Did my hard drive die? Folder Question Mark Flashing.

When I boot up, I get a folder with a question mark flashing on the screen. I booted up using the install CD, chose disk utility, but it could not analyze the disk at all. I assume the latter is the case because the disk is flat out not working - maybe a busted motor or corrupted. I do not hear the disk working at all when I try to listen for that.

I have to agree with Peck here, if the drive does not show up in Disk Utility it's a goner.
Some people have found themselves lucky and it turned out to be a loose cable after a repair or replaced drive but if you had neither done on your mac the drive is dead.
I hope you made backups.

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New Hard Drive still have Question Mark Folder

So I first got the 'Question Mark Folder' and had to keep running Safe Boot Mode to use computer. Finally got around to replacing the Hard Drive, but this Question Mark Folder still comes up trying to turn the computer on and now trying to setup the new hard drive. Won't let me do anything. I've tried all of the button combos/recovery mode/etc. Tried inserting both a backup disk of Mavericks and Snow Leopard, nothing. Is there any other problems that could cause this? Maybe a dead SATA cable? or something else small hopefully?

My newest Mac just did the same "folder of death" dance. It's too late for you now, but you might consider a passport backup drive.You can get 2&3 T-bytes now fairly reasonably priced. A given with computers is they will crash, just a question of how bad and when, so you can be prepared for the next time.

New Hard Drive: Mac Face/Question Mark on boot

I installed a new hard drive in my fathers iBook G4 1.33 GHz and installed Leopard. I instantly had problems after the installation was complete and the computer restarted. I got the Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD.
I used disk utilities to verify and repair the disk and permissions which both finished successfully. I tried to reboot with the same result: Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD. I decided to erase and reinstall Leopard. Installation complete - Restart - Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to turn if off for the night.
I powered up in the morning with short-lived success, as I got the Leopard Welcome video. I set up the system and did some software updates, which eventually required a restart. Boom. Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to hold the option key on my next restart to see if I could select the hard drive installation over the install CD. I was able to do so, and it booted fine to the hard drive. I continued my software updating, installed some more software like iLife '08, Firefox, Open Office, Stuffit Expander, etc. After all my installation and updating, the system operates great, except when I have to start up. I still have the Mac Face/Question Mark.
I have a theory that the hard drive jumper is set incorrectly, but I don't want to waste 45 mins. cracking the thing open to find out. Can anyone confirm? I'm open to all other theories, of course.

No jumper means Cable Select (CS). This would mean that the cable from the motherboard to the drive has a blue connector at the motherboard and a black connector on the end where the drive plugs in. The gray connector in the middle is the Slave position. Master/Slave relationship is determined by where on the cable the device is plugged in.
The CS cables and the setting was not used very often until around 2004 or 2005. Until that time all of the connectors on the cable were the same color and the Master/Slave setting was determined by the jumper on the drive.
It's very possible that you are trying to use a drive that's been setup for the newer systems as Cable Select, when actually you should force the drive to be a Master by installing a jumper on the proper pins.
Are there two deviced on the cable besides the motherboard, and are all of the connectors the same color? Or is the connector that plugs into the motherboard black? Then you are probably not looking at a CS buss.

Mac Pro 3,1 - did my hard drive die? And what should I replace it with?

