Keyboard Not Working and Question Mark Folder on Startup

I've got a question for a Mac Genius: What is the cause of my keyboard not working and a grayscreen coming up on startup? I'll give you a little background. I have a 1.83Ghz Macbook that is two years old now...almost exactly. I came back from work yesterday and it was in a semi-frozen state. Two apps were frozen but the finder was still alive. Within 10 seconds of trying to navigate through the Finder, it froze too. I went ahead and tried to restart it, but nothing happened. I held down the power button and it shut off. When I tried to start it back up a gray screen comes up. It makes the chiming sound but goes no where. After about half a minute the folder with the question mark will appear. The first few times I tried it, it seemed like the optical drive was trying really hard to work, but it doesn't try so hard anymore. None of the keys work and the Caps Lock and Num Lock don't light, so I can't use any of the keyboard commands to work my way around (resetting PRAM/using startup disks). The CD is stuck in it because I can't force eject it. I believe the trackpad is also not working, but I couldn't be sure.
Previously I had noticed that when I came back from work I would find Mozilla Firefox using tons of the CPU when it wasn't really doing anything. This heated up the computer and made the fans spin at crazy speeds(6000RPM). I will try the Hard drive in another computer tonight probably because I'm pretty sure that's not the problem, but I would like to be sure.
Any ideas would be helpful! I'm just about to tear it open and see if anything has been physically fried.

I went ahead and tried to eject the CD with an external mouse but it didn't work. What I ended up doing is swapping my hard drive into my friend's computer and discovered that that was the only problem. It appears that my HDD was totally fried because after I booted off of the start-up cd, the HDD was nowhere to be found within disk utility. My computer starts up fine and the keyboard works fine when I have someone else's HDD in mine. I'm really surprised that the Macbook needs a good HDD to operate it's trackpad and keyboard. Thank you for your help! Although now I have a new question; is there any way to salvage the data trapped on my old HDD? Cheers!

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MacBook shows grey screen and question mark folder on startup.

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and since you'll probably need it http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

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I tried unplugging the peripherals and restarting; zapping the PRAM and restarting; safe boot and restarting. Safe boot did it.
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The question mark folder usually means that the
firmware could either not find a valid operating
system to boot, or, it could not find a hard disk
with an operating system on it.
Have you tried booting to Lion Recovery? If
you can, then go into Disk Utility and do a
Repair Disk on your OSX volume. If the
OSX volume is not showing up, you may need
to do a reformat and re-install.
Since it is a 24" iMac (from your description) it was
a pre-Lion Mac. If you still have the original install
disks, try booting with it and use Disk Utility from it
to see if the hard drive is working.
Try this first before making a road trip.

[solved] mouse and keyboard not working (and previous fix wont work)

i made a clean default setup with
arch
latest kernel - 2.6.29 i think
xorg 1.6.1
video-intel-legacy
on a 865G intel box + tried usb and ps2 keyboards + usb mouse
when i start X the mouse and keyboard dont work (and i have to hard reset the box) in all of the setups i tried. the AutoAddDevices fix suggested before does not work this time
- without xorg.conf
- with auto-generated xorg.conf (X -confogure)
- with the automatic conf +
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
EndSection
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Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
EndSection
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Last edited by ash (2009-04-30 19:01:41)

the setup that works to me now is
automatic xorg.conf with the AutAddDevices False (disable hotplug) lines
dbus and hal enabled in deamons
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Last edited by ash (2009-04-30 18:26:16)

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hi there
when i plug some usb stuff to my keyboard port it start to not work and when i restart it didn't gets detected. this problem will not let me to login to my mac pro.
Thank you

The USB port on Apple keyboards are only meant for very low-power devices like pointing devices. You will see problem like yours if you connect higher-power devices

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Hi,
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P.

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.g

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1. Make sure that the target computer is turned off. If you are using a PowerBook or iBook as the target computer, you should also plug in its AC power adapter.
2. Use a FireWire cable to connect the target computer to a host computer. The host computer does not need to be turned off.
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4. When you are finished copying files, drag the target computer's hard disk icon to the Trash or select Put Away from the File menu (Mac OS 9) or Eject from the File menu (Mac OS X).
5. Press the target computer's power button to turn it off.
6. Unplug the FireWire cable.
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-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

Question mark folder on startup, Question mark folder on startup?

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Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
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2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

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Question mark folder at startup

When I start up my computer, there is a question mark folder at the start and then it pops to the apple icon. I was wondering if anyone else has this problem and is it a software or hardware problem?

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IMac will not boot - flashing question mark folder

Hi Everyone,
This evening I did the update for Xcode on my iMac (purchased in 2012, new one with no DVD drive). I attempted to restart the iMac and the folder with the question mark inside it started flashing and would not stop.
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How do you fix the question mark folder on startup?

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Question Mark/Folder on startup

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After doing some research I've tried to use the start up disks which seems to work initially but then when it gets to the point where you have to select a location there are no possible options to select. I can't start in safe mode or using Command-S - nothing happens. When I start holding the option key I get a blue screen that has one arrow looping round and one arrow pointint to the right but neither does anything when I click on it.
I'm resigned to the fact that the computer is dead but is there any way to rescue all my music (I had previously tried to hook it up to various cloud options but none were compatible with 10.3.9 so it isn't backed up anywhere)? I was going to try chatting to someone in Apple support but the system doesn't recognise the serial number on the bottom of my machine so it won't let me in to talk to anyone or book a call.
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Your best move would be to pull the hd out of the machine. An attach to an adapter & see if you can read the data off the drive. The machine is 15 to 11 years old. I've seen reports that hd's only last three to five years on the average.
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examples:
http://www.cablewholesale.com/products/usb-firewire/usb-2.0-products/product-40u 2-01000.php?utm_source=Nextag&utm_medium=cpc&zmam=54972865&zmas=1&zmac=4&zmap=4 4 77
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=32765 54&CatId=3770
Check out this site
iMac HDD Upgrade Guide (Slot-Loading) Visual Installation Guide - slot loading iMac Hard Drive
http://wn.com/How_to_Disassemble_an_Apple_iMac_G3
All the tray loading iMac g3's, models a-d, are constructed the same.
While this article deals with adding memory, you should see the pram battery on the logic board when you get to step 17.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=43012
You should skip steps 17 to 20. Look for the pram battery instead.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=43013
Here is a good disassembly page:
http://www.macopz.com/columns/imacrepair/disassembly.html
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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2584291
How To Upgrade Your iMac
http://www.djonmac.com/

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Put a logic board and new hard drive in g4 1.33 12inch ibook. Trying to load tiger ,I get a folder with a question mark on the screen. What does that mean ?

Is it 10.4.0? If so, it's too early to work.
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hello users,
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Power on the Mac. Immediately after turning on the power, hold down the option key.
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Keyboard Not Working and Question Mark Folder on Startup

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