Blinking question mark

how do i remove the blinking question mark icon when starting up the mac

There are four general causes of this issue:
1. The computer's PRAM no longer contains a valid startup disk setting when there aren't any problems with the disk itself. This can be checked for by pressing the Option key and seeing if the drive appears.
2. The internal drive's directory structure has become damaged. This requires usage of an alternate bootable system to perform the repair.
3. Critical system files have been deleted. This requires usage of an alternate bootable system to reinstall them.
4. The internal drive has died or become unplugged. This is the most likely case if the computer took a sharp impact or there are unusual sounds coming from the hard drive's location.
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Similar Messages

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.

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.

PowerMac G5: Blinking question mark at startup

I have a 3 1/2 year old G5. When I boot it up, it goes straight to the blinking question mark. I've reset the PRAM, no change. I've tried booting off an installation disk. That gets me to the Apple logo, then the logo pixels go kinda funky and it freezes. I don't hear the hard drive at all during this process; it does not spin up. The CD/DVD drive is obviously spinning, but as I said, it won't boot off an installation disk (I tried three different disks).
I'm assuming the hard drive is bad, but I don't know. I've never had a problem with a Mac before! Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't think of a 3.5 year old Mac as being that old, but I'm a bit nervous about dropping a new hard drive in and wondering if I should just get a new system.
ETA: I have disconnected all peripherals and restarted, and that made no difference.
Message was edited by: Stacia Seaman

I'm having this same problem with a system I just replaced a logic board in. Won't boot off of HD or CD. The HD that is in it is a brand new drive from a different power-mac (the HD from the dead box was moved to the new powermac to get that user back online) so it should be ok, but regardless of that, it won't boot of CD/DVD either.
I guess I don't have anything useful to add. Just a "you're not alone with this problem". If I come across anything that helps, I'll let you know.

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.

The Dreaded Blinking Question Mark

About a month ago I started having a recurring problem of the computer freezing upon waking from sleep.
Each time I restarted it by holding the power button, and each time I would get the blinking question mark over the folder.
I replaced the PRAM battery and it didn't fix the problem.
I bought the latest version of Disc Warrior, ran it and it said that everything was fine. Still the problem persisted.
Finally, I popped in the Apple utility disc and it said that there were problems with the disc, but didn't fix them.
Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Wake from sleep problems are on the MDD are common when USB PCI cards are installed. If you've installed such a card, try disconnecting everything from it and see if things get better.
If your PRAM battery is more than three years old, or your computer has been unplugged from the wall for extended periods, you should replace the battery.

Mac Pro not detecting internal HD. Blinking Question Mark!!

Hi there,
Ive been looking for an answer about my problem but it seems most of the people has got the problem; the hard drive might be damaged. Thats not my case.
Ive got two Mac Pros. One is working flawlessly. So I swaped HDs to see what happened and when I turned on the computer, the good MAC detected the hard drive of the failing computer and I logged in normally. When I turned on the failing computer with the good HD, it didnt read it. In conclusion I realized that there was not a HD problem, something else is going on.
After that, using the good Mac PRo, I installed both HDs and both were detected. This confirmed that definitely, the HDs are Ok. Whats wrong?? I dont know, hope you people can help me.
Thanks a lot.

The blinking question mark says you could not find:
The preferred System
of the preferred version
on the preferred drive.
All these parameters are stored in Parameter RAM, and sometimes they get damaged "just because".
If you use
System Preferences > Startup Disk ...
... to set the correct startup disk again. your problems may be over.
If not, you may need to reset the PRAM.
If that does not solve the problem in the long run, you may need to replace the PRAM backup battery.

I replaced hard drive in macbook pro and when turning on i get a blinking question mark

just replaced hard drive on my '09 macbook pro and rebooted to get the blinking question mark. what do i do? not sure i have the installation disk. i had this happen once on an older macbook and was able to figure it out but i can't remember what i did.

Schedule an appointment with a Genius the SSD is gone.

