Folder with Question Mark Blinking

I was doing a lot of video work yesterday and knew my hard disk was low on memory. I thought I had about one gb of space left when I shut it down. I tried turning it on and now I can do nothing all I get is a folder with a question mark blinking. Is there anyway I can get onto my computer and delete some flies? Am I kind of screwed at this point? Any help resolving this would be great. Or any ideas as to what I can do to remedy the situation would be awesome...

I found my answer insert the install cd and hold c.

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Macbook pro folder with question mark blinking appear whent I turn on, When I press the Option key Grey lock screen appear asking for a password, can anyone help me please?

Macbook pro folder with question mark blinking appear whent I turn on, When I press the Option key Grey lock screen appear asking for a password, can anyone help me please?

Provide the computer's firmware password. If you don't know what it is, contact the person you got the computer from or Apple.
(91589)

Was using my mac pro book lap top when all of sudden my screen s was showing shaded folder with question mark blinking. any ideas? thanks ami 1670

was using my mac book pro when all of a sudden my screen shanged to shaded folder with blinking question mark. any ideas? thanks ami1670

usually it happens when you start the mac up, not in the middle of using it. Nonetheless, read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440

Folder with question mark + wont boot from disk

Hi
I am trying to reinstall a powermac g5 from the disk, using a old hard drive that works.. (formatted in NTFS) (hoping that when selected to boot from disk, mac will then erase and reformat it)this image is presented when i hold down the option key and the disk ejects this other image is presented when i hold down C (folder with question mark blinking) and the disk ejects... also presented if i boot normally.... Could some help be offered please??????
Powermac G5
Thank you in advance

Yes, you must Format it HFS+ first...
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.*
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html

Not solved with Blinking Folder with Question Mark after Erasing Hard Drive

Before asking, I found someone had asked exact the same question, but that was actually an unsolved thread.
Re: Blinking Folder with Question Mark after Erasing Hard Drive to try to restore to Factory Settings
Level 1(0 points)sdc3gJul 5, 2013 6:24 PM Re: Blinking Folder with Question Mark after Erasing Hard Drive to try to restore to Factory Settings
Re: Blinking Folder with Question Mark after Erasing Hard Drive to try to restore to Factory Settings
in response to Niel
Thanks for the reply, held command+R again and it is trying to pick up WiFi, but it's not picking up my network and won't accept the password even when I try to put it in manually. Any thoughts on that?
Me too had tried the command+R and failed to manually connect to my network. Can anyone help?

Well, it was solved. I shifted to other place and tried other WIFis. One of the WiFi had the 2002f problem and another was fine, so the reinstall worked smoothly eventually.
On the apple support page it says that Supported network configurations and protocols includs both WPA/WPA2, not matter what they are, but it might not be true.

My computer has a blinking folder with question mark on it at start... What is going on?

My computer has a blinking folder with question mark on it at start... What is going on?

The hatter wrote:
also that the default is no longer set asin when someone had windows as default and removed it w/o changing Startup Disk panel.
Oh yes, I forgot that people still do that

Blinking folder with question mark! Recovery mode not recognising hard drive!

So today on my MacBook Pro 13" mid 2010, for some reason a CD that I inserted inside the DVD/CD drive didn't come out, and was stuck inside. So I looked up on how to force eject it out, and I saw someone wrote that you can force eject the CD by putting a paper clip inside the hole next to the CD/DVD drive. I did this, and it did not work. After I turned on my MacBook Pro and on the startup I found the blinking folder with question mark! I went through Internet recovery mode, and I found out that it did not recognise my hard drive!
-Do I have to replace my hard drive?
Please help! I'm fairly new with computers :(

