Blinking folder with question mark and a new hard drive: also installing Mountain Lion and 0 with a line through it appears please help?

Okay so my harddrive failed in my 13" Macbook I used to have a WD scorpio black 250 gb for a while. I upgraded to a WD scorpio black 500 gb 7500 rpm hard drive. Okay so I installed the harddrive and ran my friends startup disc to learn that grey face discs are specific to that computer. The start up disc ran fine (minus the error stating it could not install OSX because its specific to another computer) and I looked in disc utility after installing the new harddrive and it said verified. I lost my startup disc and did not have another one. Using a friends mac I created a bootable USB drive with mountain lion on it, I plug it in and it comes up and when I choose to start up on the harddrive a 0 with a line going throguh it appears. If I do not start up with the USB or my friends startup disc then a blinking folder with a question mark appears. So my question is what could the problem be if a startup disc runs on a new WD harddrive and says under disc utility that its verified but the 0 with a line through it appears after I try to boot it with a flash drive containing mountain lion? WHats the issue here im completely lost now

Sounds like some sort of power issue and now your drive is not working.
You'll have to take this to Apple for repair.
You should read this if you don't have recent backups of your data off the machine.
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?

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Can I transfer a Time Machine backup to a new empty hard drive, without installing Mountain Lion again?

Can I transfer a Time Machine backup to a new empty hard drive, without installing Mountain Lion on that new hard drive?

Yes - I just did it the other night. Took five hours, but it finally finished and is working great.
I sort of followed the instructions found here -->> http://pondini.org/TM/18.html.
Also, if you want to have dual backups, see -->>
http://pondini.org/TM/27.html.
I say 'sort of' because I used Carbon Copy Cloner to do a block-level transfer. I just didn't want to get hung up with a Finder copy.
Give CCC a try - you have to enable the block copy in Preferences before using this method, but I was quite happy with it. I used it to move over 1TB of TM backups from a FireWire 800 drive to a 2TB Thunderbolt drive. 5 seconds short of taking 5 hours.
It should work well for you.
Clinton

I am having issues with my external hard drives since installing Mountain Lion

I am unable to get my time machine to backup consistently on my external hard drives since installing Mountain Lion. One of my drives seems to have lost all data since installing Mountain Lion. Is this problem cropping up with other folks? BTW, all of my drives are Lacie brand.

Marzomo wrote:
One of my drives seems to have lost all data since installing Mountain Lion.
Do you mean, when you select it to be used for backups, the Preferences window shows "none"? If so, that's not a problem. That doesn't get updated until the next backup to that disk is finished. See #B3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting

Blinking Question Mark on a New Hard Drive instal!

I just instaled a new hard drive on my old macbook pro and it all went well until the end when it said part of the installation couldn't be completed and needed to be restarted. Now all I get is the flashing question mark inside the file folder! It won't go pass that and the install disk wont restart! It just keeps popping the disk out. I just want to install the OS.
Any advise? There is nothing to be lost on the drive, I just want to have an OS working on it.

1. It could be that the HD was formatted only for use with Windows, as with a FAT32 install. Make certain that the drive is formatted for the Mac. A blinking question mark can be a sign that your machine isn't properly formatted.
2. Not infrequently, this error may result from a faulty cable. Make sure the cable is in good condition.

