I'm selling my old iMac and while cleaning the hard drive it froze. I forced shut down and when I turned it back on a circle with a diagonal came up initially, followed by flashes of that, a question mark and the apple symbol. Now it won't get past the grey screen and the flashing symbols. Â
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)
iMac start up... Why my imac start with question mark sign on gray screen
View 1 Replies View RelatedI 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.
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iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
the screen it got stuck on was white, gray apple sign spinning circle thing
and i left it there for more then half an hour with no progress. I did a hard shut off, and waited for about an hour and tried again. This time i waited for an hour, and still no progress. what should i do?
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iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
When I started my Macbook up, after the gray screen with the apple sign, a stop sign appeared on the screen and I couldnt use my laptop as normal. Does anyone know what the problem is and how to fix it?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI get is white screen with flashing question mark. I've inserted OS disc but it won't run.Â
View 1 Replies View RelatedI press the power button, apple symbol appears then "thinking circle" the goes to dark screen where the only thing I can see is my mouse curser.
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iMac, OS X Server
Got my 24" 2.4GHz iMac on release last year, with Tiger. Installed Leopard on it on release day.
The problem I have is that ever since a botched Boot Camp installation I've had endless problems with certain applications hanging during their startup (notably Image Capture) or refusing to quit (notably iTunes). Force Quit doesn't resolve these issues. Restarting doesn't work because Force Quit can't quit them so I have to pull the plug or otherwise force a shutdown.
Upon restarting I either get the grey screen that instantly appears, or, if I've pulled the plug and left it for a few minutes I can get to the Apple symbol but no spinner or any further start up action. Occasionally I get lucky, get back up and running, and all is well until the next crash.
All this started happening when I decided to try installing Windows on Boot Camp again. I've had it on here a couple of times since Leopard was released but usually end up deleting it eventually because either the Windows installation gets bogged down or I get bored with it and never use it. Anyway, this time, using the same discs I've always used (and yes, it's SP2, so it should be fine and anyway it's worked at least twice before) when I got to the 'restart to continue installing Windows' bit, I got the white screen and nothing happened. After an hour or so of praying and restarting endlessly trying to get a response, I finally got it to recognise my OSX installation and was up and running again. The Boot Camp volume didn't appear to be there and Disk Utility revealed zero problems whatsoever. Everything looked fine until these recurring hangs, refusals to quit apps and screwed up start-ups.
Any ideas? I don't have the expensive Apple support, but it's less than a year old! Of course, I realise that this means nothing to Apple, who seem to think I should pay a premium in order to have my machine warrantied by them for more than 90 days. Grr...
If I get it up and running I'm thinking I should just wipe the ENTIRE system absolutely clean and re-install Leopard and then use my Time Machine backup to put all my data back on (pricelessly valuable as I use the machine to work on my photography with), but I'm concerned that if there's a flaw in the System somewhere, a corruption, that installing the Time Machine backup will just reintroduce the error. On the other hand, if it's a deeply embedded and invisinle partition corruption from the bad Boot Camp installation attempt, that should be fixed by wiping the entire drive to reinstall Leopard, right?
I did reset my MacBook Air; then it is just giving me a flashing folder sign with a question mark.
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MacBook Air
when I turn on iMac I got white screen with grey coloured flashing folder sign,a question mark on it, that's it.
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iMac, 2006 model
Upon start up my screen goes to normal gray w/apple logo and spinner then goes black. Cursor is visible and still is moveable but nothing else. I safe booted and bar came up also but then back to black screen.Â
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iMac, Mavericks upgrade
I have an aluminium cased iMac (2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) running OS 10.6.8.Â
Recently I have found that sometimes the machine will not boot - I get the normal chime, grey screen and then the flashing question mark icon. I first noticed the problem a few months ago when restarting after a power outage had occured whilst I was using the Mac. After a couple of tries the machine booted and so I thought little more about it because in usual circumstances when the machine was shut down correctly it started as normal and behaved perfectly. However, after another power outage over the weekend the problem has become much worse.Â
I have tried all the usual things like trying to boot up in safe mode and recovery mode but with no success. The only way I can get the Mac to boot at all is to simply keep powering down and powering up again and hoping that it will spring into life. Once it does boot the Mac behaves perfectly.Â
I have an 10.6.8 universal system disk and I got the machine to boot from this disk. I then tried to perform some diagnostics on the hard drive (320Gb) but when I got to the pane that shows the available drivesthere was no drive to be seen.Â
After a lot of tries I have got it to boot off the hard drive since so, I have been able to back up files that weren't archived to an external drive.Â
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
When my wife starts her iMac the screen stays gray and in the center of the screen is a folder with a question mark. I am not sure how to get it running.
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
How hard is it to replace the hard drive? I have a disaster recovery company step up to get all my info off of it if they can. But I really don't want to spend the money to have someone pull out the HD and put a new one in if I can do it myself. I have experience building pc towers but I haven't ever pulled apart an iMAC. Its an iMac 23(or 24) inch from Dec 2007 (I don't have the model info on hand as the box is in storage).
View 4 Replies View Relatedafter about a week of using Snow Leopard, whenever I restart my mac, it starts up with a prohibitory sign, or a circle and a line through it. So then I have to reinstall Snow Leopard, and whenever I restart it after that, it always does it. But it won't do it if I restart it after a software update, specifically OS updates. This didn't fix it when 10.6.2 came out, and it's very frustrating. Anyone know what's wrong?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a black MacBook that I got about 2 years ago, running OS X 10.5. I had about 10 GB free space. It's been working fine until this unfortunate event. Let me explain.