Hi,
I inherited my late husband's 2008 Mac Pro (3,1 model) which had 2 x 500GB hard drives in it and 6GB of RAM. I filled the remaining hard drive bays with 1TB drives (I take a lot of video so needed the extra space). The boot drive was partitioned 50/50 in Boot Camp. I've upgraded the RAM to 10GB and I am currently running Lion.
Today, while doing something as innocuous as scrolling down a web page, the bottom half of my screen went black and the top half began flashing wildly. When it stopped after several seconds, the mouse would not respond and I could not click on anything. If flashed a bit more, and then I had mouse control back but could not click on anything - web links, applications, finder. After waiting patiently but getting nowhere, I powered the machine down manually, and when I re-started it, it failed to boot. The chime sounded, the apple appeared, and the little revolving wheel, but at the point where the screen would normally go blue then display the desktop, it just went white. The fans spin, but otherwise it's very silent.
I tested with a second display, got the same issue. I tried booting to recovery mode but it went back to the white screen. I could start in target mode, and there were no issues with flickering screen, so I don't think it's the graphics card. Then I tried browsing to the hard drive over the network, but it wasn't showing on the PC network page, nor could I connect to it via the home theater system, which I can normally do as the streaming app launches on start-up. I am assuming this means the drive has failed? It's the original, and we bought the machine when they were new to the market, so is a good 5 years old. It contains not only the boot drive but my documents, photos, websites, selected videos, all of which are backed up on the Time Capsule, and I was in the process of uploading to cloud backup as well (although not very far along, due to data cap and slow international upload speeds). I had no warning it was about to do this, but then I guess sometimes you don't!
Assuming I need to replace the drive, would it be worth replacing it with an OWC Mercury Electra 480GB SSD in an Icy Dock sled? Or would that be overkill for such an old machine? Would getting a standard 7200 WD Caviar HDD or similar give me enough of a speed boost? Obviously I am rather enamoured with the idea of a blazing fast SSD but I'd have to import it (not available locally) so I don't want to shell out all that money unless it's really going to make a massive difference.
Is there anything else I would need to know about using an SSD over a HDD? I assume I would fire it up the normal way - install it, boot from my Snow Leopard install disc (I downloaded Lion from the App Store) format it, clean install SL, then re-update to Lion, then restore my Time Machine backup? Am I likely to experience any weird issues due to it being an SSD? I see talk online of firmware problems and something called TRIM that I don't know anything about. If it's most likely that I can install it and rock on as normal, then I'm pretty keen, but if there's a reasonable probability of it being temperamental, I probably wouldn't be willing to deal with that (and therefore go the HDD route instead). Therefore I am very keen to hear people's opinions and experiences.
Sorry for the terribly long ramble. The more I have researched this, the more questions it raises! All advice gratefully accepted. Thanks!

more than likely it is your video card. If it is ATI 2600XT, tell it bye-bye. The card is barely used at all in TDM or Safe Boot Mode. The 2600 and Lion and the issues with that card, even if it seems okay, is not.
Depending on Windows OS as to how it mounts and sees your Lion HFSX (there is a nice HFSX driver from Paragon, and an NTFS driver for Lion too)
480GB SSD is overkill for any system unless you are pushing CS6 2-3GB images and then for scratch. All you need for a boot drive is about 100GB.
If you have an SSD now, then 1) you need to do a full image backup and restore (regularly as maintenance), and 2) TRIM Enabler
Save Lion and you can always do a clean Lion install w/o going back to SL - but you might want to keep SL (dual boot) and handy if you run into anything you still need that required PowerPC/Rosetta
FBDIMM RAM dies, Amazon has $32 kits of 4GB. And having all 8 DIMM slots filled improves things. If you need or want to and feel 16GB isn't overkill.
SSD and issues are always possible. you should not just go along. not without a clone image. And you should have another drive w/ TRIM Enabler so that you can do a repair and "trim" what is needed.
Clone a system with CCC regularly. Bootable. And can also be used by Setup Assistant.
Install Lion over a heavily used SL system and there are likely remnants of old things that get in the way and left in there and not removed.

Blinking folder & Question Mark - Drive Good - Files Are Still there

Okay,
So I've been a long way with this iMac. It originally came to me with bad power supply. I replaced. Then it came back with bad capacitors. I replaced. Then it came back not booting. Here's where I'm stuck.
I dont see the drive if I use command - s. If I boot OS X install cd, I can select OS X 10.4.11 on [OS Volume Name] in Startup Disk, I can see all the files on the disk, I've ran all repair options including file permissions and Disk Warrior, but the OS never loads.
Tried Safe Mode, Single User, Verbose Mode, PRAM Reset, NVRAM Reset, reset-all in command-option-o-f mode, I've blessed the /Volumes/[OS Volume Name]/System/Library/CoreServices directory several different ways, still the OS never loads... blinking folder & question mark.
I dont have correct install cd for this system and can't reinstall. Any suggestions or repairing bootloader, kernel, or something advanced...???
Anyone?

Hi Jkat, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Sounds like short of a proper install disk, you've tried everything but this...
applesetupdone...
This was Posted by: JoseAranda at September 9, 2006 3:48 AM
"OK, restart your computer, hold down Command-s and type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -y Enter
/sbin/mount -uaw Enter
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone Enter
# The rm command is the remove command which deletes the file.
# Robert: I'd rename the file via: mv /var/db/.applesetupdone /var/db/.applesetupdone.old
reboot Enter
Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!
end of posted by: JoseAranda"
But not on this forum I guess.

Hard drive died, but do i have a battery issue also?