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

Can not get past blinking question mark after restarting in os 9

I have a ibook g3 clamshell 576mb ram 366mhz 30gb hd. I added the hard drive and upgraded the memory and then forgot to update the firmware before I installed os x tiger. So I keep getting kernal panics because the firmware is not upgraded. Like a fool when I upgraded to tiger I erased os 9 to free up more space thinking I would never use os 9 ever again anyway. Well the only way you can upgrade the firmware is to have os 9 installed so I copied os 9 system folder and applications from another ibook and transformed them to my ibook hd. I then clicked on the os 9 on the start up disk and tried to boot into os 9 so I could do the firmware update. Well now it will not boot past the blinking question mark. I guess there must of been some missing files? How do i get past the blinking question mark? Do I have to go and buy a copy of os 9 to reinstall it back on the ibook? Please help I am stuck here.

Don't think anyone will like the answer but this is how I did it. You have to put a os x cd in restart holding c and then follow through with the install. I used os x 10.0.3 then you have to do the same with a os 9 install disc and initialize disk image and then do the os 9 install download your firmware update and then reinstall the mac os x you are going to use. And for anybody out there a ibook g3 with an old airport card can connect to wep all you have to do is add a $ before your password works everytime. Hope this helps somebody. My only problem is after a downloaded the firmware update thats a .smi file evrytime I try to open it it says no application could open it. I thought .smi were self mounting image files. I never have used os 9 much and have no idea how to open this file. Can anybody give me a walk through on how to select a application to open this file so I can mount and install this firmware update.

Intermittent Blinking Question Mark at Start-Up

I've read a number of postings about the blinking question mark problem during start-up, but this one is different -- its intermittent. By that I mean that sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. Here is the chronology:
- Student comes home for Spring Break and requests me to connect her to our wireless network.
- I enter network name and PW. It gets connected, but the spinning rainbow wheel won't stop spinning. So eventually I re-start --> first time I've ever seen the blinking question mark. System won't start on multiple tries. Student says 'yeah, that's been happening for a while. Just wait a while and it will be OK.' I've never seen an intermittent problem like this.
- Took iBook to the Genius Bar at local Apple Store
- Genius gets it to start up on first try, amazing me. He didn't do any trick, just pushed the power button. But he did plug the AC adapter in as he was trying to boot it. (more on this later) How can this be??
- Genius does some kind of test on the Hard Drive and pronounces it OK. Says problem must be software-related.
- I mention that Student didn't bring home her 10.3.X Disk Utilities/Restore disk.
- I mention I've got 10.4 Family Pack, but haven't had time to load it on any of our Macs. Genius recommends doing Archive Install, then use 10.4 disk to run Disk Utilities to check Permissions etc.
- I load 10.4 and then run Disk Utilities. The start-up disk is already properly identified, no need to re-select the internal HD Sys X. But sure enough, some of the Permissions needed repair and were fixed. Problem seems solved, system runs fine for 3 days.
- Student goes back to college. Today she reports that the blinking question mark is back, but now she can't run Disk Utilities because I still have the 10.4 disk at home, and her 10.3 disk won't work anymore.
I should also mention: Student has been having short battery re-charge life. Checked the Apple Website and realized that her battery S/N is covered under the free replacement program. Today she received the new battery and installed it, and then when she re-started, that's when the blinking question mark showed up again. Could there be a connection between the power supply and the blinking question mark?
What to do? Any ideas welcomed. Student wants new computer, I say not so fast.....
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Assuming that you get the flashing question mark for extended periods of time (i.e. not just one or two flashes and then it boots), and repeatedly (i.e. it takes several power cycles to boot the system), I'd recommend a couple of steps:
1) Run the Disk Utility -> Repair Disk option while booted off CD. This will check and repair common disk problems that can cause this kind of issue
2) Reset the parameter RAM (PRAM) to reset the system settings (Command-Option-P-R as you power on)
3) When this happens, hold down the option key as you power up the system. this will offer a list of available boot drives. Check that your boot drive is available.
4) If all else fails, backup - soon, and be prepared to replace the hard drive. This might sound drastic but I'd had a number of laptops die through failed drives. This option is especially true if you're experiencing other unexplained problems such as hangs and crashes while running the machine.

