Flashing question mark, utilities won't find hard drive

On an iMAC DV 400, 640MB ram running OS10.4.5, I tried to install an OS9 folder, so I could run some classic software. Started install, but a pop-up message gave the impression that the install would write over my OSX, so I aborted the install to re-check the instructions and reassure myself that all would be fine. From that point on, I got the flashing question mark. The computer will boot to OS9 or OSX install disks, but disk first-aid (on 9) does not find the disk and disk utilities (on X) finds it but will not let me repair the disk. Tried resetting PRAM, but it did not help. I am still on the original 10GB harddrive, so am considering an upgrade anyway, but would prefer to save this one if possible.
Grateful for any suggestions.
Lemmer
iMac DV 400 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Lemmer,
re: "will eventually boot to X" and "just keeps flashing that questions mark"
A question mark at boot up I believe usually means that the computer is looking for the system folder and cannot find it.
Look here and the last resort.
What happened when you tried holding the "x" key during startup without the cd in? Did it just go to the question mark?
littleshoulders [:-)

Similar Messages

Macbook pro flashing question mark folder, won't recognize hard drive

My 2010 macbook pro froze and after restarting I was greeted with a flashing question mark folder. I then restarted again and held down "option" key and went into Mac OS X utilities then into disk utilities. In disk utilities, my only drive options are "superdrive" "disk0" and a subfolder of "disk0" labeled "Mac OS x Base system". My hard drive is no where to be seen. I also tried to install a new hard drive but the same thing happened, the computer could not recognize that there was a hard drive present. What can I do to fix this??

Hi bigdubee,
The exact same thing happened to my 2010 MacBook Pro today. Restarting with the "option" key held down, I get only 2 of the 3 options you listed in disk utilities ("disk0" and a subfolder of "disk0" labeled "Mac OS x Base system".
Did you take your Macbook Pro to the Apple store? And were they able to fix it?

On a macbook I purchased secondhand hard drive got corrupted and I started to get the flashing folder with the question mark, I purchased a new hard drive and snow lion install DVD I installed the hard drive and tried disc but kept getting blinking folder

On a macbook I purchased secondhand hard drive got corrupted and I started to get the flashing folder with the question mark, I purchased a new hard drive and snow lion install DVD I installed the hard drive and tried disc but kept getting blinking folder

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We're users here and do not speak for "Apple Inc."
Power on the computer and insert the DVD immediately.
Hold down the 'C' key to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1533
After selecting the appropriate language, if necessary, select Utilities, and Disk Utility.
You'll likely need to partition and format the new drive before it's recognized.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA161/en_US/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY .pdf
(Yes, these instructions ARE 7 years old, but the procedure is the same for installing from DVD media.)

Flashing question mark / folder on PM G5. Bad Drive?

Good Thursday;
I ran into a free powerMac G5 2.3 DC a few days ago. The unit would power on but no boot / video output. I found out (via the local mac store) that the original RAM was bad and so they took it out...leaving 6 GB instead of 6.5. They told it it was booting fine and all was good so I picked it up excited....after paying 50 bucks.
I get home and boot it up only to get past the chime to a flashing question mark and a folder icon. After doing some reaserch, I am sure the HD skipped and failed on the way home. This was givin to me remember.... I dont know the original owner from Adam. I called the store and they informed me that the OS cannot find the system to boot the machine....hence the folder in question. I thought I had the original OS recovery DVD but it turns out that the recovery DVD that came with this is OS 9!!. I have a DVD that says OS 9. HA! Its the totally wrong DVD. I tried to boot from the recovery DVD only to find an arrow and a refresh icon...no recovery system icon. I took it out and examined it and sure enough, it says Mac os 9. What a trip.
So now I know why I couldnt get it to boot from the recovery DVD either.
So, MY question is, what would be my next move here? I feel I should just find a retail copy of Leopard somewear and a spare SATA drive. After speaking with the Mac Store specialist, it seems the HD is infact dead and they quoted my a price of another $90 to install a 500 GB HD with Tiger on it IF infact that is the problem...which they even told me they are sure it is.
Whould it work to boot into the retail Leopard DVD and then proceed to install onto the new HD? Is my train of thought correct? I have a fair amount of expertise with newer Mac Pro's running Leopard and Snow Leopard but never had an older unit like this.
Any help would be very appriciated.

