Mac computer won't start up

the laptop will not start up. when it sometimes start it i see the question mark. can anyone tell me why. and how to start up the laptop

Hi...
The question mark on startup can mean several things. One the hard drive has failed, or has failed, or your Mac can't find a system folder to boot from.
Try booting while holding down the Option key. Theoretically, you should see the Startup Manager window. Select the startup disk then click Restart.
If that doesn't happen, try here > A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
If you can get the Mac to start up, if you haven't already done so, I strongly recommend backing up your important data ASAP just in case.

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My mac desktop computer won't start and just beebs

My mac desktop computer won't start it just beens loudly. I don't have any lights showing on the keyboard but can hear the drive switching on. I have unplugged the computer, waited and replugged and waited and then turned it on again without and results. Please help.

Use this tip to identify your Mac:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6413
If indeed it has a PowerPC processor (the PowerMacs use that, and have been around since early 2006 simultaneously with some of the Intels), see this tip on beeps:
Power On Self-Test Beep Definition - Part 2
If it is Intel, see this tip:
Mac computers: About startup tones

Power Mac G5 won't start up and is beeping

Dear friends,
This morning, my Power Mac G5 started to beep. When I try to restart it, it beeps some more and also makes a clicking sound like a metronome.
The computer won't start up anymore. At startup, it displays a grey screen with a little folder in the center that flashes a question mark and a finder icon.
What is wrong with my excellent computer, and how do I fix it?
Marnie

Marnie Glickman-
Could be a variety of things, but most likely your hard drive is not happy. The flashing question mark means that the system is trying to find a working disk with a valid system on it. Should be the hard drive. Isn't.
Launch from the install DVD of the latest OSX system you have. Under the Apple Menu should be the Disk Utility. Launch it and try repairing your hard drive and see if that does the trick.
If not we dig deeper into this excellent problem.
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Mountain Lion update, and now computer won't start up?

Writing this for a friend, as his computer is inop at the moment. Hence this message.
He has a new 27" iMac. He upgraded to Mountain Lion a few weeks ago, and then had intermittent problems with apps unexpectantly shutting down.
Now he did a ML update this morning, and his computer won't start up. It gets to the point of the Apple logo coming up, a progress bar, and then the spinning wheel, but then shuts itself down right afterwards.
A safe boot yields the exact same result.
Any thoughts out there on what he could try to get it up and running again?
Thanks much for any and all help.

Thank you for the fast response.
He was able to get into Disk Utility with the Command and R keys, but when he tried verifying the disk, in red it said 'Invalid Node Structure, volume could not be verified completely'.
He went ahead and verified it anyway, then proceeded to repair it. Howver, it stopped repairing, said it cannot repair, and that he should back up files and reformat the disk.
How can he back up his files? He cannot see a way to do it. Is there anything else he can do besides having to reformat the disk?
This is his first Mac (after much prompting from me to go Mac), and he's afraid he's now lost everything on there.

Mac mini won't start up. Grey screen with apple just freezes.

Mac mini won't start up. just get a grey screen with the apple and it freezes. Please help.

Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partitirion & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.

Computer won't start up after changing permissions.

I accidentally changed the permissions for all of the files on my hard drive. Now, Leopard won't start up. And to top it all off I conveniently can not find my Leopard disk. I did, however, locate my Tiger disk but the computer won't start from the CD drive either.
I also thought that I could install Tiger on an external Hard Drive using my sisters computer but Tiger would not install on the USB Hard Drive because it said Mac OS X could not start from the external hard drive.
It won't start up in "Safe Mode (holding the SHIFT key)".
Anybody have any suggestions?

You can, in addition to Barry's excellent suggestions, reset the SMU.

Help, computer won't start up

Help, my computer won't start-up now. I downloaded one of those free .swf converter softwares from the net and now I think in the restart process, which should've completed the download like it said, instead it's like I don't have any OS on my computer anymore. And if that doesn't make things worse I was trying to reinstall OS X and it wants to go the net to do that but when i try to it asked my to login to the apple store with the ID i purshased it with and I didn't buy it I downloaded it from a P2P site, so of course the apple store tells me when i login to login with the ID I bought it with so now what, I don't want to lose my file's what should I do anybody got any suggestion. This is what I tried so far.
When it starts up I see the OS X Utilities window
I clicked the the Disk Utility, and clicked my HD and clicked repair.
When it was done it said
The volume appears to be ok.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Now what, also I did it again after I held CMD + R
Still when I start up I don't see my hard drive just the OS X Utilities window.
Also when I downloaded the OS X 10.8.5 I saved it on an external but its plugged to my only computer and thats the one I'm having the trouble with, sorry about all the miss spelled words if you can read this and help please do...

