MAC question mark folder

Now, before you freak out as this is quite a common problem let me explain.
About two years ago, I was done with my MAC, and decided to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I ended up deleting my entire mac partition so Ubuntu was the only OS. I ended up running Arch, Puppy Linux etc off of a USB, i then tried a new distro, and messed up on installation, i'm 100% positive I used my dev/sdb for the installation, so anyways I rebooted and got the question mark in the folder. I tried all the commands people were suggesting, and I get no response at all, I'll hold the keys down and nothing will work. I tried holding the option key down, to see if I missed any partitions and I just got a mouse with a grey screen, so I guess everything is gone. Is there anything else I can try? Should I boot any OS from the USB and attempt to just use that in a live environment? Or is my best bet to buy an installation disk or go to the Mac store?

Try holding down option (alt) at boot to get the open firmware boot selection screen then select your internal drive as the book disk. After start up completes (if it does) go to System Prefs/Startup Disk and reselect the internal disk, restart and it should be fine.

Similar Messages

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  • Flashing question mark folder- Mac Help instructions arent working

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    It means critical system files have been corrupted or damaged. You need to reinstall OS X:
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    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
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  • Macbook pro flashing question mark folder, won't recognize hard drive

    My 2010 macbook pro froze and after restarting I was greeted with a flashing question mark folder. I then restarted again and held down "option" key and went into Mac OS X utilities then into disk utilities. In disk utilities, my only drive options are "superdrive" "disk0" and a subfolder of "disk0" labeled "Mac OS x Base system". My hard drive is no where to be seen. I also tried to install a new hard drive but the same thing happened, the computer could not recognize that there was a hard drive present. What can I do to fix this??

    Hi bigdubee,
    The exact same thing happened to my 2010 MacBook Pro today.  Restarting with the "option" key held down, I get only 2 of the 3 options you listed in disk utilities ("disk0" and a subfolder of "disk0" labeled "Mac OS x Base system". 
    Did you take your Macbook Pro to the Apple store?  And were they able to fix it? 

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