Blinking question mark on folder when powering on.

Should I use command r? I am not sure what steps to take by either using the command r and beyond.  I do backups.

Usually means a missing or corrupted system file. Do the following:
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Similar Messages

  • Blinking question mark and folder on startup

    Hi everyone,
    I'm in need of some help. I turned on my mac today and got a gray screen with a little folder icon and a blinking question mark in the center. I'm on a G4 running OS X Tiger. I'm trying to boot using the startup disk but here's the problem, I have an external dvd drive connected by firewire, so the only way I can startup the Tiger dvd is from that external dvd drive. I put the dvd in (only my monitor, mouse, keyboard and the dvd drive are plugged in), restarted, pressed 'c' got the installer menu, went to disk utility but the only hardrive it shows is for my dvd drive (2.6GB LaCieGroup SA) and the icon of the dvd underneath, it does not show the macs hardrive.
    I don't know what to do can someone please help are there any other options?
    Thanks
    Chris

    Hi Chris99,
    Welcome to Apple Discussions.
    Regrets you're experiencing difficulty.
    In the absence of any additional details about your scenario, here are my two cents.
    The folder icon with blinking question mark implies that your Mac fails to recognize its internal hard drive as a bootable device.
    Further, Disk Utility fails to recognize your Mac's internal hard drive.
    One possiblity is that your internal hard drive's ribbon cable has come loose. You can test this by opening the G4's case and playing with the cable.
    Another possibility is that the hard drive's ribbon cable is defective. You can test this by using another ribbon cable.
    A third possibility is that the hard drive has stopped functioning properly. If you have another Mac, you can test this by connecting the G4 to the other Mac using a Firewire cable, then cold boot the other Mac, then cold boot the G4 while pressing the T key. If the G4's hard drive fails to display on the other Mac's desktop, this would support the third possibility. You also can test this by using a third-party hard drive repair utility (Tech Tool Pro; DiskWarrior; Drive Genius).
    If you live near to an Apple Store or authorized Apple service shop, you could bring your G4 to a technician there and request a diagnosis.
    Hope this helps.

  • Blinking question mark/file folder icon on start-up

    I cannot boot up my laptop--It makes the chime sound, then goes to a gray screen, then eventually an icon of a file folder with a flashing question mark superimposed on it appears. I've tried resetting the PRAM, and won't have access to the software installation CDs until I'm back at my office tomorrow.
    Any ideas?

    I also have the blinking folder. I tried starting up in safe mode but still just ended up with the folder. I used the install disc 1(pushing the c)and my hd doesn't show up to even repair it. I have tried everything else listed here and in the manual except reinstalling because I am afraid of losing all of my data, etc. When it is turning on it makes a weird clunking noise that has never happened before, along with the clicking that someone else had referred to.
    Is there anything else I can do? My macbook is just barely beyond the one year mark. What causes things like this? I also now live outside of the US so I can't take it in to the Genius bar. What should our next steps be?
    Thanks!
    Kristina

  • HT1553 I did the back up as instructed... Installed a larger hard drive and followed the restore instructions... Now I get a white screen with a folder icon and blinking question mark. When trying to set startup with new drive I get a bless tool error...

    I did the back up as instructed... Installed a larger hard drive and followed the restore instructions... Now I get a white screen with a folder icon and blinking question mark. When trying to set startup with new drive I get a bless tool error... Help!!

    If you have installed a new hard drive , you will need to have formatted it in Disk Utility correctly. This may explain your problem.
    Boot  into your 10.6 Install disk again at the top menubar > Utilities > select Disk utility and in there select your new hard drive, and select the tab Erase and choose to make the format as  Mac OS Extended Journaled. When that is finished look in the main window to make sure that the partition map scheme says GUID Partition Table.
    Now go to the Restore tab and reinstall from your backup.

  • My iMac has a blinking question mark folder on it and won't let me boot.

    I have a late 2009 27 inch iMac whos hardrive failed a while back. A couple days ago i decided to pop in a new hard drive in it, the same brand, just different capacity. I wanted to put windows on it, and tried to boot it with pressing c on the keyboard at startup but encountered a few problems.
    When i power on my imac the screen is just a blank white screen for about 20-30 seconds. During this time, any devices plugged into the USB ports do not work. My mouse is not lit up, and my keyboard will not react to pressing caps lock, num lock etc. After that 20-30 second period the folder with the blinking question mark on it pops up. I tried holding C, as well as windows key and C but nothing seems to make the mac recognize i want it to  boot from other devices.
    The hard drive i installed is empty (obviously) So i'm not sure if its an issue with the way I installed the hard drive (pretty sure i did it right) or another issue that may involve trying to put windows on it. Also worth noting is im using a normal USB mouse, and a normal USB keyboard, not mac devices. I'm willing to put OSX on this computer if its necessary to make it work, but right now all i can get on it is that white screen and then the blinking folder. Does anybody have any idea how to fix this?

