Flashing globe

What does a grey screen with a flashing globe icons mean?

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
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 the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

Similar Messages

Is anyone seeing the flashing globe on startup in Mavericks?

When I startup my MBA running Mavericks 10.9.2, I was geting a flashing globe and long delay before being presented with the Apple logo and, ultimatley, the login screen.
For what it's worth, now that Activity Monitor no longer shows a disk usage pie chart, I brought up Disk Utility and, to my amazement, saw, in addition to the legit Macintosh HD boot drive, an AdobeFlashPlayerInstaller .dmg file shown as a selectable startup disk! That disk image file was in downloads; I deleted it from that folder and emptied the trash. I rebooted. No flashing globe - problem solved. I post this becasue all of the discussion threads I could find on this issue were pre-Mavericks, in the 2007 - early 2013 time frame. Well, the issue exists and this is a way to solve it.
What did SJ say about about Flash? A "bag of hurt"? I agree.
Hope one or more of you find this useful.
Pioneer.

I had another version of this problem, ultimately traced to a faulty USB device (my Apple keyboard). After repairing permissions, running Disk Utility, and reinstalling Mavericks, the flashing globe persisted. However, after the reinstall I also got error messages about multiple kernel extension problems. Apple Support suggested USB triage—removing all USB devices and plugging them back in one at a time and restarting. With everything unplugged, startup was normal. The keyboard showed up immediately as the problem. Plugged in a spare keyboard and the flashing globe appeared no more.

Permanent flashing globe at start up

Hello, I hope someone can help me on this. First off, sorry I do not have model information, I cannot get on my imac to confirm it. I purchased it (24" widescreen model, silver casing) in 2008. Here is the problem.
I went on a 3 day vacation to vegas, I left my computer on as usual. When I arrived home, it was frozen on one of the screen saver pictures. I had to power off the computer manually. When I restarted, I held the option key and instead of getting a couple disk icons to select between my OS X and Windows XP, I got a blank grey screen. I tried again, same thing. I tried without holding option, and got a black screen and message stating there was no bootable disk (this would be on the windows side of things). Restarted again, held option, got the grey screen and decided to wait. About 10 minutes later a flashing globe appeared. I researched this and understand that the computer is trying to boot from a non-existent network disk. I am not sure how this preference was changed. The solution is to change the preference. The problem is in all the solutions I encoutnered, the flashing globe eventually goes away, followed by a question mark and then finally start up. Mine remained as a flashing globe for 10 hours overnight, so I am at a loss on how to correct it.
Any explanations or links to explanations for my specific situation would be greatly appreciated. Also, if the explanation does not involved wiping the computer that would be great as I have many family memories on the computer I would be very happy to get back. Thank again for your time.

Couple of suggestions you can try.
1.
a) Hold down 'Command' + 'S' before Apple startup sound.
b) At the command line, type "/sbin/fsck -fy" (without quotes) to repair the disk.
2.
a) Hold down 'Shift' before Apple startup sound. This boots your machine in 'Safe Mode'.
b) Log-in and reboot.
Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

When starting up Mac Book Pro, a Flashing Globe appears

I am using a 2.4 GHZ Mac Book Pro, and whenever I boot up my laptop, it turns blue, and then a white screen appears for around a few minutes.. then a flashing globe pops up. My Mac still runs perfectly, but it takes around 5-8 minutes just to boot up my laptop.

Open the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences and set your hard disk as the startup disk.
(28622)

Slow start 3 mins - flashing globe & folder - Mac OS X (10.4.11)

I find my father's PowerBook G4 is now starting very slowly. It took about three or four minutes this morning, when it used to be much quicker. This may be intermittent.
It used to go straight to a white screen with a large grey apple, and then a loading Mac OS screen. Now it starts with a blank screen and a small flashing globe in a square in the centre; this changes to a smaller folder, flashing and showing a question mark.
I thought that the battery might be low, and we have recently installed a new one. I was wondering if there was another CMOS backup battery that might need replacing. The computer is three and a half years old now, and was bought with Mac OS X Panther, which I upgraded to Tiger without problems.
I would be interested in (ideally simple) suggestions for improvement of the start-up time.

