OS X :: Question Mark Folder And Ejecting Startup Disk?
Sep 30, 2007
My computger shows the flashing question mark in a folder icon upon booting just after the chime. I've been reading up all about it and am pretty clear about what actions I should take.
The very first direction that all instructions give me is to insert the Startup CD, shut down, and then restart holding down the 'C' key. The problem I'm encountering is that a little while after starting up, the computer ejects the CD, and then goes onto show the flashing question mark again. I'm pretty sure i'm inserting the correct CD as it does itself have the directions to hold down 'C' for booting from CD printed on it. I've tried the other CD which came with my MacBook too, but the same result.
I've booked a slot with a Genius on Tuesday, but does anyone have any suggestions as to why it would be ejecting the CD?
p.s I've also tried to boot in target disk mode, and although the attached PowerBook sees the harddrive in disk utility, the repair utilities are greyed out, and it doesn't see it in finder so can't access the contents.
I get this question mark along with a folder when starting up. I tried holding down the option key when turning on the power and then I get an internet recovery along with a globe. I click on the arrow below it and it takes maybe 15 minutes to start up. Then i get this disk utilities screen. I'm now unable to do anything. When going into disk utility, disk 0 shows with Mac OS X base system underneath it. All the clickable buttons are faded out. Is there something wrong with the hardrive? and where could i get this fixed? There isn't a warranty on it.
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.
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.
So I have a Black MacBook with 2gb of ram and a 160 gb hard drive. I have about 1gb left on my computer. The stuff I have that is taking up the space is all stuff that I need, I cant just dump it on to an external hard drive.
I have a problem where ocassionally I will start up my computer and instead of the apple logo showing up I see a folder with a question mark. I have to turn off the computer and let it sit and usually it will start up.
My question is, what is the cause of this problem, and what is the fix?
I have a macbook a1181 that I bought used that I believe has a failed hard drive. I get the question mark folder on startup and the clicking noise. Drive doesn't show up in the utility and osx 10.4.1 says cannot install on machine. Tried all options I could find online for the question mark folder. Thought I would try to format and reinstall osx 10.4.1 (grey) that I got with laptop but it says I cannot. I'm wondering if anyone has other ideas or if I just need to buy a new drive and a new copy of the os. And if so is there a recommend drive and os I should consider?
Info: MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.10), Black Intel machine
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.
I was with the messenger Adium on, when I left, then I came back and the keyboard was blocked, the sentences wouldn't come up when I tried to type so I decided to reboot the laptop. when it restarted the grey screen showed up as usual but instead of appearing the apple and then the desktop, there was a folder with a question mark in it instead. I put my ear on the keyboard because I could hear there was a lot of noise coming from inside which makes me think it's not something related with the software or weird downloads' stuff.
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.
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.Â
OS 10.9.5. using MacBook pro. early 2011.Have a question mark over the startup disk.I tried disk utility , that said all is fine. Somehow I ended up at the startup disk, don't know what to chose, restart or target disk mode.
I recently upgraded to Lion on my MacBook Pro but it didn't sit well with my compuer. It became sluggish and would take forever to load applications, pictures, music, movies, etc that only took SL a few seconds at most. I decided to downgrade back to SL so I put in my Install DVD (version 10.6.6) and tried to format the hard drive so I could start new. However it would not work with the CD, so I continued looking around online and I came under the impression that if you erase the hard drive it will allow you to start new (in my case, with SL). However now I get a gray screen with a folder with a question mark.
I do not have my files backed up through Time Machine.
Have tried different things that have been suggested....reboot PRAM holding down option command P R etc but nothing yet has worked. Don't have installation disk as MacBook is 9 years old so must've thrown disk out years ago.
I've done all the tried and true stuff. I have restarted, I've restarted and held down the shift key, etc. The disc just won't eject. I haven a PM G5 dual core. Should I just shut the damn thing down, remove the drive and get the disc out that way?
I was trying to import a cd into my macbook pro this afternoon and it went in and clicked into place but then started making a huming sort of noise, but was you could hear it was not spinning, about 20 seconds later it ejected. I tried it multiple times and restarted my computer but nothing seemed to help. The disk drive isn't bent out of shape or anything and I've never had a problem with it until now.
I'd like to do a fresh install of my system but it doesn't accept any of my original apple DVD.Both Snow Leopard, the original install DVD, and the replacement DVD I got are not working and are scratchless.Any other CD/DVD I enter the drive work fine.It eject after a few seconds when my system is working and when I hold C on startup too.I run OSX 10.6.8 on a Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.53ghzÂ
I have read most things to do with the grey screen and the screen with the question mark, and it's obvious I have to put some sort of disks in, but there is already a disk stuck in the drive?
Yesterday all of a sudden my drive stopped working. I inserted a music cd to copy its tracks to my ipod and nor did I get the cd recognised by my mac nor does it get ejected! I have the cd stuck in my mac! When I press the eject button on my keyboard I get the eject sign on my screen but no life from the drive.
Have got a macbook unibody, got this about 6 months ago. I put a blank dvd+r in today and used toast to burn some files to it. finished burning but the disk will not come out, have tried ejecting and it says its not there no more but has not came out, have also restarted and it see's the disk again and can be read but then if you eject it still does not come out, have tried cmd e, eject button, disk utility, any idea's or should i take it to apple to be fixed/swapped out, not sure which they do
I am trying to upgrade from leopard to snow leopard on my MacBook Pro. However, every time I insert the install disk, the machine whirs for a moment, and then ejects the disk with no error message. I tested my drive with a different dvd and it works just fine. All of my other software is up to date.
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.5.8)