    Drive Partition and Format
    1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button.  When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area.  If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing.  SMART info will not be reported  on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    When formatting has completed quit Disk Utility and install OS X.

  • IMac wont boot Past Grey Screen, finder folder with blinking question mark

    iMac G5 won't boot Past Grey Screen. The G5 froze and i restarted, It will not go past the grey screen and it has the finder folder with blinking question mark, also the fans kick on wide open. As it atempts to boot a sound plays "beepda beepda beepda beep" that starts quiet and gets louder and repeats a couple of times. I ran a hardware check on the startup disk and all hardware passed. I thought it might be the RAM any suggestions?
    I have restarted using the troubleshooting methods in the guide.

    Sorry for the late reply. The drive shows up when booting to disk, but it will not allow you to verify disk or repair. Also it will not allow you to select the hard drive to reinstall the software. Under disk utility Maxtor sabre shows up with total capacity:0 bytes.
    I've taking the Mac to the Apple store to get looked at, and its probly the hard drive. Now Im trying to see if theres a way to recover the data myself. I've used software like "Data Rescue" the hard drive shows up "Maxtor Sabre" totally capacity: 0 bytes, and it will not recover anything.
    Did this test just to see if it was power problem.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2173
    Thats when noticed the beeps are coming from the hard drive. So its getting power.
    Now just wondering how to recover data.
    Any suggestions?

  • Imac g3 os; blinking question mark, folder on boot

    Thanks for your help Nick. I did as you said.
    selected startup disk, then clicked on macintosh hd
    and clicked on restart.
    When it restarted, the blinking question mark
    inside the folder appeared.
    Am I having a possible hard ware problem of
    some kind ? Have tried shocking pram already.
    Is it bad pram battery, or maybe a
    hard drive problem ?
    Maybe one bad memory stick ?
    I am lost here. New to macs.
    Any help would be appreciated.

    Please stick to the other topic. This is in a round about way a duplicate. You will confuse yourself if others answer here.

  • Blinking question mark folder with only OS X base system left

    Yesterday I turned my laptop on to see a blinking question mark folder. I searched through a lot of people questions with the same problem however mine is not the same because I only have the OS X base system left. I can't redownload the OS X lion because there is nothing to download it after I chose the option to redownload it. I see that most people have the Macintosh HD but I don't have anything like that.
    disk1
         Mac OS X Base System
    that's all I see when I try the repair option?

    Have you tried booting to your Recovery HD (if you are running Lion or Mountain Lion?) If not and if you were running Lion or Mountain Lion, then:
    Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
    These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
    A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
    Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
    In most cases the problems may be caused by:
    Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
    Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
    Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
    The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
    Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD:
    Boot From The Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
    1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
    If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
    Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
    Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
    Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
    When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
    Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
    Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

  • Blinking question mark folder icon on startup (but not always!)

    I recently obtained a new hard drive (Western Digital 80gb) and installed the Mac OS on a 500 mhz Cube; the DVD drive was not recognized but I removed the jumper on the drive pins rendering the disc a master and finally, the DVD drive was found so that I could perform the OS install. The problem is that if I start up the Cube after a long period of time having been OFF (e.g., 5 hours) there is the blinking question mark folder (Mac OS logo alternates with question mark). After 3-4 minutes, the startup disc is finally located. Now, if I do a cold restart a few minutes later, there is NO problem on startup. My startup issue always occurs after a longer period of time with the Cube having been OFF. There is a new battery installed, permissions are fixed, the drive checks out without problems with disc utility. What could be the problem?

    Probably your PRAM battery is gone. This stores information such as your preferred startup disk. I know you said you put in a new battery but have you actually tested it? The computer being off for several hours really, really sounds like a bad battery. Also check the terminals both on the battery and in the machine aren't corroded and it is seated correctly.
    [Texas Mac Man's PRAM, battery, PMU tutorial|http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html]
    [Apple's PRAM reset directions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238]
    If you have a digital multimeter you can check the condition of your present battery. It should read at least 3.2V if it is the 3.6V half-AA battery type. Ideally this should be measured while the battery is under load; added recommendation from Hans777:
    I have recently found out that an exhausted battery will still indicate >3.6 V with a high internal resistance VM.
    Checking incircuit: powercord disconnected press PMU reset button for >about 5 sec before measuring.
    Checking outside: load the battery with a 1500 Ohm resistor when measuring.
    [Resetting Cuda/PMU on Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, Power Macintosh G3|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86760]
    Message was edited by: Limnos

  • Mbpro won't start up- get blinking question mark folder

    help!!! think my macbook pro (1st gen, 17") has died- i get a blinking question mark folder when i boot up.
    it's been having problems for a long while, so use it generally to record movies- which a bunch are still on there to export.
    is there a resolve for this? would a new harddrive get it up and working again?
    hoping i can recover the harddrive  to get data, but ok without it. just want it working again if possible.
    thanks for the help!

