Help! Dreaded Blinking Question Mark

I know this is not good news, but where do I start to troubleshoot this blinking question mark? Do I boot up from the MAC CD and reinstall/restore? One time, I fixed this (on another computer) by resetting the P-ram but how do I get the computer started so I can try that fix?
Also, during the last couple of days, the computer has been making a strange noise whether it's in use or not. Sort of sounds like a lawn mower!
Where do I begin?

The strange noises are probably evidence of a failed hard drive. Hope you do regular backups.
Look at these links.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
*Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck*
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
 Cheers, Tom

Similar Messages

The Dreaded Blinking Question Mark

About a month ago I started having a recurring problem of the computer freezing upon waking from sleep.
Each time I restarted it by holding the power button, and each time I would get the blinking question mark over the folder.
I replaced the PRAM battery and it didn't fix the problem.
I bought the latest version of Disc Warrior, ran it and it said that everything was fine. Still the problem persisted.
Finally, I popped in the Apple utility disc and it said that there were problems with the disc, but didn't fix them.
Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Wake from sleep problems are on the MDD are common when USB PCI cards are installed. If you've installed such a card, try disconnecting everything from it and see if things get better.
If your PRAM battery is more than three years old, or your computer has been unplugged from the wall for extended periods, you should replace the battery.

Blinking Question Mark / Hard drive failure

Hi all,
Im desperately trying to fix my hard drive and I really need some advice.
The story.
I went away for holiday, left my iMac on in the office so I could access it vis VPN, and whilst away, the hard drive failed on me. I arrived back from holiday with a computer that wouldnt wake up that I had to force shut down and power up again, finding only the dreaded blinking question-mark folder.
where Im at:
Thus far, I have run Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disk, Diskwarrior, and Data Rescue and only Disk Utility is able to see hardware installed (just hardware, no volumes).
I have a backup from December 2009 (when a power surge killed my backup drive temporarily), but I really want to use it only as a last resort. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might be able to get DiskWarrior or Data Rescue to find the hardware so it can run tests?
Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated as well—I can't think of anything else to try.
thanks in advance,
Joel

Thanks for the response, much appreciated. I came to my wits end and realized that I couldnt even erase the data using Disk Utility, so alas, looks like it's going to have to be a new hard drive for me. I purchased one a couple days ago and it arrived today. Im going to install it today (hopefully) and back up using the time machine backup i have from 6 months ago.
I dont suppose installing the old drive into an external enclosure would change anything as far as trying to fix/mount it to retrieve data?
Best,
Joel

Blinking question mark....need advice

Today I got the dreaded blinking question mark. I called Apple and we got it fixed by resetting the P-Ram. How serious is this; is it likely to happen again? I have also had the logic board problem and that has been replaced twice.
My question is is the blinking question mark a bad omen...is this likely to happen again? Is it connected to the logic board problem? My question is should I be thinking about replacing this computer? Is it defective? Do all these problems mean there is a short future for this emac.
If all of these things are indicators of a major future breakdown, I'm wondering if it is wise to replace the computer before I lose everything once and for all.

The blinking question mark could have been a corrupted file containing the System Preference for the Startup Disk (see What's stored in PRAM?). Dale's and Allan's advice cover the main things you'd want to check after a preference turns up corrupted. It could have been something as minor as a momentary power glitch while writing to the hard drive that corrupted the preference file' since preferences as a group can be written to fairly frequently, a corrupted pref or two over several years of use isn't uncommon. You can check your preferences in general:
To check your user preferences (.plist) files in Applications > Utilities > Terminal, copy and paste the following into Terminal and press return:
find ~/Library -name '*.plist' -exec /usr/bin/plutil -lint {} \;
You can also download Preferential Treatment, which provides a GUI front end to the plutil command (and which doesn't require you to copy and paste or type in exactly the correct characters for the desired Unix command).

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.

Blinking question mark folder - Please help to restore from USB

Hello,
I haven't been able to my Mac about 5 days now and I hope someone can help me.
I initially had Yosemite then using disk utility I erased the hard drive, after that I was going to install Yosemite again as a fresh copy and mac froze so I had to restart now its showing a blinking question mark folder. I was able to do an internet recovery but it was trying to install Lion.
I currently have a copy of Maverick and would like to install that. I am at this screen as show in the picture: I have selected the source as the Maverick file on
the USB and the destination as the HD; should I click restore and would that install the Maverick OS or is there another way?
Thanks
the

nazfaz wrote:
Is there a way to install Yosemite since I had downloaded it via my ID?
You have to reinstall OS X Lion, setup your account, log into the App Store with the Apple ID you used to download Yosemite and you should see it in your Purchases tab. Then you can download it and install it. What I would do is download it, quit the install and save the Install OS X Yosemite.app file out of your /Applications folder to another location so you can create a USB thumb drive installer. Then go back into /Applications and run the install app to upgrade from Lion.
Unless you have an OS X Yosemite USB thumb drive installer, you can't install Yosemite again until you do the above paragraph and upgrade.
If you have the Install OS X Yosemite.app on another Mac to create a USB thumb drive, create it and boot from it to install Yosemite.

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.