New hard drive, clean install of Lion, but MacBook Pro is still freezing

Hi everyone,
Even the folks at the Apple store don't seem to know what's going on with my MacBook Pro.
My hard drive crashed a few weeks ago. I bought a Western Digital Scorpio Blue and replaced it myself. The MacBook didn't seem to like it (lots of freezing, going really slow, etc) and so, after reading online that many MacBook Pro users did not like the WD Scoprio Blue, I returned it and bought a 320 GB Hitachi. Before replacing the WD drive with the Hitachi drive, I used SuperDuper! to make my external hard drive a clone of the WD hard drive. I replaced the WD with the Hitachi, booted from the external, and then restored all my stuff to the Hitachi. The computer still didn't work so well, so I did a zero-out erase and a clean install of Lion. I dragged my files over individually (only about 100 GB of word documents, music, and photos). For the first two days, everything worked perfectly. Then I started getting these error messages:
Word: Word cannot save or create this file. The disk may be full or write protected. Try one of the following. *Free more memory. *Make sure that the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected, or damaged.
Chrome: Your profile could not be opened correctly. Some features may be unavailable. Please check that the profile exists and you have permission to read and write its contents.
Dragging files to trash: The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occured (error code -50).
Fireforx: Close Firefox. A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.
In addition, the computer kept freezing. I also had problems with Mail and iTunes. Disk verify, permission verify, S.M.A.R.T. utility all said that the hard drive was working fine though.
So, I brought the computer to Apple. They did a zero-out erase, reinstalled Lion, and did what they called a "software repair". They said it should work fine. I just got home from the store, booted up the computer, and it's barely working. All sorts of error messages, safari won't work, it keeps freezing, and I was only able to open disk utility once. I verified disk, and it came up with no problems. I verified disk permissions, and when I tried to repair disk permissions, it kept saying it was "unable" to.
I don't know what it could be. It's not the hard drive...I've run disk utility, S.M.A.R.T., and an app that checks the hardware associated with the drive. All of these programs say the hard drive is absolutely fine. I've also reset PRAM. Another thing worth noting is that I'm currently booting/working off of my external, and it works absolutely perfectly.
Any ideas? One of my friends suggested I go back to Snow Leopard, but I don't see what difference that would make. Please help! Anything would be very much appreciated! Thanks!!

The theory is that you have a weak bit in one of the modules, and sometimes (rarely) it flips over. The trick is to try and catch it.
If you move the modules, the weak bit will be at a different Address in memory. Different things will be loaded into the word with the weak bit, and the symptoms may be different.
It may not do anything at all. But it is so easy to try, it is worth a shot.
On a multi-module memory, you need to keep your wits about you when doing this, or you put them back the way they were originally. So you should pick a direction and always move them your "regular" direction.

Folder with Question Mark at Startup External Hard Drive

This morning on startup I received the white screen with the folder icon with the question mark inside. After unplugging an external harddrive, the computer booted without any issues.
I tried searching, but couldn't find anything on this exact topic. Can a bad external hard drive cause this issue or was the fact that I unplugged the drive and it botted fine just a random coincidence? I had been having some problems that past week or so with the external drive (it's not used in any way to boot the computer, just to store random files). I was hoping it was just something with the external drive that I can easily replace and not a bigger issue.
Has anyone else experienced this before or have any ideas on it?
Thanks for your help.

You can also reference this if you need more help then just a repair:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1440

I upgraded the OS on my iMac to Lion from the App store; and after installation, it restarted and now the operating system won't start up.... it keeps displaying the apple/folder with a question mark and a circle with a line through it! Please help!

I upgraded the OS on my iMac to Lion from the App store; and after installation, it restarted and now the operating system won't start up.... it keeps displaying the apple/folder with a question mark and a circle with a line through it! Please help!

Try starting up with your Snow Leopard DVD and see if the disk can be repaired. Once you are at the installer screen go to the Utilities Menu and choose Disk Utility and choose repair disk. You might also want to try Diskwarrior.
Hope this helps.
Ben

Restoring a home folder backed up using the Backup application (with the umbrella) to a new hard drive running Snow Leopard

