HELP! iMac not starting up ... blue screen with folder and blinking ?
my imac is not starting up. when i turn on the computer, i get a blue screen with a blinking folder icon of the finder and a black question mark. i can't move anything or type anything.
i have tried powering down and powering back up with holding down the option key, but all i get is a screen with two buttons with a curved arrow and a straight arrow. however, i can't click any of them!
i don't know what to do and i need major help! can anyone help me? i don't want to spend the $49 again for a simple fix.
For starters, follow the steps in this Apple KB Article Post back if you have any questions or things still don't work out.
Clint
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tried hard drive in another g5 but with the same result.can anybody suggest what might be wrong
had the same result on other g5 blue screen finder folder with question mark. i put the hard drive in the bottom bay of my g5 after and ran disk repair said disk ok .reparaired permissions tried hard drive in top bay again but with same result.
do i just disconnect the two connections on hard drive and then try your second suggestion? -
Macbook Pro does not start. Grey screen with logo and status bar going on forever.
I have a Macbook Pro, late 2010 running with OS Mavericks. Lately it became very slow but never had major issues like crashing. Lat night, I tried a hard restart because it was stuck and I cannot get it to restart ever since. I get sound and grey screen with logo. The status bar is going on forever but does not boot. Can anyone help, please?
Try a safe boot:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
If no success, boot into recovery:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1310
Select the recovery partition and then from the 4 option menu select Disk Utility.
Open Disk Utility>First Aid and run Verify and Repair.
What are the results?
Ciao. -
Froze on Blue Screen with Apple and loading bar
My Ipod Touch was updated wtih new updates. It is now froze on a dark blue screen with an apple on it. Then a loading bar with nothing loading. I can't get it to turn off, or anything. Not sure what to do next.
Welcome to the discussions,
did you try to reset the ipod by holding the sleep and home button until the Apple logo comes up again? If this is not working, connect in recovery mode and restore.
Recovery mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808 -
IMac will not start up - blue screen after months of Leopard use
I have an iMac G5 that will not start up. It hangs at the blue screen, but does not have the issue with the ApplicationEnhancer.bundle file. It will start up in safe mode.
This iMac will not start from a bootable external drive (the external drive can be used as a start up disk successfully with my iBook G4). The iMac's internal drive can be used as a start up disk for the iBook (via the target mode) and does not appear to have any problems. Does this seem like it is a hardware issue with the iMac? The iMac also hangs at the blue screen if I attempt to start up with the Leopard install disk after using the startup disk preference pane in safe start mode.
I have repaired permissions, verified the disk, etc., using the disk utility. I have cleared caches, preferences, and so on, using Mac HelpMate.It may be that some of your login items might be incompatible with the mac. Also, try booting up from the install disk and repair your disk.
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Installed V4. On starting get Blue Screen with Bad_Pool_Header. Uninstall/reinstall doesn't help
Windows 7 SP1, 32 bit AMD Turian 64, 2GB RAM
After installing V4 I get the Blue Screen on starting Firefox. I uninstalled V4 completely and installed V3 again with same results. The firefox screen never loads. Just goes to Blue Screen.
The dump message is: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000019 (0x00000003, 0x8232e700, 0xfe6f4878, 0xfe6f4878)We do need the actual log files (called a DMP files) as they contain the only record of the sequence of events leading up to the crash, what drivers
were loaded, and what was responsible.
Please follow our instructions for finding and uploading the files we need to help you fix your computer. They can be found here
If you have any questions about the procedure please ask
Wanikiya and Dyami--Team Zigzag -
HP dv9740us not going past blue screen with page_fault_in_nonpaged_area error
I have had very few problems with my laptop until recently. I have had a couple of minor crashes that I could fix by doing a hard restart. Last night, I was playing an online game and suddenly my game started to bog down then it froze up completely. I tried to ctrl+alt+delete to restart and nothing happened. So I ended up holding down the power button until it shut down. As soon as it started to reboot, it went into a black screen asking for start up repair or start windows normally. I tried repair, and it took me to the screen, did a little running of the program, then went black. When I was ready to hit the power button it flashed several windows in both blue and black and finally ended up with the blue screen telling me I had the page_fault_in_nonpaged_area error. I tried several things: restarted again, ran disk tests on both disks(passed), a memory test(passed), and am now backing stuff up to an external drive. It will not get past that error or that blue screen. Both my husband and I have decent experience with this kind of thing, but neither of us are able to fix it. I also tried to follow the instructions for reseating the memory. Nothing works. I don't want to lose my important files, especially all of the pictures of my son's first year. Please Help!!!