PowerMac G5: Blinking question mark at startup

I have a 3 1/2 year old G5. When I boot it up, it goes straight to the blinking question mark. I've reset the PRAM, no change. I've tried booting off an installation disk. That gets me to the Apple logo, then the logo pixels go kinda funky and it freezes. I don't hear the hard drive at all during this process; it does not spin up. The CD/DVD drive is obviously spinning, but as I said, it won't boot off an installation disk (I tried three different disks).
I'm assuming the hard drive is bad, but I don't know. I've never had a problem with a Mac before! Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't think of a 3.5 year old Mac as being that old, but I'm a bit nervous about dropping a new hard drive in and wondering if I should just get a new system.
ETA: I have disconnected all peripherals and restarted, and that made no difference.
Message was edited by: Stacia Seaman

I'm having this same problem with a system I just replaced a logic board in. Won't boot off of HD or CD. The HD that is in it is a brand new drive from a different power-mac (the HD from the dead box was moved to the new powermac to get that user back online) so it should be ok, but regardless of that, it won't boot of CD/DVD either.
I guess I don't have anything useful to add. Just a "you're not alone with this problem". If I come across anything that helps, I'll let you know.

I see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder

i see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder. I see that it means that it isn't reading the new hard drive.
did i miss a step between transferring all of my information from my old hard drive to the new hard drive and installing the new hard drive into the computer. I believe that i installed properly. it was quite easy.
thanks for your help

It means there is no bootable system on the drive. If you still have access to the old drive, then I suggest you boot from it then clone it to the new internal drive. Use OPTION boot to boot from the Recovery HD on the old drive:
Boot to the Recovery HD:
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.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Source means the external old drive. Destination means the new internal drive.

Grey screen with file folder blinking question mark in middle of folder

My Macbook suddenly turned off leaving me with a grey screen. In the middle of the screen there is a file folder blinking with a question mark in the middle of the folder. It will not turn back on even if I attempt to restart it. What does this mean and can I fix it myself or must it be sent to apple.

This may help: A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac.
If none of the solutions work then you will need to do an Archive and Install:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) 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, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) 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. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Mac Pro not detecting internal HD. Blinking Question Mark!!

Hi there,
Ive been looking for an answer about my problem but it seems most of the people has got the problem; the hard drive might be damaged. Thats not my case.
Ive got two Mac Pros. One is working flawlessly. So I swaped HDs to see what happened and when I turned on the computer, the good MAC detected the hard drive of the failing computer and I logged in normally. When I turned on the failing computer with the good HD, it didnt read it. In conclusion I realized that there was not a HD problem, something else is going on.
After that, using the good Mac PRo, I installed both HDs and both were detected. This confirmed that definitely, the HDs are Ok. Whats wrong?? I dont know, hope you people can help me.
Thanks a lot.

The blinking question mark says you could not find:
The preferred System
of the preferred version
on the preferred drive.
All these parameters are stored in Parameter RAM, and sometimes they get damaged "just because".
If you use
System Preferences > Startup Disk ...
... to set the correct startup disk again. your problems may be over.
If not, you may need to reset the PRAM.
If that does not solve the problem in the long run, you may need to replace the PRAM backup battery.

Can not get past blinking question mark after restarting in os 9

I have a ibook g3 clamshell 576mb ram 366mhz 30gb hd. I added the hard drive and upgraded the memory and then forgot to update the firmware before I installed os x tiger. So I keep getting kernal panics because the firmware is not upgraded. Like a fool when I upgraded to tiger I erased os 9 to free up more space thinking I would never use os 9 ever again anyway. Well the only way you can upgrade the firmware is to have os 9 installed so I copied os 9 system folder and applications from another ibook and transformed them to my ibook hd. I then clicked on the os 9 on the start up disk and tried to boot into os 9 so I could do the firmware update. Well now it will not boot past the blinking question mark. I guess there must of been some missing files? How do i get past the blinking question mark? Do I have to go and buy a copy of os 9 to reinstall it back on the ibook? Please help I am stuck here.

Don't think anyone will like the answer but this is how I did it. You have to put a os x cd in restart holding c and then follow through with the install. I used os x 10.0.3 then you have to do the same with a os 9 install disc and initialize disk image and then do the os 9 install download your firmware update and then reinstall the mac os x you are going to use. And for anybody out there a ibook g3 with an old airport card can connect to wep all you have to do is add a $ before your password works everytime. Hope this helps somebody. My only problem is after a downloaded the firmware update thats a .smi file evrytime I try to open it it says no application could open it. I thought .smi were self mounting image files. I never have used os 9 much and have no idea how to open this file. Can anybody give me a walk through on how to select a application to open this file so I can mount and install this firmware update.

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.

Blinking Globe & Blinking Question Mark! What do I do??

So I have owned a G5 for a while now...and ever since i got it, the damm thing blinks a globe icon at me for 10 mins, then, i get a blinking question mark for another 10 mins...dont know very much about mac so if someone could help me ou that'd be great...thanks...Josh
Dual 1.8 Ghz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi Josh, and Welcome to Discussions!
Assuming that your system eventually loads, open System Preferences > Startup Disk:
Click on Mac OS X, 10.3.9 on Macintosh HD.
Quit System Preferences.
The next restart should be normal.
Good Luck!
ali b

Imac g3 os; blinking question mark, folder on boot

Thanks for your help Nick. I did as you said.
selected startup disk, then clicked on macintosh hd
and clicked on restart.
When it restarted, the blinking question mark
inside the folder appeared.
Am I having a possible hard ware problem of
some kind ? Have tried shocking pram already.
Is it bad pram battery, or maybe a
hard drive problem ?
Maybe one bad memory stick ?
I am lost here. New to macs.
Any help would be appreciated.

Please stick to the other topic. This is in a round about way a duplicate. You will confuse yourself if others answer here.

Help! Dreaded Blinking Question Mark

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