Hi occasional_user,
If you have any FireWire devices connected go to System Preferences > Network > Show: Network Port Configurations > Uncheck Built in FireWire and drag it to the end of the list or delete it altogether if you do not use IP over FireWire.
Sweet Polly

Flashing globe icon after sec. update install G5

After updating a large G5 machine with 10.5.1, I get a gray screen with a flashing globe icon inside a light-gray box.

that is the network boot icon. try restarting holding down the option key, and choose your hard drive from the list.

Adjusting Contrast While Turning On Laptop Causes Flashing Globe

When I turn on my laptop in a dark room I sometimes make the mistake of trying to turn down contrast before the laptop has finished booting up. When I do this it always causes a flashing globe (image of the earth) to appear on the screen and it keeps flashing for a minute or two until it finally stops and boots as normal. Anyone have any idea what the heck is going on when that happens?
Thanks

It's always been a hardware issue, they just never successfully fixed it and declared it software related, hence why I had it in numerous times for the same issue
If the above fix doesn't solve your issue, then it sounds like a problem with the NVRAM that stores such information as what to boot from etc. and it's not showing up as a problem with their testers, but it is under daily use.
It's very highly likely they erased the drive and reinstalled the operating system at least once during the many times you took it in to eliminate a software issue.
My apple care just expired within the last few days and there's no way I can afford to pay out of pocket to have it fixed now (this last repair would of been $800 according to the receipt had I not had apple care).
It seems they have been misdiagnosing what in hardware is causing your issue and replacing the wrong thing or it's a casscade effect where something breaks and causes other parts to fail later.
I would take the machine back to Apple again and tell them it's still not properly fixed and if they resist, then pursue legal, public shaming and/or government action to get them to fix your machine properly or replace it with a used model.

My imac is showing either a No Entry, Flashing globe or Flashing Finder/? icon.

Hi,
When using my imac the other day, the screen went blank with a flashing Finder/? logo. I have switched it off numerous times but I am always met with either the flashing Finder/?, a spinning globe or a No Entry Sign. It will not allow me to do anything at all.
I looked on some of the Help Forums and they suggested:
1) Installing the original OS Disc 1 that came with my mac
2) Switching off the mac
3) Switch it back on whilst holding down the "C" key
This then brought up the menu for the installer menu. In this menu I can:
1) select a language to use
2) Agree to the Terms and Conditions of the License
The "Select a Destination" Box appears but it will not let me Select a Destination. No icon appears in the box at all. I have tried pressing "Go Back" and then "Continue" but it still will not let me select a destination.
I can access the utilities menu from the installer screen. I cannot access any menu from the apple logo. The Original Discs that came with my imac are Mac OS 9.2. I cannot remember or find out what version OS I was running before this happened.
Please Help. I have EVERYTHING on this Mac.
Thanks.

Still no joy with anything I try. I ran a Hardware test and an Error Code 25TF/1/4 Mass Storage has been detected. This could mean the Hard Drive is knackered or I have a dodgy Logic Board.
If so, will I be able to retrieve anything that was on my mac?
Would it be worth buying and installing a new hard drive/logic board?
Considering my mac is 5 years old should i just forget about it and get a new one.
So many questions and no answers!!!!!
Thanks.

HT1750 flashing globe

My imac flashing folder and globe..how do i get it to boot up

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440

Flashing globe/folder

I just bought an Apple iBook G4, Mac OS X Version 10.3.9
Processor 1.07 GHz PowerPC G4, from a friend and when starting up it started flashing a blue globe, then switched to a flashing folder that has a ? and the finder icon. What is wrong?

I would say it can't find your hard disk. If you got the system disks with it(you should have) you can start up from the restore disk by holding down the c key as you start it up.You can run the disk utility when it gets started, and maybe resurrect it. If you can't resurrect it, you can nuke and repave, and restore it to original new setup. In a long shot, you may have a dead hard disk which would give you an opportunity to replace it with a bigger faster one. Exciting, huh!
Bill Kline,
The MacFanatic

When booting the screen remains white with a flashing globe. What is this?

I am a new Mac user and the last two days I have seen this happen when I boot. What is the computer doing?

To fix it when the machine does boot navigate to System Preferences - Startup Disk and select the internal HD so it's highlighted then restart the machine.

Netboot will not working, getting globe, then flashing folder with question mark.