Hello,
Well, my powerbook has been acting funny for the last few months and I think it finally died today. I've been doing weekly bootable backups on a smartdisk firelite 100GB external hard drive. Yesterday my computer was really slow, so today I updated the backup. Afterwards, I tried running disk repair in the disk utility on my internal hard drive, but it froze while doing that and I was forced to hit the kill switch. When I started it again I got the mini-folder with a blinking question mark. Luckily, I think the bootable backup works (although I've had issues with that drive mounting in the past) and for now it looks like I have all my files and applications. I tried running disk repair on the internal hard drive by got the error message: "invalid B-tree node size, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)".
My question though is about how HOT my powerbook had been running lately. I've been using a notebook cooler with a fan, but it's still very hot to the touch after a while above the keyboard and sometimes I've noticed it's hot on the lower right side (under my left wrist). The adapter on the AC plug/cord setup gets hot also. I'm wondering if the heat was because the hard drive was dying, OR if the hard drive died because of the heat? (Note: I checked my battery serial number a long time ago and it wasn't part of the mac recall.)
I want to get a new hard drive to install (at BestBuy or some other place I guess). I'll look around on the list for recommendations, but I'm open to suggestions. I don't know if it's worth wiping the hard drive I have now and restoring it from the backup, or just assume it's dead. I don't want to get a new hard drive and find out I have a battery overheating issue instead.
Thanks for your help!
Lisa

Lisa:
Before you purchase and install a new HDD, just hold a minute.
Great that you have a bootable backup of your HDD. Good thinking. Are you able to boot the computer from the external firewire HDD? (From a cold start, turn on external HDD, hit computer power button and immediately after chime hold down Option key. Select external HDD in screen and click right pointing arrow.)
When you ran Disk Utility, did you notice the S.M.A.R.T Status? If it says Verified, there is still hope. If it says failing, we'll need to find you a new HDD.
+"invalid B-tree node size, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)".+
This indicates serious directory issues for which you will need a utility like Disk Warrior, Tech Tool Pro, or DriveGenius. Take a look at Disk Utility reports "Underlying task reported failure" when repairing a volume for details about the issue.
One of the above utilities has a good chance of repairing the directories. However, there is an even chance that the drive may be too damaged to be repaired. However, you won't know that until after you have run one of those utilities.
Your computer will support a 2.5" (P)ATA/IDE HDD up to 160 GB. Here are some HDDs that will work for you at OWC. If you are handy with a screw driver and have the time and patience you can probably install it yourself using these step by step directions from ifixit. If you need to install a new HDD, and think you would like to try it yourself, post back for additional tips.
Cheers.
cornelius

Has the hard drive died?

Hello,
My daughter's 2006 intel IMac has problems. Last night, it had frozen, and was playing a strange sound. When I forced a shut down, on restart the strange sound came again, and the folder and question mark icon - showing that the start-up drive is missing - came up. Pressing Alt to try to select start-up wouldn't work.
This morning I managed to start up from an external firewire drive, intending to tinker with the drive in disk utility. However, disk utility won't find the drive. What it does find is a mystery 7.5 GB drive (hard drive icon) called WDC ROM MODEL-HAWK----Media. Disk Utility won't let me verify, repair or erase this mystery drive. The 'missing' hard drive is 250GB.
Drive Genius, Onyx and Idefrag don't 'see' either the proper hard drive or the mystery Hawk drive either.
I've done my best to record the weird sound. This sound starts up immediately I press the power on button which seems weird. Then the 'normal' start-up chime sounds, but the weird sound continues and the iMac fails to find the usual start-up drive. I've uploaded the sound (not good quality I'm afraid) here:
http://web.me.com/lucy.banwell/Site/ImacHDproblem.html
The chime comes in a little loud - sorry.
Has the hard drive died, do you think?
Thanks for any help
Lucy

It does sound like the HD is gone and you have done a pretty good job of trouble shooting it. I'd recommend starting with the install disc that came with the computer and running Disk Utility from that and 1. see if it can see the internal drive and 2. repair that it if it can been seen. If it can't be seen then I think your assessment is right on and it's time to replace it.
Regards,
Roger

Can't startup blinking folder question mark

There are similar questions in these forums, but my situation is different. My MacMini froze and I had to press the power button on it to restart it. I get the folder with the blinking question mark. I do not have any disks in the drive. I have not installed any new operating systems for at least a year. No external drives connected. I shut off and started the Mac Mini yesterday with no problems.
I tried the Enter/Return key; no response. I restarted and tried the Command-Option-P-R to reset the P-Ram; got the same blinking folder question mark. I restarted and tried the Command-Option-O-F also. I just keep getting the same blinking folder question mark.
So, if anyone has any suggestions, I will sure appreciate it!

