Hard drive icon during boot up

not sure what the problem is but when i boot up my macbook pro. sometimes i get a hard drive icon and it's labeled as my main drive inside the laptop but i have to click on the button to continue booting up. any ideas what could be causing this? it happens both when my external drives are connected and not connected.. lately its been happening more often.

Hi,
Navigate here....
Black Apple > System Preferences > System > Start up Disk.
From there you can choose which drive the computer will boot from. Select your own, internal, hard drive. Job done.
Regards.
Ian.
Note to self - Must learn to type faster than V.K.
Message was edited by a man in a dark suit, wearing sun glasses.

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Hi, never used support before - here goes! My Mac G4 MDD no longer shows the start up hard drive icon. The one with all my files on! It shows the other 3 hard drive icons and boots up OK. Has my start up hard drive failed? Can it be fixed? Thanks.

Hi, never used support before - here goes!
My Mac G4 MDD no longer shows the start up hard drive icon. The one with all my files on!
It shows the other 3 hard drive icons and boots up OK.
Has my start up hard drive failed? Can it be fixed?
Thanks.
Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.2)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.5.7f1

Doesn't sound like any hard drive failure to me - more a Finder preference.
Finder -> Preferences -> General -> Show these items on the desktop -> Hard disks
The startup disk is sometimes treated differently from other disks (such as external and network disks) and I'm guessing this is a simple preference setting, although I might be wrong.

Hard Drive icon won't open and menu bar flashes off and on

All of a sudden, in the middle of the day, my eMac went haywire. I can launch apps and docs are one the desktop. But I cannot open the Hard Drive icon. If I double-click on it (or used Command-O from keyboard), the icon won't open. And when I attempt to open it, the Finder Menu Bar begins flashing off and on (vanishing, reappearing, vanishing) across the top of the screen. I haver rebooted, run disk utility to repair permissions, even booted from TechTools to run its diagnostics. But still no access to the Hard Drive icon. I logged out and logged in as a TEST user, and same thing happens even when logged in that way. Literally, this happened in an instant. One minute the eMac was fine, then this started. Anyone else seen this? -- david

If the problem exists in both your regular account and your Test account odds are that it is at the system level. You can try a Safe boot (hold down the shift key at startup) to see if there is a third party startup item or one of the optional Apple functions that is causing the problem. You could also boot from the installer disk and use the Disk Utility->Repair Disk function. If you have a utility such as Tiger Cache Cleaner which will do a deep cache clean you can also try that.
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Gray X on hard drive icon

Hi, I just bought a G5 I Mac off eBay, It Is supposed to have Leopard installed. But it came with Tiger disk. When I turn it on a white screen comes with the Apple symbol and timer wheel, that is as far as it goes, just sits there spinning. When I start it up holding the options button down the screen has 3 icons, arrow circle hard drive icon with gray X , right arrow. There is a clock at the far left. I can not click on any of the icons, in a bit the screen changes back to the white screen and the timer wheel just sits there spinning. Thank You

It's been a while since I started up using the option button but I seem to remember I had to do something such as use the arrow keys to move between items and select the X - it was something not instinctive. If you're not using an Apple mouse and keyboard the computer might also not respond correctly.
Still, it's strange the computer won't immediately go for the only valid system. Unfortunately it could be a number of things and you'rll have to work your way through a list.
Bad PRAM battery? Especially with a computer of unknown use history. Bad PRAM can sometimes cause a computer to hang. Texas Mac Man's PRAM, battery, PMU tutorial - https://sites.google.com/site/macpram/mac-pram-nvram-cuda-pmu-battery-tutorial
Insert the Tiger disc and hold down C while starting. Does it boot to the disc? If so, we can try proceeding from there and it would also narow things down a bit. I would hesitate, though, to proceed to try to repair the internal drive with the Tiger disc because generally you shouldn't use an older OS to repair a drive with a newer OS.

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I am new to mac computers and have just inherited an old blue iMac which I already have updated to system OSX
However one thing I don't understand is that I have 2 hard drive icons on my desktop with different names, one contains the OS9 and OSX - the other is empty but says it has around 3GB of memory on it - is this really another hard drive thats been installed in the past? - and can I use it, and if so, what for?
many thanks
iMac Mac OS X (10.4)

Hello Swiss Kate,
I believe what you have is a hard drive that has been partitioned. This means it has been formatted as though it was 2 HD's. Sometimes what people do is use one portion for 9 and the other for X..... You have many options for using the 2nd section of the HD. Perhaps you use it for job storage or pixs etc. I would think about installing the OS 9 on the second (smaller) partition. That way you may be able to boot up if there is a problem with X.. Until you get used to the mac I think I would just use it for storage of important data you enter. HTH.......mGb.......Jim

Hard Drive icon missing - Desktop folders won't open - Need Help!