Kazmunai wrote:
I saw someone wrote that you can force eject the CD by putting a paper clip inside the hole next to the CD/DVD drive. I did this, and it did not work.
That was for very old Mac's and PC's, it's been a long time since any modern Mac had that ability.
CD that I inserted inside the DVD/CD drive didn't come out, and was stuck inside.
Press and hold the power button down to force a hardware shutdown.
Hold the trackbutton down and the option/alt key at the same time, now boot the machine.
The disk should spit out and you should eventually see a row of icons appear on the screen, this is Startup Manager and you can pres the eject key here also to get the cd to spit out.
If you see MacintoshHD (or your OS X boot volume) click it and the arrow underneath and when you get into OS X, head to System Preferences > Startup Disk and set it again. Your problem should be resolved at this point.
If you don't see your OS X boot volume and it shows RecoveryHD only, or holding the option/alt goes to Internet Recovery, then your boot drive is dead or there is some sort of other issue/power /Mac related.
Try a #1 SMC Reset and a #2 PRAM reset and see if that fixes things.
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
If not, I then suspect because you couldn't eject the cd that something electrical bad happened to the Superdrive and as a result it also effected the power or something going to the boot hard drive.
The hard drive might still work just fine if it's removed from the machine and a SATA to USB adpater to another Mac.
My advice is to take the machine to Apple for a free hardware evaluation, then decide what you want to do from there.
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?

Blinking folder with question mark

Ok so I had this macbook air for couple of months now long story short I was outside US when my issue started. While using the computer either completely freezes or becomes almost inoperable and the only course of action is to force restart it by holding the power button. Once you start it back on you get a follder with a question mark. this happens once every few days. I first took it to apple store in France they said something is wrong but since it was purchased in US they cannot do anything about it. when I came back to US took it to apple store that is about 10+ restores after. The store people test it and determine everything works as it should. Couple of days later happened again took it in the same store as is with the folder with question mark. They did a fresh install and told me should work fine. but it didn't I took it to another store they order a hard drive for it came in few days later and was quickly replace that evening computer was running very slow and eventually the same thing happen got the same wiped hard drive just the next day. I called apple few times now they keep on talking about test and what not and it is software related but i have tried it without any of my files and no timemachine restore with the same result. So what should I do I paid almost $2000 for the macbook air and another 200+ for apple care. Who should I talk to to get my issue result? This is the first time I have issue with a mac but so far I have waisted 40+ hours dealing with this macbook. My mac is mid 2013 13" i7 8GB 512gb and its under apple care until october 2016

I have been in apple store 4 times already but I will not get a replacement. Today I got a call from Bob who is part of the executive corporate relations team. He told me, he is sure my issue is fixable and they can not replace my mint condition mac eventhough I have had that issue almost since day 1. He didn't even for a moment stopped and truly appologize that even after paying $2300+ out the door I have to go through all this BS I guess I am just another pain in the behind customer, who should man up and learn to deal with his files disappearing every other day and I should make the time to restore my macbook air every other day. Mr Bob also said they didn't have time to diagnose the computer and I demanded hard drive replacement. How does a customer demand technician to replace a specific part is beyond my comprehension. The only reason I asked apple to replace my macbook air is because I have a long trip coming up and at this point I have to walk in the store and buy a new notebook and leave this one at home. He also said there is no reason to complain to BBB because those complains are handled by their department and they will offer me nothing different.

Folder with Question Mark on Start-up/ DOS-like screen with errors now...

Left my Mac Pro running last night, woke up to it being frozen (looked like it was
in hibernation mode and wouldn't wake up).
Forced a shut down from button on tower - on start-up, went gray screen
with blinking folder with question mark.
Inserted install disc 1 and held down 'C' - Went to choose your lang menu,
I picked English, went to choose start-up disc. Options were the install
disc and a network drive with a question mark. I picked drive with
question mark.
Computer looked like it was trying to restart, apple with loading circle
spinning, and then blinked to a black screen that looked like DOS that was
blinking error messages (one message was "diskOs2 undefined Oxe0030005")
Any suggestions?
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Was there a storm or outage that could have brought it down? for now it sounds like a kernel panic screen is what you are seeing. If you don't have a UPS, I wouldn't be w/o. Never know when one of those high winds will knock out power.
You could try to do an SMC Reset and see.
I assume you usually sleep the system and it doen't have trouble with wake from sleep, and you haven't altered the system (new hardware etc) in any way that would change that.