I want to add that I have not added any new programs lately. The only thing causing problems has been a PC Matic add-on to do real time protection. That stops working everytime I open windows.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957625.aspx
This Stop message occurs when requested data is not found in memory. The system generates a fault, which normally indicates that the system looks for data in the paging file. In this circumstance, however, the missing data is identified as being located within an area of memory that cannot be paged out to disk. The system faults, but cannot find, the data and is unable to recover. Faulty hardware, a buggy system service, antivirus software, and a corrupted NTFS volume can all generate this type of error.
Dv6-7000 /Full HD/Core i5-3360M/GF 650M/Corsair 8GB/Intel 7260AC/Samsung Pro 256GB
Testing - HP 15-p000
HP Touchpad provided by HP
Currently on Debian Wheeze
*Please, help other users with the same issue by marking your solved topics as "Accept as Solution"* -
Just tried to upgrade to SnowLeopard with newly purchased software disc. iLife failed to download and when I tried to restart the computer, it will not do so--just get a grey screen with the lines going around and around. Any ideas about how to get it to start?
Mac Pro - Mid 2010
Processor 2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)
This is a brand new machine that I just purchased from Apple. It was delivered yesterday
The old computer is an old PowerMac G5, but my OS X install disc is a retail version of 10.5.
I also tried the OS X 10.5 install disc that came with my MacBook Pro (2.6 Ghz Intel Core 2 Dual).
Same issue - nothing but a grey screen when the system tries to boot from the DVD -
Macbook not loading past white screen with logo and spinnning wheel?
ok, so basically i have a macbook 10.6.4 Snow Lepoard that is making me want to literally bash its brains out but, unfortunatly i cant because it is owened by the school...
As mentioned in previous posts, my school It dept are incredibly slow and their idea of fixing something is to wipe everthing and reinstall all the programs once again. if that dosent work their other way of fixing something is to send it off to apple. for obveous reasons i want to avoid that.
it ONLY started today, (last night i was happily doing last minuite homework) when its was lagging so much that i did the inevitable, i quit tetris and restarted my computer...
This led to me sitting infront of a white screen and a spinning wheel for the whole lesson. The next lesson i got fed up with waiting and restarted. nothing. I have also notied that my macbook seems to heat up REALLY FAST toward the bottom of the screen (where is says macbook).
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Favviwell i went to hand it in today but the fails that we call 'the qualified IT deptarment' (even though they are only two), decided to take the day off. they were supposed to be there recess and lunch but the room was pitch black.
When you say that "you do not need admin rights to perform the different solution", i actually am the admin of the laptop but there is another hidden admin so that they can change any settings in the computer without our passwords.
i have previously tried that whole command letter thing for various other things such as safe mode and starting from the disk and have had no sucess. i dont know if my timing is off or something but it never works. however, i have been able to retrive a disk from the disk drive by pressing the mouse button when it turns on.
this is an exerpt from a previous post:
favvi wrote:
so im really starting to get annoyed now. I have tried that single user mode start up thing (command + s) after the chime, before the chime, hold it down for a second, hold it down forever BUT IT ALWAYS JUST GOES INTO MY LOGIN SCREEN!!! i cant seem to get around this. I cant get into the 'utilities' from my install disk because it asks for an admin name and password. i am literally tearing my hair out…
Barney-15E:
That doesn't make any sense. When it boots to the install disk, there is no user to authenticate.
Does it have an Open Firmware password set?
i assumed that this was set. but to be honest i have no freaking idea.
also i was talking to a friend today and she said that she had the same issue and they had to replace the battery. although i have no idead on how the battery could be affecting this? -
Dreaded Gray screen with Folder and Question Mark (EFI Boot poofs away)
Hey--
I've had trouble with my Imac that I purchasd in 2005 for a year and a half or so. I had a gray screen about a year and a half ago, went on vacation for a week, came back and it booted just fine. Another time it went down, I did a safe boot and it came back. I've tried Command-Option P+R before with some success. I had a boot camp partitioned windows xp drive on there also (I don't know if this matters, but wanted to mention that). I've also tried putting the installation disk in there with no luck (thinking it would find the software on it)
I put it away because I moved and dragged it out of storage to see if a miracle might have occured since the last time I tried 5 months ago. Well, same thing--gray screen with a flashing folder with question mark. I read in the discussions to hold the option key down to select a book device. I tried this and got an EFI Boot icon with a mouse pointer, but when I go to select it it "poofs" away (literally, the icon POOFS away) before I can select it with the mouse pointer icon.