I was running OS X 10.4 Tiger on a 2006 iMac. My home folder is backed up on a My Passport 500GB USB external drive using Backup (the original application that came pre-installed with the orange umbrella symbol).
I was intending to upgrade tp Snow Leopard so that I could sync a new iPad with iTunes and iPhoto so had ordered the disc from Apple and was waiting for it to arrive.
2 weeks ago my hard drive stopped - and I took the iMac to a support store (I am currently in Belgium and there is no Apple store here). They confirmed the hard drive was dead and as I had my receipt for Snow Leopard installed this for me.
Now I am trying to restore my home folder but the new OS does not recognise the data. I can see there is nearly 200GB of data on the external drive - but the folders contain small files call backup.log, backup.log.gz, InfoPlist.stringscat, stat0..... all under 5MB.
Applecare told me they did not know about the Backup application and it was not theirs..... then suggested I tried migration assistant.
With migration assistant, I just get a spinning wheel at the initial 'select your disk' page - spinning now for more than 8 hours. I checked on line and the only advice I saw was to use firewire - but my external drive works with the new high speed USB...
Can anyone help?

Thank you for your help - I now have a solution ...in case it helps someone else.....
...I also think I may have been a bit silly...
The solution - thanks to a great guy in Apple Support USA - thank you Matt!!
first I partitioned my hard drive using disk utility - and set 235GB for a separate install - I called it Tiger install disk
this allows your hard drive to act as 2 totally separate systems (by holding down the option key when you start the computer you can choose which you want)
then I reinstalled Tiger from my original discs onto the new part of my hard drive
then I read my backed up home folder and copied it to the Tiger system on the new hard drive section
then I rebooted and started up Snow leopard on the original part of the hard drive
then I used migration assistant to transfer from the 'Tiger install disc' drive - it was recognised by migration assistant
Where I think I may have been a bit silly
I am now not sure if the orginal backup was always visible in Snow Leopard
in Tiger I found backup.sparseimage - which when double clicked opened up my home folder
now that I have istalled Tiger as well - I can also find this in now Leopard... ...so maybe I just hadn't opened all the original folders on my backup disk...
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I think I finished installing Mountain Lion, and am at the "log in" page with the Mountain Lion icon, but I cannot do any of the functions on screen. That is, I cannot log in, sleep, restart, or shut down. I am running it on an Early 2009 Macbook Pro, which is said to have the capabilities of running Mountain Lion.

BrettGoudy wrote:
...Is there any way I can install a partition that runs snow leopard on my early 2011 MB pro with what I have (new SSD, New RAM, Current version Lion running, no external drive, lack of original snow leopard disks [I lost them ] and the general 10.6.3 snow leopard boot disks)...
As the last post suggests, call Apple and order a replacement original disc for about $17. They will ask you the model and serial numbers.
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Apple put a new hard drive into my MacBook Pro and updated the system to Maverick. They did not put iPhoto and iWeb on it but I did have it in Lion. Why and what am I supposed to do?

Apple put a new hard drive into my MacBook Pro and updated it from Lion to Maverick. They did not put iPhoto and iWeb on it but I did have it in Lion. They also didn't put Pages, Keynote or Numbers back on it until I argued with them. Of course, I didn't have my data backed up. My hard drive was destroyed when I tried to install the update of Mavericks myself. I should not have to buy iWeb and iPhoto when I already had them. Suggestions?

cwhargrave,
have you tried looking in the App Store, to see if you can redownload iWeb and iPhoto there gratis?
If you haven’t done so already, you should purchase an external hard drive to act as a Time Machine backup destination, so that you’ll have an option to rollback to a working environment if a new OS installation is troublesome.

I recently installed a new hard drive in a MacBook 2007 and then 10.6.3. I'd like to be able to Sync iCal to the calendars I have created on other devices (new iCloud account and an ME account). I can't upgrade to 10.7 or 10.8 because the MacBook is 32bit

I recently installed a new hard drive in a MacBook 2007 and then 10.6.3. I'd like to be able to Sync iCal to the calendars I have created on other devices (new iCloud account and an ME account). I can't upgrade to 10.7 or 10.8 because the MacBook is 32 bit. Just looking for a workaround as this is not a primary device.