Try booting from your system CD, run Disk First Aid from your Disk Utility and repair your permissions.
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
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New HD not recognized - computer won't start

Powermac G4 MDD
Originally had 2 hard drives -- 60GB (jumpered as master) and 40GB (jumpered as slave)
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I installed the new 160 GB Hard drive in place of the 40 GB HD and used SuperDuper to clone the still working 60 GB drive. The files were all copied to the drive and the drive showed up on the desktop as a hard drive icon, and it was recognized in the System Profiler. However, I could not select it as the startup drive from the System Prefs window.
I then took out the 60GB drive and replaced it with the 160 GB drive jumpered as cable select and now the computer won't start up (flashing question mark).
What have I done wrong?

I read through all this and still have some trouble. The article says that in Disk Utility if I select the drive a tab named "Partition" will appear at the top of the window among the other tabs. It doesn't.
I noticed some differences in the spec for the 2 drives currently in the machine: specifically, the new 160 gb drive is formatted (right word?) as GUID not AMD as the old drive is. But I can't figure out how to access that "partition" option and make the change. Here are the spec from System Profiler:
160GB Drive:
ST3160812A:
Capacity:    149.05 GB
Model:    ST3160812A
Revision:    3.AAE
Serial Number:    5L****J3
Removable Media:    No
Detachable Drive:    No
BSD Name:    disk0
Protocol:    ATA
Unit Number:    1
Socket Type:    Internal
Low Power Polling:    No
Mac OS 9 Drivers:    No
Partition Map Type:    GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status:    Verified
Volumes:
Seagate 160GB Drive:
Capacity:    148.73 GB
Available:    111.35 GB
Writable:    Yes
File System:    Journaled HFS+
BSD Name:    disk0s2
Mount Point:    /Volumes/Seagate 160GB Drive
60 GB Drive:
ST360021A:
Capacity:    57.27 GB
Model:    ST360021A
Revision:    5.21
Serial Number:    3H****4N
Removable Media:    No
Detachable Drive:    No
BSD Name:    disk1
Protocol:    ATA
Unit Number:    0
Socket Type:    Internal
Low Power Polling:    No
Mac OS 9 Drivers:    Yes
Partition Map Type:    APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status:    Verified
Volumes:
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Capacity:    51.26 GB
Available:    12.73 GB
Writable:    Yes
File System:    Journaled HFS+
BSD Name:    disk1s9
Mount Point:    /
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My computer won't start. When I press the power button I get a picture of a folder and with in it, a question mark and the mac face keep flashing.
It looks serious... any help with what's going on is appreciated!
Thanks!
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hello Abdulrahman Almannai,
The Apple Knowledge Base article found here may help.
Be sure to follow the steps in the order given carefully.
hope that helps some,
littleshoulders [:-)

My computer won't start it's loads the logo but than shuts off before the login part

My computer won't start it's loads the logo but than shuts off before the login part

Hello Tara-louise,
I would be concerned too if my MacBook Pro was booting just to the gray screen with the Apple logo on it. I recommend following the steps in the article below for the issue you are experiencing:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
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My Mac Pro won't start

My mac pro won't start have a light on and sometimes have a green light on caps key.