Has anyone seen anything like this or have any suggestions? I guess I'm at my wits end and am ready to haul it down to the Apple store to get the prognosis (I'm sure it will not be good--probably shot hard drive or something). I'm hoping this can be salvaged without much cost.
Thanks so much for any advice or input you might have.
ChrisHow 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, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) 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 installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro 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.
If yours is an Intel model, then I recommend getting Snow Leopard to upgrade OS X, but I would recommend first erasing the drive before installing Snow Leopard.
Upgrade Paths to Snow Leopard, Lion, and/or Mountain Lion
You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. To access the App Store you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later installed.
Upgrading to Snow Leopard
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.
Snow Leopard General Requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
2. 1GB of memory
3. 5GB of available disk space
4. DVD drive for installation
5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;
fees may apply.
6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and
terms apply.
Upgrading to Lion
If your computer does not meet the requirements to install Mountain Lion, it may still meet the requirements to install Lion.
You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service - this includes international calling numbers. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download. You will get an email containing a redemption code that you then use at the Mac App Store to download Lion. Save a copy of that installer to your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself at the end of the installation.
Lion System Requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7,
or Xeon processor
2. 2GB of memory
3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
4. 7GB of available space
5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
Upgrading to Mountain Lion
To upgrade to Mountain Lion you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Purchase and download Mountain Lion from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mountain Lion is $19.99 plus tax. The file is quite large, over 4 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.
OS X Mountain Lion - System Requirements
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later
2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later
3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later
5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
Are my applications compatible?
See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.
For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion. -
Screen with folder and "?" on startup. No install disks.
Saturday I dropped my Macbook Pro 8,1 and afterwards it was working completed fine. A day later I was working on PowerPoint and it froze (which isn't very unusual) so I re-started it. After re-starting I got a blank screen with a folder and a "?" From my understanding I need my install disk which unfortunately is a 3 hour drive from me at the moment.
The one thing that I do have is my external hard-drive that I've used Time Machine on before to back-up my Macbook. Unfortunately I hadn't backed up my latop very recently and I have important files on my Macbook that aren't on my external hard drive, so I don't want to restore my Macbook back to whatever was on the hardrive. So my questions are:
Is the any way the hardrive can be used in place of the install disk? If not, can I buy and download install disk online and but on flash drive?
Will fixing my problem result in all the files on my Macbook being lost?
Note: when I turn on my macbook using the hardrive I can get into disk utilities. However, when going into "First Aid", I am unable to select "Repair Disk"Melanie443 wrote:
Saturday I dropped my Macbook Pro 8,1
If it had 10.6 from the factory, it's a Early 20011 13", and yes you need the 10.6.7 gray/black machine specific install disks (call Apple if they are defective), the 10.6.3 white ones from Apple online retail store won't work.
If it had 10.7 from the factory, it's a Late 2011 13", there is no disks, Internet Recovery and Recovery HD (on a bootable partition)
After re-starting I got a blank screen with a folder and a "?"
Firmware doesn't know where the boot volume is, may be a easy fix.
Folder with question mark issue
From my understanding I need my install disk which unfortunately is a 3 hour drive from me at the moment.
If disks came in the box, then it's a Early 2011 with Snow Leopard, unless you upgraded to 10.7 or later, which you use Recovery HD or Internet Recovery instead, unless your going to restore the machine back to Snow Leopard. (many do)
The one thing that I do have is my external hard-drive that I've used Time Machine on before to back-up my Macbook. Unfortunately I hadn't backed up my latop very recently...
If you haven't backed up TM since dropping the machine, that's a good thing because it sounds like the boot hard drive is corrupted and may not restore properly or at all if the TM drive copied that junk over.
I have important files on my Macbook that aren't on my external hard drive, so I don't want to restore my Macbook back to whatever was on the hardrive.
