MacBook shows grey screen and question mark folder on startup.

Have tried different things that have been suggested....reboot PRAM holding down option command P R etc but nothing yet has worked. Don't have installation disk as MacBook is 9 years old so must've thrown disk out years ago. Any ideas?

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
and since you'll probably need it http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Similar Messages

  • Grey screen/ flashing question mark folder help!

    my macbook starts up into the grey screen (no logo or indicator) and will eventually go into the flashing folder with the question mark. After hours of scouring forums I have tried the following things:
    restart holding c with install disc in -> macbook spins disk, thinks, ejects disk
    restart holding option -> grey screen, this time with movable cursor, does not advance from there. i left it for about ten minutes- should i leave it longer?
    reset PMU as per Apple article -> no effect
    reset PRAM as per Apple article -> no effect
    i'm beginning to become resigned to the fact that it might be an HDD issue. i feel as though i should still be able to boot from disc. i could be wrong. just wondering if anyone has ANY other suggestions before going to Apple for repairs.

    If the computer is under warranty the cost is carried by Apple. If it isn't, here's what I'd do...then again, I'm a tech and have access to lots of equipment. First I'd remove the drive (easy to do. turn off the computer, remove the battery, remove the little gate, remove the drive. The instructions are in the little booklet that came with the computer) and put it into an enclosure, connect to another computer and run drive diagnostics. If the drive can be repaired I'd format it, clone from my backup, and return to the computer. If the drive is dead I'd buy a new drive, clone from my backup, and be back up and running. There's a third, remote possibility - that the problem is the logic board and not the drive. But it is remote.
    What I'm getting at here is that yes, you can do it yourself but...you probably don't have an enclosure for a 2.5" drive so you'll probably just have to assume the drive is toast and buy a new one - check out NewEgg or Macsales.com. Without the external drive enclosure you give up the chance of restoring the drive and recovering data. Then again, if you can't anyway you'll have wasted $$$ on an enclosure you didn't need.
    Instead of worrying about what you've heard, call the local store and get a quote on replacing the drive and installing a drive that you bring yourself. That'll give you a ballpark figure to work with and you can move forward from there.

  • 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!

  • Grey screen with question mark on boot up.

    My son's 2011-12 Macbook Pro displays a grey screen with a question mark and will not boot.  I pulled  that first drive, put that first drive in a USB cage and connected the USB cage  through a USB port and could boot a different machine with the first drive.  I put a brand new second drive with a formatted and journaled OSX drive in place of the original first drive in my son's macbook pro machine tand got the same grey screen and question mark.  Do I need a new electronics board?  If so that is a $500 repair and not worth it on a 3 year old machine.  Thoughts?

    It could be anything at this point - most likely, it seems, is that you've a faulty SATA cable. If you go to www.ifixit.com you can find the Apple part number for the cable (or buy the cable at ifixit, even) and search eBay for the part number (much less expensive on eBay and I've yet to hear of one from eBay having failed).
    I'm betting that's the problem.
    Clinton

  • Most of the time when I turn computer on I get the white screen and question mark.  Sometimes it will turn on and work but often the spinning disk starts and especially when opening Iphoto and it generally freezes

    Most of the time when I turn on the Mac I get the white screen and question mark appear.  Sometimes it will turn on and work. But often the coloured spinning wheel starts up especially after trying to use iphoto it freezes and a couple of times the screen has then gone black.  The computer seemed pretty warm yesterday when this happened.
    Any suggestions of what I should do to fix it would be greatly appreciated.
    Kate

    See this on the question mark when you start up: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US
    See this on the spinning beach ball: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

  • Question mark folder at startup, safe boot not working

    Last night my iMac froze up, Force Quit didn't work, and I used the Power button to shut it off.  When trying to restart, it was getting stuck at the grey Apple.
    I tried unplugging the peripherals and restarting; zapping the PRAM and restarting; safe boot and restarting.  Safe boot did it.
    I then ended up going through those steps a few more times as my iMac starting freezing up again.  One of those times I changed all my applications in the dock that were set to launch at login to not do so, wondering if that was somehow causing a problem.  I also took a folder of recent items I'd created, mostly a LOT of PDFs of newspaper articles, burned it to a DVD and deleted the folder to free up more memory if that was part of the problem (I'm running out).  I then restarted from the Apple menu and it shut down through safe boot and then restarted without safe boot and did so just fine.  I ran Disk Utility and very few if any permissions needed repairing.  And it was operating OK for a bit and then froze up again.
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    What other things should I try?  Would Target Disk mode possibly work from the MacBook I'm using now, which doesn't have Lion installed?

    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.

  • MBP has gray screen with question mark folder on start up

    Hi Mac Experts,
    I have a MBP that won't start up. I get a gray screen with the question mark folder. Nothing else. I tried starting without the battery and also while holding the shift key but still get the same result. Any idea what happened and what I should try next? Thanks!