The "?" on startup and not able to find a boot volume can also happen with weak battery, or after "zap pram" or the directory is corrupt.
Too bad it won't run 10.6 which would be $29.
A new hard drive like WD Caviar 640GB is a good start.
G5s came with 10.2.7 or later, usually 10.3 for Late 2003 PCI-X.
There should be an Apple Hardware CD 2.x as well as OS X Install CD. DVDs started being used with Tiger 10.4 and above. Restore DVD? never seen one.
Loose cables to hard drive and motherboard do happen.
Booting into Open Firmware would be great, no OS needed, no hard drive or system. And best way to clear nvram/pram.

Flashing question mark folder at start, broken CD drive, warranty Q's.

Hello! Thanks for reading.
Okay, so here's the background: I was just chilling around the house yesterday with my macbook, and it freezes, with no response from the touchpad or keyboard. I figure no problem, and just turn it off and on again. And then thats when I got the flashing question mark folder.
So I hopped on my family's PC to do some research, hoping to be able to fix it myself. Turns out the best way to fix it is to pop in the disk that came with the computer during start up... which I can't do because my disk drive is broken. I also tried other things, like pressing various keys (ctrl + option + p + r, or something like that)... and that didn't work.
The disk drive broke when I was at school, and as it was finals week, I had no time to get my computer to a genius bar. Then I moved quite a distance (see below), a process which has taken up most of my summer and made me quite busy to the point it has taken my macbook pretty much dying on me to get it to a genius bar. Gah.
So I guess I have a lot of questions now.
My computer is JUST a year old, by give or take a week or two.
I bought my computer from an authorized U.S. reseller in Japan while I was living there (I live in the US now, which I definitely wasn't expecting a year ago)... and no contact from apple came to buy apple care. Is it possible that because of the circumstance under which I bought my computer, that apple may still cover any repair or replacement fees under the warranty?
Also, I made an appointment at the local genius bar. Will that be free?
Also, does anybody have any other suggestions about how to get my computer up and running away from the **** that is the question mark folder?
Much thanks! I appreciate your time.

You made 2 big mistakes. 1) Apple may or may not contact you about AppleCare (sometimes I've gotten a postcard or email and other times I've not) but it is up to you to buy it before the 1 year mark. 2) whether it was convenient to get the computer repaired at the time or not, you should have contacted Apple to get the issue in the computer. If you didn't, Apple has no reason to believe it happened after the warranty ended.
You are going to foot the bill for the repairs

My Mac Pro flashes the question mark and wont boot from hard drive, flash, or Cd... Please help!

My Computer froze so I shut it down... When I tryed to boot up again it wouldn't power up. After a few tweeks I got it to power up but now it wont boot from the hard drive, flash drive or a cd. It want to start, then, after a few seconds it stops. Not sher what to do. Can anyone help?

Have you tried Safe Boot?
You also might reset PRAM and reset SMC.
Have you tried booting with the Recovery System? See its possibilities here.
From there you can make repairs to your primary startup partition.
Do you have a backup? If not, do you have an external drive large enough to back up your primary drive? It would be good to have one in case your drive needs repair or replacement.

Question Mark Folder Problem (Already replaced hard drive)

On Sunday night I found my macbook pro ("13, mid 2010, refurbished) in a frozen state a few seconds after waking it from sleep. So I did a forced restart and then my macbook wouldn't boot (blinking question mark folder). I troubleshooted with the OSX Install DVD on my own before taking it to the Genius Bar (disk utility & TDM could not find the hard drive), and we both came to the conclusion that I should install a new drive. So yesterday I bought a new drive, did a fresh OSX install and managed to migrate all of my info from my presumed damaged drive to the new one. Everything went smoothly and the computer was in working order all night. That is until this morning when I shut it down before bringing it to work. On my lunch break I decided to fire up my newly upgraded macbook only to find that it once again would not boot, still with the blinking question mark folder. I also tested to see if I have faulty RAM and it doesn't look like it (unless both sticks are fried). This is becoming incredibly frustrating and I hope I don't have to replace a board or anything like that. Anybody here have suggestions? It'd be greatly appreciated.

Could be something as simple as the hard drive cable...the hardware test won't identify this. Have an Apple store nearby? If so, make an appointment. If it's a bad cable, the fix is easy, but not free unless you have AppleCare.