First try the easy mehod by holding the option/alt key down at boot time and seeing if you can boot OS X, then head to System Preferences > Startup Disk and set it again, this will tell the firmware.
Once your in, backup all your users files to a external drive, (not TimeMachine) and disconnect. You might have to do it in small bunches because there could be damage to the platters were the heads struck when you dropped it.
If you can't boot OS X, then use this method
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
If you can't even do that as the machine is broken
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?
Melanie443 wrote:
Will fixing my problem result in all the files on my Macbook being lost?
Yes if you don't do data recovery first or the drive is actually mechanically dead.
Fixing your problem may be easy, doing a zero bit erase on the entire Macintosh HD partition or drive (for 10.6) may map off the bad/damaged sectors and thus you can keep using the machine.
You can install 10.6/10.7 and then restore from TimeMachine (if not defective) and return the copies of your recovered files from the external drive.
Note: when I turn on my macbook using the hardrive I can get into disk utilities. However, when going into "First Aid", I am unable to select "Repair Disk"
To repair disk you need to do so while c or option/alt key booted from the 10.6 disk or the 10.7/10.8 Recovery HD partition or via Internet Recovery, that's why it's grayed out.
Don't do this until you have recovered your files first, as you don't want Disk Utility knowing the drive has problems and then lock you out on the next reboot.
Don't do Safe Mode either yet as this forces a fsck drive check and also lock you out from a easy recovery of your files.
Once you've got your files off the machine to a external storage drive (don't trust TimeMachine) then you can do whatever.
Most commonly used backup methods
Step by Step to fix your Mac
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's -
Macbook stuck on white screen with folder and question mark
My macbook is stuck at the screen with the folder with a question mark on it. I have tried a few things like the ones I found on google and so far no go. I tried pressing the command + p +r keys and it didn't work. I also tried to eject a cd and nothing. finally i tried pressing the command + option + p + r and nothing. Guys please help me. I really need this laptop.
I even tried just the command + r. I would like to reinstall OS. What are the steps please?What version of OS X are you running? When you hold down the Command and R keys whilst booting, do you get to the Recovery partition?
Clinton -
I have a grey screen with folder and question mark-why?
When I turn my computer on I see a grey screen with a folder and question mark over it. The folder and question mark are blinking then a couple minutes later the screen turns black. Help please!
Kfrost5792,
if your MacBook Pro didn’t originally come with grey installation discs in the box, then you can substitute “booting from Recovery mode” for “booting from your grey Mac OS X Install disc”, and from the OS X Utilities menu that appears on the desktop in Recovery mode, you can select Disk Utility there to erase your internal disk, which will allow you to perform an OS X Internet Recovery the next time that your MacBook Pro is powered up. -
Hi,
so my iMac (it's not the most recent iMac if it makes any difference, and I'm running mountain lion 10.8.3) often freezes and I do a hard shutdown as I cannot force quit the applications or click on the apple in the top left to shut it down. When I come to turn it back on, I'm greeted with a white screen, in the middle of which is the dreaded folder with the flashing question mark in it. I've noticed that just before a freeze occurs, it starts running slowly and if I try going onto Facebook for example, it says that it cannot connect to facebook.com despite the internet connection being fine as I can browse things on Google. I have also noticed that before a freeze, in Finder, in All My Files, no files show. I went through this http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440 and the problem still persists. Sometimes it does load fine if I shut it down again but when I eventually open up safari, if I had been on youtube for example, it will reload the page from a few videos before and not the one I was on when it actually froze.
Any help would be hugely appreciated,
Thanks
Side note: When it says I must choose a community in order to post this, it only gives me a choice of 3 which are Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, v10.5 Leopard, v10.6 Snow leopard, so apologies if this is posted in the wrong place - is there any way to get it moved to the correct place?Yes,easy fix but difficult to buy,think you can get them from the states (off the top of my head about £15).When you go to the apple store,tell yhem what you suspect and they will test if it is the cable or if its the hard drive,dosn't take that long and it's free.If you know what to do you can take the back off and with strong magnifying glass you might be able to see the fray look at the bend of the cable.
-
Screen with folder and website address
My screen has a folder with an exclaimation mark and the website www.apple.com\support\ipod. I cannot get to my music. What must I do?
Start with this article...
iPod displays a folder icon with an exclamation point
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1405?viewlocale=en_US
Patrick
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