You should update to the latest version of Snow Leopard, 10.6.8 - you can download it here; however it's still not compatible with iCloud and though you can connect to access your email you cannot access any other of iCloud's facilities.
However some people have been able to set up calendar syncing by using the method detailed here - this is an unsupported hack and may not be reliable, and may stop working at some future point. I've not tried it: use at your own discretion.
To access the email:
Entering iCloud email settings manually in Snow Leopard or Leopard
Are you sure you can't upgrade to Lion? It requires an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which you may well have, though it also needs 2GB RAM so you might need to add additional RAM (might not be worth it for what you want). The published specs don't mention 32 or 64 bit. You can buy Lion by ringing the Apple Store at the number at bottom left of this page.

I had to install a new hard drive on my macbook air and now I am getting unkown error whenever I try to login to itunes

I had to install a new hard drive on my macbook air and now I am getting unkown error whenever I try to login to itunes. Apple support suggested I reset my password so I did that and still the problem is occuring. Itunes and the app store are working normally on my ipad and iphone. Does anyone know what the problem is. The new disk was installed in France coz I am on holiday there. could there be something I need to change in my settings? I need help urgently as I am trying to finish an assignment and need to be able to access and download from icloud.

Hi Stacey,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
You may find the tips in this article helpful with resolving the error you're seeing:
iTunes Store: "An unknown error occurred (-9808)"
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2753
Best,
Jeremy

Having trouble installing and configuring new hard drive

I bought a larger (320GB) Hitachi hard drive for my T61, to replace the 100GB that came with the computer. I had no touble making the physical installation, but can't boot up and use the new drive. I:
--used Acronis software (True Image 11 and Disk Director) to partition the new drive. The new partitions are proportionately larger than on the old drive.
--copied files from my original HD to the new one.
--tried, unsuccessfully, to boot up from the new drive.
--tried Thinkvantage software, but it wouldn't (1) recognize any external drives (USB HDD or my backup drive, also an external); (2) let me change the order of my boot devices (I get a synbtax-challenged message: "All items on this menu cannot be modified in user mode...[C]onsult your system supervisor." Well, *I'm* the "system supervisor," and I still can't get the program to let me edit the boot order).
I have tried to boot the new drive from original OS software (XP Pro), with no success. Same deal with Acronis's emergency book disk. At the moment, I'm letting Thinkvantage reformat and (maybe) reinstall everything that was originally on the factory computer. Whether it'll actually do this on a new and larger hard drive, I guess I'll eventually find out. If it works, I'll then try to restore my real files with Acronis.
Has anybody else had to deal with this exciting sequence of events?
--Fred Powledge

Lets start afresh. First do you want an XP or Vista system on your new hard drive? Do you know if the recovery disks you got with your system are for the operating system you want on the new drive?
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HT3275 Since Installing a new hard drive on my 2008 macbook and reconnecting to to time capsule through time machine, I can only get backups since the install.

Since Installing a new hard drive on my 2008 macbook and reconnecting to to time capsule through time machine, I can only get backups since the install.
I receive a message saying identity of backup dis has changed and offers me the choice of either Don't back up or Use this disc.

Time Machine treats any new drive like a new computer. It starts a completely new Time Machine backup. So you now have two backups - a new one and all your old ones.
Visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with managing your Time Machine backups.

For some reason osx mountain lion has disappeared from my purchases and now when i want to install mountain lion on another mac with the same apple id it wants to charge me for the program even though i have already purchased it. what do i do?

for some reason osx mountain lion has disappeared from my purchases and now when i want to install mountain lion on another mac with the same apple id it wants to charge me for the program even though i have already purchased it. what do i do?

Open the Mac App Store on the other Mac and in the Quick Links sign into your account. See if the Mountain Lion purchase is among hidden apps in the iCloud area of your account info.

Blinking folder with question mark and a new hard drive: also installing Mountain Lion and 0 with a line through it appears please help?

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