I was recently working with my mac as usual (browsing the web, downloading torrents, reading an ebook, ect). I tried to load [URL] in firefox, when it froze. Nothing new, so I tried to open up force quit. Nothing I clicked on responded. It was frozen. I also heard some weird "tinking" noises from inside the machine that I had never heard before. So, I inferred I should force shut down. I held down the power button, and it turned off. I hit it again to turn it back on. I saw a grey screen and an apple and heard the"dinggggg" noise we've all come to love like usual. But, suddenly the apple changes to a circle with a line through it, which I've dubbed a stop sign. It just stays like this. I can turn it off, and try again and the same thing happens. I've tried it like 10 times. (I know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.
This is getting my adrenaline pumping, and I can't figure out what to do. Should I reset the NVRAM and PRAM like Apple says? I'm at a loss. Right now I'm using my friend's computer (running Vista ugh) to type this.
I've just bought a new iMac. Was very surprised, when I saw, that I can't write my Apple ID on the welcome screen. I can type letters, but when I try to write the "@" symbol, it just makes a loud short sound.
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), Can't type my Apple ID
have a early 2011 MBP running OSX Mavericks. I use my mac everyday both at home and school. This morning when I opened the mac, the screen was frozen. I simply restarted the mac, and it doesn't go beyond showing a prohibitory sign. I have tried many things..Â
1. Restarted the mac, while holding the Option key (selected Recovery HD), after waiting for nearly 10 mins, the system loaded into recovery disk ( but the twist was, in the disk utility, my SSD was not found/shown)Â
2. Then thought the SSD was dead.. So asked the IT guy to see if he can retrieve the data (removed SSD out of the mac and he used an external hard drive enclosure and the SSD was instantly recognized, saved the data). Here I did two things
   A. First, asked my friend if I could mount his SSD in my Mac and see if the system starts. Even using a different SSD, my mac still showed the prohibitory sign.
   B. Then l installed my SSD into his Mac.. System booted as normal (basically it was all there, but on his Mac)Â
3. So ruled out that my SSD was faulty. Then using the internet based Apple Hardware Test (AHT), I found no troubles with any of the mac components.Â
At this point, I don't understand what is causing my Mac not to go beyond the prohibitory sign? Could it be something as silly as the internal hard drive cable or something more complicated as the logic board? In which case, they should have been detected during the AHT?Â
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MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
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.
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MacBook Pro
We are getting a white screen with flashing file icon with question mark inside the file.Â
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iMac
I have a Mac Pro dual quad 3 ghz and had it for almost 2 years with no problems. Today when I went to work on it, it had a grey screen with the flashing apple folder question mark appear. I've tried everything, from Pram reset, to rebooting from Snow Leopard install disc but it just wont recognise the main HD. Is there anything else you can recommend me doing? Is my HD dead?
If I was to reinstall the OS from Snow leopard will I lose all the information I had on my HD. Is there a way to save some of the files?
Oh gawd I hope this is not the end of my HD as I had some files I forgot to backup lately
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Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6)
How to sign out of all the devices that have my apple id?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI've been trying to partition my drives and install Windows on my late 2012 imac. I last adjusted my partitions using disk utility and now receive the prohibitory sign on start-up and cannot boot up in safe mode; pram reset; type commands in single user mode. Running on Mavericks OS.
View 1 Replies View RelatedMy wife's bluetooth just disappeared. The Bluetooth symbol on the menu bar is gray with a wavy line. Ran out and got a bluetooth adapter and it still isn't recognized. Bluetooth was working great last night. Not sure what my wife did.Â
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)
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?
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MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
I have a 13" Macbook. I had a 250 gb and a 500 gb internal hd's already crashed. I just bought a brand new 250 gb thought that this will work. I was wrong. I inserted this hd and turned on the on-switch. The same screen I saw earlier showed again-a blue screen with a file with a (?) sign on it.
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MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
While updating my imac, I got an error message saying that there is an error. And then it restarted by itself. Now its stuck on the loading screen.
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iMac
My iMac is the latest model, however when I try to shut it down I get a grey screen with the apple loading spiral and it doesn't shutdown. I have version 10.7.4 OSX Lion, all updates have been downloaded. I have resorted to leaving it on. I do not want to hard shutdown because this could damage the system, my old iMac broke after the hard drive was damaged with the same style of issue.
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
2.0GHz MacBook running 10.5. My friend's computer which he brought to me thinking I might be able to get it booted.
My buddy went to bed last night, running a video on his hard drive with the computer hooked up to his flat screen TV, he fell asleep while it was playing. This morning he woke up to a frozen screen. He did a manual shutdown. Upon restart he got a gray screen with nothing showing.
I have tried the original installation disk and restart while holding down "C" with no result.
I tried a copy of Tech Tools 5 in the DVD drive... with no result.
I have tried booting off of my own external firewire HD upon which I keep a bootable clone of os10.4.11... with no result.
I tried booting off that same external HD while holding down "C" and got the flashing folder with question mark.
I tried using a firewire cable and starting the bad macbook in target mode while hooked up to my old iBook. This caused the macbook screen to show a firewire symbol and nothing showed up on my iBook screen but an archive... Tech Tools on my iBook recognized the archive but could not Unmount the archive when I tried to use any of the tools to explore or fix the target disk.
I know that the flashing question mark indicates there is no start up software to be found, but I have to question whether this might not be something more than a bad HD. Anyone have any suggestions?
BTW... the macbook is out of warranty. My friend just went ahead and ordered a new macbook pro so there is no pressing need to get this fixed in a hurry, but he would like to get the old computer fixed if it is just a matter of replacing an HD.
I have a MacBook Model # A1181, I'm getting a grey screen with a flashing question mark inside a folder and the drive doesn't work ither....
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SAFARI download, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