Folder with question mark upon bootup with new hard drive

I've decided to be bold with upgrading the hard drive on my Macbook and go from a 60gb to a 120gb drive. I used Erase to format (I believe) the drive and used Super Duper to clone the drive (per the instructions found here: http://www.andybiggs.com/blog/?p=53). However upon startup, it will flash a folder with a question mark. Doing the digging - it's a symptom of not finding the OS.
A few questions:
1) Did I do anything wrong with regards to formatting the hard drive to make it bootable?
2) If the drive is made bootable, do I need to do anything to make the workstation recognize it?
3) If I need to go back and clone the drive again, is there better software than Super Duper?
Thanks,
Nick
Macbook blanc, 2gb ram Mac OS X (10.4.7)

1. You need to partition the disk using the GUID scheme to use the drive to start up your computer. In addition, the disk needs to be in one of the Mac OS Extended variants or in the UNIX File System format to use it; you should only use the UNIX file system if you have a specific reason to do so.
2. No.
3. You should stick with SuperDuper!.
(14253)

Computer won't find hard drive

Hello!
I have a problem with my new hard drive; it’s not recognized in either BIOS or in Windows Vista. The disk is a Deskstar P7K500.
I have tried the disk with different SATA- and power cables and in different ports in my computer, but it’s still not working. However, I have tried it in a friends computer, and it worked just fine there so it’s not broken. He also formatted the disk for me in NTFS-mode.
Bios is set to auto detect. I have also tried with “Safe-settings” in bios, but no luck.
I would really appreciate some help! Thanks in advance.

Go to friend computer again then limit drive to SATA1 with Hitachi Feature Tool http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool

IMac won't turn on. Only a clicking sound and a grey folder with flashing question mark.

iMac won't turn on. Only a clicking sound and a grey folder with flashing question mark.
Help.

Your iMac is actually turning ON as proven by the grey folder with the flashing question mark.
The flashing question mark indicates that your system is unable to find a bootable volume. The clicking sound that you hear is probably coming from your hard drive while it tries to recalibrate. I suspect your hard drive has failed.
What model imac do you have? If it's under warranty I suggest taking it in for service. Hopefully you've been maintaining a regular backup of your data as all users should. I lost my data once and it was a valuable lesson. I back up regularily now.
If your iMac came with install disks then you can boot from them, choose your language when asked, then pull down the Utilities menu to launch the Disk Utility application. The Disk Utility application will allow you to verify whether your hard drive has an issue. Usually a clicking sound, assuming it's coming from the hard drive, is a sign of a bad hard drive.
If your system has Lion installed then you can hold down the Command and R keys when you restart the system, then launch the Disk Utility application from the menu that appears.

G4 17' won't boot, flashing question mark folder with complications

I'm editing a final cut pro project, due to air on friday at noon and during conversion in compressor to dvd format, final cut quits then the computer freezes up. On a hard restart I get the flashing question mark folder.... i know what that means
I was able to boot up after a couple of tries from the os 10.4 (tiger) cd and the hard drive shows up but disk utility can't make the repair. This is the error i get:
booted with the tiger os cd and got to the disk utility. the hard drive does show up with some generic-y looking name. I try to repair the disk and get this error (in red):
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
then it says:
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
g4 powerbook 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9)
so then i get the bright idea that i will change the startup disk to network drive and try to start from another drive on the network. it tries to find it then goes back to the flashing question mark. I've restarted holding the c key down with the tiger cd back in there and it is spinning but it never reads it.
any ideas? I REALLY need to salvage this film if possible.
thanks!!!!!
donna
Has anyone seen this before? What is my next step--short of erasing the drive. i really need to get this project off.
thanks in advance for any and all help!!!!!
g4 powerbook 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

i'd try disk warrior except that i cant get it to boot from ANY cd right now EXCEPT apple hardware test. and i have NO idea what to do with that.
I've tried booting in option mode and all i get is the little restart button and the forward arrow button but NO drive options
it won't pick up my other laptop in target mode
i've even put in Norton Utilites 8.x and it won't boot up from that either.
i've zapped the pram--nothing
know of any other boot tricks or shortcuts?
donna

IMac G5 iSight, flashing question mark, won't boot from CD

iMac G5 iSight, flashing question mark, won't boot from CD

Your hard drive has probably died. The ? means that the machine can't find any drive to boot to.