Gray screen (sometimes blinking question mark) at start up

My husband was using my beloved Macbook last night & said that while surfing Facebook, all of Firefox locked up & the spinning wheel thing (like it was thinking) made it imposbbile for him to do anything. Rather than doing ctrl + option + esc (or w/e it is....I can do it with my hands quickly but can't think right now) to quit Firefox, he just held down the power button to shut the whole thing down. He said that when he turned it back on, it was doing the blinking question mark thing.
This morning (not having known what happened last night), I started it up & was confused by the blinking question mark. I asked him about it & then got the whole story. I turned it off & let it chill all day while I was at work. And now every time I start it up it's alternating between just being a gray screen or sometimes if I leave it long enough, it turns to the flashing question mark again.
I have done the restart & press option thing & nothing happened. Did a restart & pressed shift & nothing happened.
The only thing I've done & seen anything from resetting my PRAM & NVRAM (http://http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379) & even then, after the 2nd restart when it says to let go, nothing different happened. Still the gray screen!!!
Help!! I am a computer junkie & have loved my MacBook for 4 years. I put in a new harddrive (I wanted a bigger, better one) a couple years ago, but could that be it? I need to know more tests I can do.
PS - I don't have the right startup disc because I upgraded using my brother-in-law's & he lives 7 hours away. So I can't just pop in my start up disc. Any other suggestions???

In addition to above advice, here is an Apple article with some troubleshooting suggestions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Note that you will need your install disk. If you do not have it, you can call Apple; if you give them your serial number, they should be able to send you copies for a nominal charge.
PS - I don't have the right startup disc because I upgraded using my brother-in-law's & he lives 7 hours away. So I can't just pop in my start up disc. Any other suggestions???
If your Macbook meets the system requirements for Snow Leopard, you might want to consider buying that (available for $29 or less) rather than using someone else's disks which violates Apple's SLA.

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 on Blue Screen

I came home from a 5 day weekend away from home and lifted the lid of my macbook. Attempted to choose a user to login as and the spinning wheel wouldn't stop, so I decided to shut down manually. When I turned it back on I got this blue screen with the blinking Question Mark on an image of a file folder accompanied by a clicking sound. Restarting repeatedly gave the same results. So, I got online and looked at the Apple website, followed the instructions to restart holding down various keys. After one restart it gave me a blue screen with only the mouse, however, now I am back to the blinking "?" after another restart.
I do not have my OSX Leopard cd's that came with the computer, so I can't do a restart with them in the computer.... please tell me that this is something simple and that I can get back to all of my files....?
Thank you.
Melissa

Hi Melissa;
No Time Machine backups hourly to an external disk.
I don't know for absolutely sure that it is your hard drive. What they symptoms you gave me are suggesting is that it is the most likely cause for the problem. Your MacBook is not able to find a place from which to boot. That indicate a high likelihood of a failed disk.
If the disk is only corrupt so that your MacBook is no longer able to find the system then a tool like FileSalvage might be able to recover some of your data. If it is truly dead there are recovery services that can recovery the data for big bucks.
Did you purchase AppleCare? That would extend the warranty to three years.
Allan

Blinking Question Mark / Hard drive failure

Hi all,
Im desperately trying to fix my hard drive and I really need some advice.
The story.
I went away for holiday, left my iMac on in the office so I could access it vis VPN, and whilst away, the hard drive failed on me. I arrived back from holiday with a computer that wouldnt wake up that I had to force shut down and power up again, finding only the dreaded blinking question-mark folder.
where Im at:
Thus far, I have run Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disk, Diskwarrior, and Data Rescue and only Disk Utility is able to see hardware installed (just hardware, no volumes).
I have a backup from December 2009 (when a power surge killed my backup drive temporarily), but I really want to use it only as a last resort. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might be able to get DiskWarrior or Data Rescue to find the hardware so it can run tests?
Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated as well—I can't think of anything else to try.
thanks in advance,
Joel

Thanks for the response, much appreciated. I came to my wits end and realized that I couldnt even erase the data using Disk Utility, so alas, looks like it's going to have to be a new hard drive for me. I purchased one a couple days ago and it arrived today. Im going to install it today (hopefully) and back up using the time machine backup i have from 6 months ago.
I dont suppose installing the old drive into an external enclosure would change anything as far as trying to fix/mount it to retrieve data?
Best,
Joel

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.

Blinking question mark

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