 Macbook Pro (specs in sig) so something going wrong with it was the last thing I expected, especially the hard drive.
My almost new macbook pro was showing a white screen with a flashing folder with a question mark. I was able to do the internet recovery, installing OS X on my external harddrive, but how do I use my mac without the harddrive plugged in?
I have a 13" Macbook that I bought when they first came out and upgraded to OSX a couple years ago. It's been running fine until a couple days ago when I turned it on and it was displaying a folder with a flashing question mark. I immediately went online to get suggestions for rememdies, but so far none of them seem to be working. When I insert the installation disc it gets recognized, but pretty much all options for reinstalling are grayed out. I hooked up my external hard drive that has my backups on it, but don't know what to do from there. Like many people, I haven't backed up my files for a few months, and there are docs in there that I'd prefer not to have to lose. I've noted that this seems to be a rather common problem.