It turns out that my SATA just wen't dead. I've been experiencing several power outages while my iMac still is running. I also noticed months ago that whenever I verify disk permission there are some stuff that is beyond repair and it shows red. I just ignore it thinking that it will go away and the inevitable happened. Good thing though I just have a few gigabytes of photos taken months back I had a full backup on all the docs that I have. I tried resurrecting my Western Digital 160GB SATA using Spinrite V6 but to no avail. BIOS from Windows can't even mount the drive. I've given it up. I still have a one last hope though to bring the dead drive to a data recovery company. And hope that they can replace the SATA board or the mechanical part with a new one on a clean room and recover what they can for a fee.
Is there any hint when a drive is about to fail? I did experience frequent hangings and endless spinning beachball from time to time also some weird sound that seems my hard drive is about to blast by spinning profusely for no apparent reason.
My 160GB SATA drive is about 5 years old. Is this the regular lifespan of SATA drives? Should I replace it every say 3-4 years? I've been using it almost everyday from Monday to Saturday. I'm considering buying a drobo so I can dump all my files without worries of being burn again by a terrible Hard Disk Crash!!!
I've re installed everything on my imac using the new 500GB SATA. Good thing that everything was fine except for the SATA Drive. I've bought an AVR and 500VA APC (Power Backup incase of Power Outage) so that I could prevent it from happening again. Also do you have any idea what brand of SATA is the quietest the most silent? Thanks for your help.
Message was edited by: besprenbrian

Installed Leopard, boots sporadically - Flashing Folder / Question Mark

I have installed Leopard onto my PowerMac G4. It was working for a few months, now it won't boot up most of the time. I am getting the flashing folder/question mark when I turn the computer on.
This problem doesn't occur all of the time. I was messing around with the two internal hard drives, switching them around inside the machine, and whatever I did must have worked because the computer booted up just fine. All of my files were in tact and everything looked normal. This lasted for about a day. Now my computer is back to the flashing folder on startup.
What could be causing this problem, and how can I fix it? Thanks!

Thanks for helping me, I really appreciate it.
It is the strangest thing. Sometimes it will recognize the hard drive and boot up normally. Other times it hangs on the Apple logo with the spinning wheel. And other times it doesn't recognize the drives at all and gives me the flashing folder. Same thing when I try holding down the option key and use the device manager. Sometimes it will see the drives, and other times it doesn't show anything.
I have replaced the hard drives, the hard drive cables and the PRAM battery. I am running out of ideas! Anything else that you can suggest would be greatly appreciated.

Flashing folder question mark on boot

I started my computer today, and I hear this high-pitched noise and then clicking sounds. Then I see the flashing folder question mark. Could this be hard drive failure? Or is it the DNSChanger virus? I've tried to access the Recovery, but Command-R and the Option key don't work. When I use Option, all I see is a white screen with a pointer.

Compukid wrote:
When I tried Option, it showed a white screen and the cursor.
That's the firmware driven, no drive means either OS X is fried and can't boot, or the drive is dead, or it may be that something is wrong with the Mac or a cable, which if the drive is still good, will work later or in a SATA to USB adpater on another Mac or PC with MacDrive installed. You won't know that unless it's pulled out of the machine.
When I tried to move the mouse (a wireless one, if that helps), it did not move.
Can't use a wireless mouse, as the drivers load with OS X and OS X isn't booting, use the wired one or the trackpad.

Hard Drive Died - After Rebuilding Wiki & Blog Not Working

My Snow Leopard Server hard drive died.
I did a clean install of Snow Leopard on a new drive.
I then created fresh accounts and settings similar to my old server manually.
I then copied over content from a backup.
I copied over the following folders:
/Library/Web Server/Documents
/Library/Collaboration
I made sure the settings looked correct (although I noticed that the collaboration GUI has changed from when I originally created the site back on 10.5, so maybe I missed something) and restarted the server.
Static pages of website works fine, mail works fine, etc.
But when I attempt to go to a blog or wiki page I get an animated gif showing the startup spinning gears with a message that says "Server starting up..."
Even the root web page "/groups" page just displays the Server starting up... message
Logs don't seem to be helpful.
I am thinking there is probably a folder or domain reference in one of the wiki plists that uses an index value instead of a folder path or something like that, so the server can't find the wiki content.
Ideas?

