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.

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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.

What to do with a grey screen with flashing question mark on start up

What does a flashing question mark on a blank screen mean web starting up?

Follow the procedures in this support article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570
Ciao.

Gray screen with flashing question mark inside a folder icon

Screen was unresponsive, cursor would move, but nothing else. Turned power off, turned power back on, now has a gray screen with a folder icon and flashing question mark in it. any ideas to correct or should i take it to Best Buy for service ( Geek squad) ?

Before taking it in for service, I'd folllow this article. Although it's possible it's a drive issue, it's equally likely to be something else. That article walks you through steps to fix it if it's not the drive.
Note: For the archive & install, if you're on 10.6, follow the disk instructions, if you're on 10.7 or later, you'll want to boot into the recovery partition. To do that, just boot the computer while holding down the Command+R button. No need for disks.
Regards,
Gnomish8

Blinking question mark upon start up

When I turn on the computer there is a folder symbol with a question mark in the middle. It just blinks and wont do anything else. Anybody know what that means? Thanks

Check through these documents.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
One of them has the answer to your problem
I post all of these so you bookmark them for later reference and better understand how to troubleshoot/repair.
(also because I'm lazy )

G4 shows folder with blinking question mark on start up

I bought my son a used G4. It worked well. We noticed it had 2 hard drives and only one was hooked up. We plugged in the second one, rebooted it and it will not load X, 4.2. Tiger. It worked fine before so we unplugged the second hard drive plugged in the first on as before and we have the same problem. I have tried to boot from the install disc but it will only let me verify the drive not to repair it. Help please.

Look at A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
If two drives are installed, the jumpers on one must be located for Master & the jumpers on the second drive located for Slave. There should be a label on the drives showing the proper jumper locarions.
 Cheers, Tom

HT2173 Gray screen with a question mark

iMac will not turn on and it has face with a question mark

This means that either:
The operating system is missing from the iMac's hard drive. You will need to restore your system from the grey discs that came with your Mac.
The hard disk is damaged. In this case you will need a new hard drive. Once you or a specialist has installed it you can then restore your system using the grey discs.

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.

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.

IMac wont boot Past Grey Screen, finder folder with blinking question mark

iMac G5 won't boot Past Grey Screen. The G5 froze and i restarted, It will not go past the grey screen and it has the finder folder with blinking question mark, also the fans kick on wide open. As it atempts to boot a sound plays "beepda beepda beepda beep" that starts quiet and gets louder and repeats a couple of times. I ran a hardware check on the startup disk and all hardware passed. I thought it might be the RAM any suggestions?
I have restarted using the troubleshooting methods in the guide.

Sorry for the late reply. The drive shows up when booting to disk, but it will not allow you to verify disk or repair. Also it will not allow you to select the hard drive to reinstall the software. Under disk utility Maxtor sabre shows up with total capacity:0 bytes.
I've taking the Mac to the Apple store to get looked at, and its probly the hard drive. Now Im trying to see if theres a way to recover the data myself. I've used software like "Data Rescue" the hard drive shows up "Maxtor Sabre" totally capacity: 0 bytes, and it will not recover anything.
Did this test just to see if it was power problem.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2173
Thats when noticed the beeps are coming from the hard drive. So its getting power.
Now just wondering how to recover data.
Any suggestions?

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.

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

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.

Mbpro won't start up- get blinking question mark folder

help!!! think my macbook pro (1st gen, 17") has died- i get a blinking question mark folder when i boot up.
it's been having problems for a long while, so use it generally to record movies- which a bunch are still on there to export.
is there a resolve for this? would a new harddrive get it up and working again?
hoping i can recover the harddrive to get data, but ok without it. just want it working again if possible.
thanks for the help!

The symptom you describe is usually a HDD problem or it could be an internal cable/connection problem. If you have an external bootable HDD, employ it and see if you can access the internal HDD via Disk Utility and run First Aid.
Ciao.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
The above article may be useful.
Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

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.

Gray screen (sometimes blinking question mark) at start up

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