    Need a Vacation:
    Use the Leopard disk.
    Repair Disk
    Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
    Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger and later) and launch Disk Utility.
    Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
    Select First Aid in the Main panel.
    (Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel, and report if it says anything but Verified)
    Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
    If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
    If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
    If DU reports errors it cannot repair you will need to use a utility like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior

  • Grey screen with question in folder

    The color wheel would not go away after several minutes.  I turned off the MacBook and then turned it back on .  I got a grey screen with a flashing folder with a ? In the folder.
    What do I do?

    It looks like your hard drive has disappeared. Could be any number of reasons, including a dead hard drive.
    If you can, I suggest you make an appointment at an Apple Store genius bar, and ask them to diagnose the problem. That service is free.
    http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/
    You will have to pay for repairs, unless the Macbook is under warranty.

  • TS2570 My mac pro book 13 just shows grey screen and booting up but nothing else

    My mac book pro 13 just as grey screen and trying to boot up  any ideas thanks

    I am having the same problem on my Mac Book Pro 13" Mic 2010.  The sceen goes gray on reboot with the spinning wheel.

  • Blinking question mark folder upon startup on a 2 month old Pro?

    Hi I had the grey screen on my macbook pro. I tried reinstalling maverick os x, but my wifi connection got interrupted and so did the download. I now have the blinking question mark folder upon start up. What can I do since I know it's probably not a hard-drive problem?

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  • Question Mark/Folder on startup

    I have an Imac G3 with 10.3.9 installed. I've used it occasionally over the last year or so but have recently bought a Mac Book Air and was hoping to connect it to the internet via ethernet to transfer all my music - but this time when I turned it on I just got a grey screen with a small folder and a flashing question mark.
    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.
    Thanks!

    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.
    Extract the harddrive.  Attach the 'bare' harddrive to the adapter. Attach the adapter to a Mac.  Try reading the data. Run a household fan on the harddrive.
    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
    The second article in this series has information on replacing the battery:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2584291
    How To Upgrade Your iMac
    http://www.djonmac.com/

  • After upgrading HD, "question mark" folder on startup

    Hi,
    I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro Core Duo 15" harddrive. Everything went fine and still is. The only problem is the following : when turning on the computer, the infamous "question mark" folder will show up, blinking. Nothing else will happen... Unless I turn it on while holding the option key (ALT). In that case, the new HD shows up and I can select it : the boot sequence then goes on as usual. And everything else is fine. The HD was correctly formated (I have two GUID partition on it). I did not made a new install of Leopard : I cloned my old HD on the new one before installing it.
    Any idea how I can get ride of the question mark? How I can get the computer to boot without having to hold de ALT key and then chose the internal HD installed in it?
    Thanks a lot.
    P.

    Well, that was as fast as it was efficient. Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. Everything work just fine now.

  • 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?

    That symbolises no set startup disc, its often a tricky one to fix, but your mac starts up so be grateful my mate with a black macbook had to have the whole hard disk re-imbersed, if the problem is bugging to such an extent its driving you insane the only things i can think of are: Re-Install Mac OSX, Do a hardware test ( insert disk 1 and hold D on startup) or goto system preferences>startup disk and make sure the hard disk osx is installed on is set as the very first it looks for.
    Hope i helped
    bob
    2.3Ghz Macbook White_Late 2006   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   I build comps for a living and have a custom P2 in my room

  • OS X Insall crashed halfway. Now getting question mark folder on startup

    I was in the process of wiping my wife's old MacBook so that I could give it to my daughter. I inserted my Tiger install disc and proceeded to erase and install (didn't need wife's old data and I wanted the system to be fresh). Unfortunately, the process froze-up halfway and now I cannot start the MacBook. I get the flashing question mark folder.
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    Thanks for any help!
    .g

    Sure, use either Mac... but it all depends if your old MacBook will boot into Firewire target disk mode.
    If it does just pop in the DVD (in the good DVD drive) and install. I'd suggest a reformat also, under the circumstances.
    To use FireWire target disk mode
    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.
    3. Start up the target computer and immediately press and hold down the T key until the FireWire icon appears. The hard disk of the target computer should become available to the host computer and will likely appear on desktop. (If the target computer is running Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you can also open System Preferences, choose Startup Disk, and click Target Disk Mode. Then restart the computer and it will start up in Target Disk Mode.)
    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.
    If the target computer's hard disk does not become available to the host computer, check the cable connections and restart the host computer.
    -mj
    Message was edited by: macjack

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

    Have startup problem with question mark folder flashing on startup. How do I fix it?

    Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
    Do the following:
    1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard 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 Utilities menu. 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.
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    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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