Figured it out.
Luckily I had the foresight to make a backup copy of the clean install colloboration folders before I copied my collaboration folders from my older server over.
I noticed one key difference:
My files were owned by root (as that is how I copied them from backup)
And the clean install collaboration folders we all owned by _teamsserver
I changed the owner on my folders to _teamsserver, verified the appropriate r/w settings for the different sub-folders and propagated permissions down.
restarted the server, and all was well.

I need to reinstall my operating system for 10.5 after seeing a file folder and question mark flashing on my start up screen. Can anyone help me with this?

I need to reinstall my operating system for 10.5 after seeing a file folder and question mark flashing on my start up screen. Can anyone help me with this?

Hello,
That means it can find the Hard Drive, or can't find the things needed for booting.
See if DU even sees it.
"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.)

Hard drive died on my iMac how to retrieve from Time Machine

HI,
My Hard drive died on our iMac (we were on Snow Leopard). We replaced it with a larger Hard drive and the Tech put Lion on it. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do I retrieve my entire back up from the Time Capsule.... I search and read something about a Recovery HD? Do I have to have this? Also as noted above, I have the Snow Leopard from when we got teh iMac, but are on Lion now.....
HELP

LOL - I think I have a different/new related problem....
The instrucitons don't say anything about timemachine, but I read somewhere that you need to stop a back up when you get a new computer and want to transfer files.... and that the migration rebuilds the data from the latest successful back up...(thats a little back ground).
Where I am now:
last night the migrations said it would take 29 hrs. No problem....this morning there was not much change in that (considering 8+hours had passed) but did not think much of that either...
I was browsing on the internet and suddenly I get a notifiaiton that the back up failed! oh god I think - surely its not supposed to back up while its migrating....?!?
then a few minutes later the migration window says it has 49 hrs to go...
then a little later it says its finished...so I check the folders - nothing is there....so I start to get a little concerned....and decide to start over.
so I start the migration process and when I get to the window where it asks where to put the stuff from the migration, I assume I am doing the same thing so click the same thing I did last time and it tells me you already have stuff there...wha? but I just checked...there is nothing there - so I know I am doing something wrong and back track - AHA - it has put everything into a user account called XXX. so I decide to log out and see what's happening....sure enough another user account has appeared....and it has the same icon as our old stuff ! yay...!
but heres the rub: we previously only had 1 user account for the whole household, with one password which we did not even have to use....when the hard drive crashed, the repair guy created a user account under MY name, and used our old password. Did not think much of it but when I logged out as ME and tried to log is as US (the old User Account), it would not accept the old password!...So now what....?

We bought a reconditioned IMac and time capsule,about a month ago the hard drive died and only left our files on the capsule which could not be retrieved from the time capsule so it got stored as a file on the operating system

Our IMac's hard drive died and we thought great we bought a time capsule to back up the immages and files,except when we had the hard drive replaced the time capsule did not recognize the newer opperating system and would not reboot the files back,so the apple store tech loaded them into a file folder and loaded them to the main screen and erased the time capsule,the problem now is how to load this file back permenantly and watch video's that are stored,when in I Photo when I try to view video content I get a message stating that I may need to download more software to support this format.

If anyone is reading this still looking for what caused the issue and how to fix it here is what I discovered.
The antivirus program our company uses, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, was causing some of the PDF files not to open. After troubleshooting the different modules and settings the culprit was..
Scan SSL in Privacy Control Settings. Turning it OFF solved the problem and all the PDF files that previously would not open now open just fine. This issue has been sent to Bitdefender for them to review. If you use a different antivirus program and are having this issue try locating the Scan SSL setting and see if turning it off solves the problem.

Imac hard drive died and was replaced by apple. Data lost but is remains on ipads. Computer address is different so can't sync without erasing ipad data (which I need back on repaired imac). How do I do this?

How do I transfer data from and Ipad/iphone to an imac with a different address then initally setup with? Our hard drive died and was replaced free of charge by Apple, our data was lost on the hard drive but exists on our small devices.

Since Apple replaced the hard drive does that mean you have AppleCare? If so, call them. If not, you must have paid pretty good to get it replaced and so I would think you have some possible right to ask a followup question at the store that did it.

Did my hard drive die? Folder Question Mark Flashing.

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