    The symptom you describe is usually a HDD problem or it could be an internal cable/connection problem.  If you have an external bootable HDD, employ it and see if you can access the internal HDD via Disk Utility and run First Aid.
    Ciao.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
    The above article may be useful.
    Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

  • TS1440 I followed all of the directions after seeing that my laptop flashed the folder with the question mark. But when I went to disk utility to repair/ verify issues w/ start up disk it would not allow me to.button to repair/verify is there but cant be

    I followed all of the directions after seeing that my laptop flashed the folder with the question mark. But when I went to disk utility to repair/ verify issues w/ start up disk it would not allow me to. The buttons to repair and modify we're there but they were grey and couldn't be pressed.

    Were you trying to repair the disk you were booted from? You can't do that - you need to boot from your install disk, and choose 'Disk Utility' from the 'install' menu.

  • I see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder

    i see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder. I see that it means that it isn't reading the new hard drive.
    did i miss a step between transferring all of my information from my old hard drive to the new hard drive and installing the new hard drive into the computer. I believe that i installed properly. it was quite easy.
    thanks for your help

    It means there is no bootable system on the drive. If you still have access to the old drive, then I suggest you boot from it then clone it to the new internal drive. Use OPTION boot to boot from the Recovery HD on the old drive:
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
         1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
             button.
         2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
         3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
         4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
             to the Destination entry field.
         5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
             the Source entry field.
         6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Source means the external old drive. Destination means the new internal drive.

  • After I turned on my MacBook Pro, it displayed a blinking question mark over a folder and now I don't know what to do.

    When I turned on my Mac, the blinking question mark appeared and I went to the apple support pages and did everything on the lists.
    Nothing worked. Then I put in the installation disk to wipe the hd, but none appeared on the list. I tried putting in a different hd and that didn't work either. Also, my original hard drive is fine because I put it in a another Mac and it worked perfectly. 
    Now I am at a loss over what to do. Any solutions?

    Sound like a hardware failure / cable / connection
    Genius reservation http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/
    on-line https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action
    check warranty https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

  • I switched to the classic 'landscape' and when i reboot, it just stays at the greay screen, with the macintosh logo, and a blinking question mark. ive tried several methods of key combinations with rebooting etc.. i just bought this. please help.

    i switched to the classic 'landscape' and when i reboot, it just stays at the greay screen, with the macintosh logo, and a blinking question mark. ive tried several methods of key combinations with rebooting etc.. i just bought this. please help.
    I bought this off of craigslist with my christmas money, TODAY. i really need help, i have OS X experience from school, just not OS 9x. I need to reboot back to OS X asap. anything that may help is very appreciated. Thank You.
    Chris.

    Are you able to start up in Safe Mode?
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455?viewlocale=en_US
    If this works you will see the normal desktop Once completely started up in Safe Mode, try to restart normally and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
    Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar, ("Macintosh HD" unless it has been renamed). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
    See if you are able to do a little hard drive maintenance to help things out.

  • Blinking question mark folder, new hard drive

    Okay so I've been having this problem for a couple weeks now. My computer was running a bit slowly when I was watching videos online, and it froze so I forced a shut down. It turned back on and it worked for a couple minutes, but then it froze again and when I attempted to reset it I got the scary blinking question mark. I went through all the options to fix it, but the computer could not find my hard drive. When I tried to repair disk no hard drive came up, and when I tried to re-install ios x it also could not find a hard drive. I confirmed that the hard drive had died so I purchased a new one, but now that a new one is installed I cannot re-install ios x because the computer won't read the disc. Under the utilities menu it shows that the disc is there, but it just won't re-install.
    I checked on another computer and confirmed that the disc still works. I put it in my computer upon start up and got no response from the machine. Instead of getting the blinking question mark, the screen just stays gray.
    My computer is a 2012 macbook pro. The disc I had to buy online because it did not come with my computer, and has OS version 10.5.2 on it.
    Thanks

    Hello,
    A mid 2012 MBP should still be covered under AppleCare!?
    Anyway, that MBP won't boot/use/run 10.5.anything, it came with...
    Pre-Installed MacOS: X 10.7.3 (11D2515)
    If you have an Apple Store nearby they can reinstall 10.7 or newer on it, 10.7 & up is only availble from a Download, not on Disc.

Maybe you are looking for