Boot up shows folder with question mark...

So my imac from 2006 (i think...20 inch plastic intel) booted up today to the blinking folder with a question mark on it. I rebooted into the osx disc to set the hdd as the startup disk, but it didn't show up in the list. Then I tried to see if I needed to repair the hdd using disk utility but the hdd wasn't showing up. So, do I have to replace the hdd? Not looking forward to it if I do.
Message was edited by: gescamil

Hi,
I have had similar issues, you will have to restart it and press and hold the eject disk on the keyboard right away and it will force it out.
Also to answer you question on way you are not seeing the Hard Drive and way you have the folder with question mark on the start up: is because your Hard Drive is dead.
You will need to buy another Hard Drive install it and then fresh install the OS X.
I have seen this issue too many times and every time is resulting with bad Hard Disk Drive...
Look at the bright side, Hard Drives are cheep now and you have iFix it to assist you on step by step installation. (this is unless you have Apple Care).

Hard drive crash? Folder with question mark

Hi everyone! I had problems with my macbook pro (early 2013). Last week, it slowed down suddenly and the laptop heats up during sleep. Then the hard drive recently crashed, at least I thought it crashed after it showed the folder with question mark during startup and did not show my old hard disk drive. Now I bought a 1TB WD mainstream hard drive disk, unfortunately it does not detect it in the internet recovery (disk utility). Now my question is, Do I have to do something with the hard drive first for my laptop to detect it? Like formatting it? The box said that it is compatible with mac OSx Lion, but my internet recovery lets me install Mountain Lion only. Is that the problem? or is the problem internal like the cable that connects the hard drive to the logic board?

That depends on the type of drive you have. If it is a standard external drive (in an enclosure) you can connect the drive with a USB cable.
If it is a bare drive like this:
You will have to put it an enclosure and get a usb cable. External drive enclosure are < $10. They come in two sizes, 2.5" and 3.5". Buy one that's correct for your drive. http://www.amazon.ca/MOGOI-Enclosure-External--Silver-Accessory/dp/B00HC107R6/re f=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1404755872&sr=8-5&keywords=disk+enclosure

MacBook Pro flashes file folder with question mark and startup manager will not run

My son's MacBook Pro won't boot (gets the flashing file folder with question mark). When I try to open startup manager (holding "option" key during boot does not do it). Other posts suggest inserting the install disk, but I am pretty sure that for Lion, there was no disk, it was just off the website through the App Store. Any further suggestions?

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

Switched on my imac 24inch intel based and all I get on screen is a folder with question mark flashing,I had backup on external hard drive but when I try to reinstall it can not find my mac hard drive

Hi when I started my intel based imac this morning all I am getting is a folder with question mark in the middle flashing,I have external hard drive with backup,but when run disc utilities it does not show my mac hard drive.hope someone can help.(it's running mountain lion, well it was)

Try starting up your Mac while holding down the Option key. That should prompt the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk then click Restart.
The question mark folder indicates your Mac cannot find a system folder to boot from.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac

I powered up my macbook and there is a file folder with question mark on the screen flashing. What does that mean?

Powered up Mac book and screen showing file folder with question mark flashing?

A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Hope that solves your issue.

Folder with Question Mark, to Apple Icon, to Kernel Screen at Startup.

At startup Folder with Question Mark, Followed all steps to resolve it to no avail, I try to re-install Snow Leopard and Apple Icon with Grey screen appears, then Kernel screen.
I cannot get past the Kernel screen. No options to click anything, like system preferences or anything. I have a Macbook, with Snow Leopard. Any help would be much appreciated.
I tried Pram Reset and everything.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply Mende.
I tried that, it goes to the apple icon, however after about 10 seconds of the apple it goes straight to the Kernel screen. It doesn't give me the options of opening anything. Infact it doesn't even have a mouse curser.
If I hold "option" it gives me the option of choosing only the "Leopard DVD" but that's it and then it goes to the Kernel Screen
Again, thanks for the taking the time to help me out.

Folder with Question Mark Blinking

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