Macbook pro not reading hard drive blinking question mark

Just got a new replacement MacBook Pro. Did a restore from timemachine and the Apple updates. Opened a finder and could not find the internal hard drive. (nothing else connectd to the laptop) attempted to open the applications folder and got stuck with a spinning wheel. Re=started 5 minutes later and nothing happened.
Did a OPTION Key restart, connected to the network and did a disk util. No internal drive displayed.
The old laptop's HD died 4 times. Now this new one dies right out fo the box? Back to the Apple store tomrrow morning.
Any suggestions?

Got to the Finder? From the Finder menu: Finder>Preferences. Hard Disk box checked?

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New hard drive blinking question mark in a folder

I have an iMac G51058 the hard drive is dead, so I changed for a new one. I turn the computer on, insert a 10.5 disk turn off, wait 30seconds and turn on pressing the option key. A folder with alternating Apple face and a question mark blinks forever. Any suggestions?

power off machine. Hold down the option key. Power on machine. continue holding down option key until you see the startup manager screen.
sometimes you need a wired keyboard for this to work.
Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime.
Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US
Should the fail...
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I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. suggestions to complete backup please?

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My macbook pro displays a folder with a question mark and won't open. What does this mean and how can I fix it?

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I have a flashing question mark /apple icon on the attempts to startup my G4 . Not reading the drives . I have used the startup disk & checed the profile & it reads the drives in the extensions, however not on startup

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I had the same problem with our previous hard drive. Although the previous hard drive was 'read-only' I was able to copy and paste files in our old HP laptop.
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In my last paragraph, I said
"Note that Windows PCs cannot write natively to an HFS drive, so if you need to exchange files between Mac and PC, we need to talk about different options."
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Macbook Pro with Dual hard drives. Scratch Disk, Memory 64bit, Raid, Set Up Questions.

Hello, this is my first post.
I just upgraded from the original 2006 17" Macbook Pro to a refurbished 13" Macbook Pro 2.53GHZ 4GB Ram (2009 model).
I bought the MCE Tech Optibay and installed it (if you dont know anything about it, ask me, its amazing.) So now I have 2x 500GB 7200RPM Seagate hard drives installed.
I am running Snow Leopard, CS3, Lightroom 1.4.
I have the main hard drive set up with Snow Leopard and all the Applications. I keep all my files on external firewire 800 drives, except files I am currently working on.
The second hard drive is set up as a scratch disk for Photoshop CS3 and that is it.
I am looking to upgrade to CS5 and Lightroom 3 here within this month or so. Or if I get anxious, tomorrow, haha.
I want to know the best setup I can do with my current set up with CS3 and for my future setup with CS5.
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-If I upgrade to 8GB memory in my macbook pro, would I even see a difference in performance if I didn't have a scratch disk? Since CS5 and Snow Leopard can use more memory in 64bit.
I think thats all I have on my brain right now. I may have more questions, or I can guarantee I will have more later.
Thanks alot.

First the scratch. Like you said, most everyone has a different take on scratch discs but I'd guess you're wasting one heck of a lot of hard drive space using all 500 GB for Scratch, did I read that right? If I did read it correctly YES, partition it and get some use out of it!!
I've got a unibody MBP 2.93GHz, OS 10.5.8, CS3 & PS 5 (running in 32bit mode), and 8 gigs of ram. I've partitioned the one 300 GB drive so 50GB is scratch, the other partition is for OS, & Apps, and documents (images).
I use LR 2 first than export to PS 5 to finish up. My photos get to be 300MB to 500MB in size and both versions of PS work on this setup just fine. Using PS 5 in 64 bit mode is faster opening files but NON of my plugin's are 64 bit yet, that's why I'm still stuck in 32 bit mode.
Not knowing what size or kind of files you work on makes giving advice a bit tough but try setting the status indicator (don't know the right name for it) in the bottom left corner of any PS open file to "Efficiency" and watch what happens when you process your files. I rarely see mine drop below 90%, I've got the usable RAM in PS Prefs set to it's max suggested, cut way back on History and Cache.
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Good luck, Alan

Transfer photos/videos from MacBook Pro to External Hard Drive (not iPhoto)