Hello there hoc5050,
It sounds like your computer is not turning on consistently. I would recommend the troubleshooting in this article to help you determine what might be causing the issue, named:
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Sterling

My Mac Mini won't start. The Power light blinks continusly (not pulses)

My New Mac Mini won't start up. I bought it online from J&R a week ago. My monitor says "no input detected" and the power light blinks. I recently fed it the gray mac os x install disk one, which it won't give back. Holding the mouse button when it turns on doesn't have any effect. So now i can't put a disk in or start it up.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
No video with the power light blinking once per second means either bad or no memory. See this Apple note: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303083 . Specifically, below is from that note:
If the computer detects no SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, also referred to as RAM) or the RAM installed does not meet the appropriate specifications, the screen will remain black but the power LED on the front of the computer will blink once per second to signal the error. This error condition may be due to physically damaged RAM, installing the incorrect type of RAM, or not having RAM installed.
Has it ever worked since you got it? If not, you should call J&R and tell them they sent a dead on arrival system, and ask for a replacement (ask them to send a will call tag or prepaid label to send the non-working machine back).

Computer won't start and light just flashes as if in sleep mode. Does not even make the start chime. displays remain dark.

Computer won't start. sounds like it makes an attempt at accessing a hard drive. but then just goes to sleep. no start up noise. no displays come on.

Resetting SMC could solve the problem.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support

Firmware update progress bar appears and computer won't start up

Hi,
I am on OS X 10.6 (the latest developer build, whose build number I can't remember and can't look up because my computer won't start up) and this morning when I tried to start up my computer, it chimed, the apple appeared but then a grey progress bar (like the one that appears during a firmware update) appeared at the bottom of the screen along with the customary spinner. This progress bar didn't update and after 10-ish seconds, it disappeared and left just the spinner. I left the computer in this state for 4 hours and nothing happened. It still starts up in single user mode (but I can't seem to get Open Firmware mode to load) and it starts Windows XP on another partition of my main HD.
When I start it in verbose mode, it says that my catalog B-tree has keys out of order and it is unable to repair them. Also, I get an error message from launchctl: "Bug: launchctl.c:2033 (23930):17: auditquickstart() == 0". Then later on it tells me to convert a few system plist files to launchd (all in the /etc/mach_init.d/ folder). The very last line says "launch_msg(): Socket is not connected".
I would rather not re-install the system, but if I have to, I guess I will. I appreciate any light that anyone can shed on this problem.
Thanks,
Kyle

Yes, they (the third-party utilities) both come on bootable DVD's. As I mentioned, since Snow Leopard was just released in its final version, the developers may be in the process of releasing updates.
Your situation is likely to be a case where the data corruption issue already existed before installing Snow Leopard, and the installation process made the problem more apparent (because something critical was installed where it was affected by the data issue).
It is a good idea to run +Repair Disk+ in Disk Utility on the startup volume before installing a major system update. Actually, I do it before any system-level update.
You should also have a backup (at least of your personal data if not the entire volume), in case something bad happens during a major system upgrade. If you were using Time Machine, the easiest recovery would be to reformat the internal drive and use the Time Machine complete volume restore utility to restore the volume back to the date/time state just before you installed Snow Leopard. Then, after restarting from that restored volume to make sure everything is working, start up from the Snow Leopard installation disc, run Disk Utility and use +Repair Disk+ (just to be sure), and run the upgrade to Snow Leopard again.
If you have a backup of at least your personal data, you may want to reformat the internal drive, install Snow Leopard and bundled apps, install your third-party apps from their original sources, update everything that needs updating, and restore your personal data.
If you don't have a backup, the best bet is to try either DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro. DiskWarrior is very specialized into repairing this type of data problem. TechTool Pro has similar capability, but it is a more general tool with other features.

Mac Mini won't start and constantly makes disc ejecting noise

My Mac Mini won't start. It was working fine, then just locked up and won't start again. When I push the start button it just makes this repeated disc ejecting noise from the DVD drive. It doesn't make the chime noise or display anything on the monitor. I've disconnected the optical drive, but it didn't help. Then it just doesn't start at all. I thought that if I would disconnect the optical drive, that it would ignore it and just boot off the hard drive, but nothing happened. The power light comes on. Then, if I hold down the power button for 10 seconds it shuts down. The fan operates. It just never attempts to boot up. I can't put in a system DVD because the optical drive is just in eternal eject mode.
If you have any suggestions let me know. Thanks.

I have the same situation.
I think the drive thinks it has a disc to eject or part of the mechanism is stuck and can't return to it's resting position. I was going to disconnect as you tried but now I think I'll try to disassemble the drive to see if there might be some debris jamming things up.
Please let me know if you solve the problem.

Mac computer won't start up

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