Imac G5 won't start white screen and flashing question mark

tried every key combo recomended - erased HD using target mode/firewire with laptop - but won't boot up from install disc...

The white screen with flashing question mark means that it cannot find a bootable volume.
The iMac G5 will not boot from just any install disk. Ideally, use the grey restore disks which came with the computer. If you've lost these, you can order them direct from Apple. Alternatively, a Mac OS X 10.5 retail install DVD will work provided the iMac G5 has also 1GB RAM (minimum requirement for 10.5).
Sometimes, if the internal drive is faulty, it can take a long time for the computer to recognise other disks. I would suggest holding down the option key on the keyboard (labled alt on some keyboards) and turning the computer on, keep holding alt until you get to the early boot menu, insert your DVD/CD, and click the circle arrow to refresh, wait a bit and the DVD/CD will show up and you can click on it to select it and boot from it by pressing the straight arrow.
After a little while it will get to the install menu, select your language, then on the next screen go through the menus to find "Disk Utility" (it's in different places on different versions of Mac OS X).
You will want to check that the internal hard drive is detected, and that it doesn't have a SMART error (it might be red, or say that the disk is failing). If you get that far, then (assuming you have erased the disk previously, as this will step really will erase the drive and take all your data with it) partition the drive, making sure that under 'Options' you select Apple Partition Map (this will be the default on earlier versions of Mac OS X, but might not be if you've erase the disk from an intel Mac like a MacBook).
Once, you done all that, and there haven't been any issues, you should be able to quit Disk Utility, and carry on with the sytem install as usual, and a 30mins to 2 hours and reboot later you should be booting from the internal drive again.

Macbook Air won't startup, flashing question mark

Hello everyone, here's the problem:
Recently (Sep) I've bought a new macbook air (2012, 128gb SSD). After a few months of using it the following problem happened: while surfing on the web, my macbook hang up (I couldn't press anything or do anything, the system wouldn't respond), so I shut it down forcefully (by holding the power button), after this my computer wouldn't boot at all: a flashing questioning mark appeared on the grey screen. I know what it means (I'm an Intel engineer and know quite a bit on the subject), so I thought the SSD was dead. Brought it to the shop a bought it at (M-video, Russia, Nizhni Novgorod). After 21 day (sic!) they gave it back to me working fine and said that when they opened it - it worked OK, they tested it for 5 days with reboots and it was OK. After 1 month of using it after I got it back (today) it happened again: the OSx hang -> force shutdown -> question mark on startup.
Could you please tell what can it be? It's obvious that it's no a hardware problem (in this case it wouldn't happen from time to time but be a permanent defect after the first time it occurred). I tried all the recipes found on the internet (command + alt + P + R; R to get recovery mode - disk utility sees only 1 partition on disk0 of 1.8 GB (I guess it's partition with the base system) and won't let me do anything - all options are grayed out; SHIFT won't let me into safe mode - no idea why; etc.). I also don't have a CD or anything with the mac OS, however even Internet recovery won't help - no targets to install it when it comes to it.
Have tried almost anything and asked almost anyone among my IT-connected friends, but in vain. Thank you in advance for your help! Will appreciate any piece of advice.

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard 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.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
If this fails then see: OS X (Lion/Mountain Lion)- About OS X Recovery.

Boots to flashing question mark folder and disc utility cannot locate internal hard drive

Bottling my MacBook Pro I end up with a flashing question mark folder. I reboot holding the option key to select discs and there were no options at all. I plug in an Ethernet cable and it shows a internet recovery option. I click and it downloaded a temporary recovery mode. From there I open disc utility but it doesn't find any internal hard drives. I reset the pram and I still get the flashing question mark folder. Thinking it was my internal hard drive that failed I bought and replaced the internal hd with a new one and repeated all the processes and still no internal hard drive was found. I'm stuck with the flashing question mark folder. Therefore I've concluded that it was my MacBook pros internal hard drive CABLE that had failed. Does anyone know of any other possible problems that is causing this for my MacBook Pro or know of any solutions? Or is replacing my internal hd cable the only solution? Please help!

It was the internal HD cable. I replaced it and now my MacBook Pro works

Flashing question mark, utilities won't find hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for