I need help! I have a 400 MHz PowerPC G4 with 768 MB SDRAM, no DVD drive - was running OS X 10.3.9 quite happily. We became owners of a new iPod Nano - so we had to upgrade to 10.4.
(I'm writing this on my 800 MHz PowerPC G4 with 768 MB SDRAM, (also no DVD drive) that I upgraded from OS X 10.3.9 to 10.4.11 without incident.)
Installed 10.4 using a FireWire Hard Drive - installed software updates to 10.4.11 - ran Disk Utility - ran MacJanitor - ran DoktorKleaner - everything was working well.
Rebooted and the Hard Drive Icon had disappeared from desktop. Folders on desktop have all lumped together in the top right hand corner of the screen, and refuse to open.
Only programs in the dock still work - clicking on the Finder icon only gives the option to hide. New Finder Window does not work. Programs can be found in Spotlight, but if they're not in the dock they won't open. Trash won't open or empty.
I attempted to reinstall Mac OS X using FireWire, but now the Hard Drive is full and is telling me it will erase and reinstall. I need to save files off this computer now (Sadly no backup exists) before my wife readies divorce papers.
I tried using FireWire Target Disk Mode to copy files - with the 400MHz as Target I just get a spinning Beach Ball any time I click on the Icon. After far too long it opened up an empty window.
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Whenever something starts going wrong with the computer I suggest you first boot from the installer disk, select language if applicable, choose utilities, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive. Then repair the permissions on your computer. You can also repair permissions from DU on your main drive while booted, but to properly verify and repair your drive you have to run it from a drive other than the boot drive.
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
[Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]
From BDaqua (couldn't have said it better):
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, 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. (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. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Then 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."
A few questions:
Was this a retail installer disc that you used to do the upgrade?
How much free space do you have on the computer?
Did you use the [PPC Combo updater|http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html] to get to 10.4.11?
Did you do all these updates in one single session or restart and check your computer had accepted them okay between each update? It is critical to repair permissions before and after each update otherwise the installers won't install fully and you end up with a mix of versions.
You can set the Finder Preferences, general, to display a hard drive icon, but it sounds like your problems are going beyond that?
You can also try trashing your Users -> home folder -> Library -> Preferences -> com.apple.finder.plist file and see if that clears up the issue. That sets the Finder preferences and if it gets corrupted it will cause Finder problems.

MAC PRO HARD DRIVE won't boot

HARD DRIVE won't boot past APPLE ICON, grey spinning wheel on grey screen. Tried using install discs, no go past the icon.
Replace small battery inside? replace chips? Logic board replace as last resort. Can't take it away from work at this point to an apple tech.
Had just installed updates to snow leopard and was successful...but went to restart it...and this crap happened.
Thanks for any help.
MT1111
< Edited by Host >

I'll try that tomorrow. Thinking it could also be:
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I noticed these past few days that much of the LETTERING for hard drive icons and folders' titles
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what does it mean when the hard drive icon with arrow below, appears on screen on start up?

it needs to clicked to select it as the startup disk......for the boot to continue...

On my macbook pro the hard drive icon is not on my desktop and I don't know how to find the hard drive or get the icon back on my desktop

on my macbook pro the hard drive icon is not on my desktop and I don't know how to find the hard drive or get the icon back on my desktop

Click on the Desktop. From the Finder menu select Preferences. Check the boxes for what you want on your Desktop. If they are already checked, then try unchecking and rechecking.

My internal hard drive no longer boots. Boots just fine in external usb enclosure.

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I have tried:
with disk utilities
•fixing permissions
•repairing disk
in single user mode
•fsck -fy
zapping the pram
removing ram and zapping the pram
Any suggestions or diagnostics would be appreciated.

Can't believe I spent days reformating my hard drive, restoring it, getting another hard drive... and it was all a cable that failed. I wonder what can make an internal cable like that fail (seems like the least likely part of all to fail).
Thanks PlotinusVeritas
Thanks to ifixit:
bit.ly/1q0EnOx
If you can't fix it, you don't own it!

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Hi,
I just received, installed and set up a Refurbished 24 in Intel iMac, 3.06 GHz.
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Hi Joe,
Thanks! I had already figured that out from the forum, but after posting, and after erasing and reinstalling the whole Snow Leopard!!!! Waste of time and stupid overlook on my side, specially since I had just gone through all system preferences setup and forgot the Finder one.
Well, at least I could partition my hard drive as I wanted...
Serpamac

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Thank you for reply.
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I have lost my Hard Drive icon on my desktop. How do I get it back.

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Hard drive icon during boot up

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