I just created a netboot image which went off without any problems. I copied the two .nbi folders to my NetBootSP0 folder, and enabled them within netboot. My OS X server which is my netboot server and dhcp server. When I boot using N or Option N, I get the flashing globe for several seconds, the request goes through to the server and gets ACK {SELECT} however a few more seconds after, I get the flashing folder and question mark before it does a normal boot. I have read the other posts about DHCP and Subnets. My server and and clients are all 255.255.0.0. Any suggestions would be very helpful as I need this to work for several buildings.

This might work for some:
I had the same problem of the netboot image not mounting/opening, spinning globe then booting back to the Mac HD on the client and it was only when I remembered that we had manually experimented with jumbo frame rates and the MTU settings for our 32TB RAID in the Hardware settings for Ethernet ports on our servers. I turned the settings back to "Automatic" and 1000baseT on, then the whole NetInstall and Neboot was working perfectly again.

Start up problem.....flashing file icon

Problem:
1) few days ago I configured computer for ethernet link between crt imac and powerbook.
2) Now when I start up on the crt only, I get a flashing globe on a square which turns to a flashing file with a question mark in it. And the start up never goes any further.
3) Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this. thx
raleric

You'll need an OS CD to boot the old machine. There's some problem with the system folder which may or may not have anything to do with your recent configurations. It may be as simple as booting from CD, resetting the hard drive as startup disk, and going from there.
Another issue may be that you set your old machine to automatically connect to the newer at startup. This is an option when setting up file sharing. What happens if the other machine is ON before you start the older one?

Netboot clients turns themselves off after globe goes to "wheel"

Hello
I have 20 G4 machines in a computer lab that I am in charge of (just got this on my list of stuff to do), and I am trying to get them to boot on NetBoot.
It works. They run osX .4.10. MOST of them. Some of them does this:
1. Press "N" and computer goes to "Network Boot"
2. Flashing globe appears
3. Flashing globe gets replace with apple symbol and spinning smaller globe
4. Spinning globe disappears
5. --- this is where the "wheel" symbol should come on, but...
6. Computer gets a "black window" pretty much where the "Starting OS X" splash screen is supposed to go, and then it turns itself off.
The computers do not reboot, they just power down. Bam!
The computers that do boot works beautifully!
After the globe stops spinning on these, the wheel shows for about 30 secs, and then the OS X GUI loads with no hassle...
Any ideas why just some of them refuse to boot?
Is there any way to get the boot to be "verbose" when netbooting?
Can I dump errors etc to file on boot?
Cheers,
Tomas
Message was edited by: Grefven

Allright, this is the progress so far:
I cannot, not even on local booted media (FireWire) get the computer to start with MacOS X. The computer next to it, the exact same model, does. I bought an external LACie FW drive and installed OS X 10.4.11 on it. Booted, used NetRestore to create an image of the local HD, moved the FW to the computer next to it, booted off the FW, restored drive. Works perfectly! Moved the FW drive to next computer. Tried to boot, and computer shuts itself down.
At boot, the grey apple appears in the middle of the screen for a short while, and then a "wheel" starts spinning under it. After a while it boots into OSx. This is on machines that work. The machines that does not work, powers down when the "wheel" is going to appear. BAM! Power down. No reboot, lockup, sounds, text, no nothing - just plain power off, as if someone pulled the power chord.
Any ideas? What can be wrong? Hardware is manufactured at the same time. Same size harddrive, same graphix card, same memory config, same memory capsules, same peripherals, same everything... but it just simply powers down, while the other works flawlessly. I have 20 machines and about half of them boot fine, and the other half powers down when I try.
Next try will be to buy (yet again buy stuff... sigh...) an external firewire DVD (the G4 machines only have CD-readers and OS x is on DVD-Media), and try to boot and install from that.
Would be nice if any of you can tell me what's wrong before I have to buy new stuff
Cheers!
Tomas "The Frustrated Tech" Monsén, Sweden

Why would a picture of a globe pop up when I start up my macbook pro?

I started up my macbook pro, and instead of the Apple logo popping up while the computer loaded, a picture of a flashing globe had popped up. I ended up shutting the computer off and then turned it back on and it loaded up as normal. I was just curious if this was something i should be worried about..? i've only had my macbook for about 2 weeks, and it's my first time with a mac computer. Please help!

That is a sigfn that either the Online Apple hardware test is starting or that you are booting from the Online Recovery HD system. Both are from the Apple web servers.

Flashing globe

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