I've read all the other threads regarding how to transfer photos from iPhoto to an external hard drive (i.e., format your EHD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), however, I do not believe my situation applies.
In short, I download new photos/videos from my iPhone to my MacBook Pro twice - in two distinct methods. The first method (and the one I favor) is to use the Preview Application to download photos to the MyPictures folder. Once this is done, I revise the name of each photo so that I can tell not only the date but also the event. Once this is done, I then also download the same photos to my iPhoto Library via iPhoto but I don't make any revisions to the file names (I don't know why I continue to download photos into my iPhoto Library since I don't like iPhoto, but I guess I feel like it is a "backup" of sorts).
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So my questions include the following:
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2. If I decided that transferring my iPhoto Library to a Mac OS Extended (Journaled)-formatted EHD was the best solution, what would my options be if in the future I wanted to transfer the photos to a PC? Is that option lost forever? Or could I somehow transfer the photos from the EHD to the MacBook Pro, then re-format the EHD to ex-FAT, copy back the photos from the MacBook Pro to the ex-FAT-formatted EHD and then transfer the photos/videos to my PC? Is there an alternative better solution?
3. Any other suggestions?
Thank you

1 - no - if you do not like or use iPhoto then yu have no need for the iPhoto library - it is sefl contained and deleting it will not affect anything except iPhoto
2 - you can export photos form iPhoto to any format drive - it is only the iPhoto library that has drive format restrictions
Reformatting a drive totally erases it so you can not simply change the format of a drive without removing everything on it
3 - deciede what you want - if you use iPhoto then it has no cross platform capability and nothing you do in iPhoto is directly of use on a PC - you have to export from iPhoto to a volume that a PC can read
Since you do not like or use iPhoto and it will not do what you want I have no idea why you are messing with it at all
LN

How I can back up my data from macbook pro that its hard drive seems to die soon?

     I need your help guys from the whole world.
I am now in Erbil (North Iraq) and there is no apple authorized resellers or anyone who can fix macs, they can destroy them as they try to repair it ( this is what happened      to me recently with My I phone and I pad). So I am left alone to fix it with your global help I hope.
The issue is, I didn't do back up on my mac book pro for over a year. I woke up 3 days ago, switched my mac and there was this funny pinc ponc noise coming from the lower right hand side of my mac (between track pad and keyboard), the computer was going slow and I wasnt able to do anything even after few restarts. It is always too slow to perform anything and this noise always start after few seconds of starting and keep going. the computer can still function very well on guest account *(safari only) and I don't hear the noise then nor when I press T. But if I try to log in to all my drive or in safe mode I get this noise and none function computer. when I went to disk utility there was message in red to back up my data immediately and take the hard drive to authorized service center.
I checked on internet, you tube and others..and it seems I have faulty hard drive. Since I am here alone and no service center so I think I will replace it myself. But first thing first i need to back up my precious data. I found few ways of doing this and I wonder if you can give me some tips, advise or any other method to do the back up.
1) Transfer data on target mode: I havent done this before but I am thinking to connect my faulty macbook pro to another with firewire, pressing T on the faulty Mac and install Super Duper on the other mac. Then I connect external hard drive to the working mac via USB. And the question is     :      can I transfer the files this way to an external bootable hard drive connected to the working mac     , so the working mac will function as bridge between faulty mac and external hard drive. Also can I do this process through my old none intel based power book(which I am using now) instead of borrowing macbook from friend?
2) Buy new hard drive, open my mac and replace the faulty one. then put the faulty one in external inclosure, connect to refurbished mac and transfer data back. Can I do this? will I need to install the mac os from the CD associated with it before I do transfer?
Is there any other way to do this please?

Jassos wrote:
Hi PlotinusVeritas
where do I download the superdoper please?
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/superduperdescription.html
its here:
Download the free trial now!
This simple software is free and very easy to use, yes, it makes a 100% clone of ALL on your HD, everything.
(assuming its not so dead it wont copy).
you only need the free trial version to clone your HD.
can I download it on guest account? this one I can login and seems to function fine.
Then install same on your guest account, that wouldnt matter, since Superduper clones everything (except the recovery partition which you dont need in your case right now).
LaCie is Seagate (lacie doesnt make HD) , yes, that would be fine, clone your HD ASAP and hope it works.
there is no software fix for HD hardware failure, ......this is why a backup copy of data is so very important all the time, period.

Macbook pro not reading hard drive blinking question mark

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