New Hard Drive still have Question Mark Folder

So I first got the 'Question Mark Folder' and had to keep running Safe Boot Mode to use computer. Finally got around to replacing the Hard Drive, but this Question Mark Folder still comes up trying to turn the computer on and now trying to setup the new hard drive. Won't let me do anything. I've tried all of the button combos/recovery mode/etc. Tried inserting both a backup disk of Mavericks and Snow Leopard, nothing. Is there any other problems that could cause this? Maybe a dead SATA cable? or something else small hopefully?

My newest Mac just did the same "folder of death" dance. It's too late for you now, but you might consider a passport backup drive.You can get 2&3 T-bytes now fairly reasonably priced. A given with computers is they will crash, just a question of how bad and when, so you can be prepared for the next time.

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Installed new hard drive and flashing question mark appears

I bought a new hard drive for my macbook pro (mid 2009) because my original harddrive bit the dust... I purchased it off of amazon which states that its specifically for macbooks and the reviews appeared to back it up. I saw a lot of people with great reviews of the same model of macbook that I have so I figured it was the best solution.. I connected the new hard drive but I am getting the dreaded flashing folder/question mark. Is this normal before re-installing the OS x? Heres the problem, I am out of town on business and do not have the original OSx disc on hand. So my question is, is the flashing question mark normal upon installing a new harddrive? and if so, is there away to install the OSx onto the new harddrive without the disc?
my macbook was running mavericks before the harddrive went to poo, however I did try to re-install mavericks before i ultimately realized that I needed to new harddrive. I noticed that rebooting my mac with command+r would give me the option to reinstall mavericks without a disc or anything. the next question I have is, would this still be do-able on the new harddrive? I tried the command+R option on the new harddrive but nothing happens.
Can someone help me out here, I am getting a little desperate as I have gone over a week without my mac and theres so crucial things I need to get done! Luckily I have all my stuff backed up on an external hard drive, I just need to get the mac running again. Thanks for taking time to read!

1. Yes, it is normal. If there's no OS on the drive, there's nothing to take the computer past that point.
2. No, there's no way on that Mac model. You need to use an existing system(see #4).
3. Not on that Mac model; it doesn't have the Internet Recovery system, and there isn't a recovery partition on the new drive.
4. If the backup drive contains a bootable clone of any compatible OS, or a Time Machine backup created from Mac OS X 10.8 or newer, connect it and restart the computer with the Option key held down. If it doesn't contain either, you can't.
(105476)

New Hard Drive: Mac Face/Question Mark on boot

I installed a new hard drive in my fathers iBook G4 1.33 GHz and installed Leopard. I instantly had problems after the installation was complete and the computer restarted. I got the Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD.
I used disk utilities to verify and repair the disk and permissions which both finished successfully. I tried to reboot with the same result: Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD. I decided to erase and reinstall Leopard. Installation complete - Restart - Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to turn if off for the night.
I powered up in the morning with short-lived success, as I got the Leopard Welcome video. I set up the system and did some software updates, which eventually required a restart. Boom. Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to hold the option key on my next restart to see if I could select the hard drive installation over the install CD. I was able to do so, and it booted fine to the hard drive. I continued my software updating, installed some more software like iLife '08, Firefox, Open Office, Stuffit Expander, etc. After all my installation and updating, the system operates great, except when I have to start up. I still have the Mac Face/Question Mark.
I have a theory that the hard drive jumper is set incorrectly, but I don't want to waste 45 mins. cracking the thing open to find out. Can anyone confirm? I'm open to all other theories, of course.

No jumper means Cable Select (CS). This would mean that the cable from the motherboard to the drive has a blue connector at the motherboard and a black connector on the end where the drive plugs in. The gray connector in the middle is the Slave position. Master/Slave relationship is determined by where on the cable the device is plugged in.
The CS cables and the setting was not used very often until around 2004 or 2005. Until that time all of the connectors on the cable were the same color and the Master/Slave setting was determined by the jumper on the drive.
It's very possible that you are trying to use a drive that's been setup for the newer systems as Cable Select, when actually you should force the drive to be a Master by installing a jumper on the proper pins.
Are there two deviced on the cable besides the motherboard, and are all of the connectors the same color? Or is the connector that plugs into the motherboard black? Then you are probably not looking at a CS buss.

OS X Lion Version 10.7.5 and after new hard drive I have lost iPhoto, iMovie, etc.

I have the OS X Lion version 10.7.5 and after a new hard drive I have lost iPhoto, iMovie, Garage Band etc. I have tried the re-install of the OS X Lion and checking the app store under 'purchases' but none of these options were successful.
When I click on iPhoto in the App Store, it says that it cannot update because version 10.9 is required (I tried to transfer iPhoto from my brothers computer but he has a newer laptop which means I cant open it whcih is why it says 'update' but have deleted it now). When I go to iMovie on the App Store, it says I need to pay but the only reason I dont want to do that is that it origionally came on the computer and after paying Apple to install a new hard drive I dont want to have to pay for all the apps that origionally come on it.
Can someone please help

Then you will need the Original System Reinstall DVD discs that came with the system to reinstall the iLife suite of apps then you can update them from the Mac app store or through Software Update.
Those discs came in the box the computer came in. Hopefully you still have the box and those discs.
emm092 wrote:
I think it might have come with snow leopard because I bought it at the time of the introduction of the new soft ware so they gave me a password to dowload it for free

New hard drives I have registered lightroom license codes , how do I reinstall ?

New hard drives I have registered lightroom license codes , how do I reinstall ?

You may download the correct version from below link and install it
Adobe - Lightroom : For Windows
Adobe - Lightroom : For Macintosh

New hard drive and have a question about photo stream.

My hard drive recently crashed. I have a new hard drive and am trying to organize my iphoto again. There are 1,000 photos on my iphone (photo stream) how do I get these onto my mac? My mac only has the last 30 days. Do I have to save each individual photos to the camera roll?

G9daniel wrote:
Is there a way to get user settings returned to what they were before?
Not unless you have a Time Machine backup of your system.
If you kdo you can just boot from the SL install disc and use that yo restore your system to the new HDD.

MacBook Pro hard disk upgrade shows question mark folder

I recently bought a 1TB hard disk for my teenaged daughter's MacBook Pro.
I formatted it, used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the existing drive. I even made sure to create the recovery partition.
I restarted while holding the option key and chose the new drive. It booted fine so I checked in System Preferences to make sure it was selected as the boot device.
I opened the case and swapped the drives. Put it back together and restarted only to see the question mark folder!
I tried booting while holding the option key and now I get the choose a network prompt.
I am desperate and hate the thought of disappointing my daughter. It used to be that I was her hero who could fix anything now I'm the guy who asks too many questions and doesn't put enough money on her debit card. Granted she busts her butt getting awesome grades and I was upgrading her drive so she could continue her video yearbook for her school. So I shouldn't complain but it would be great to be her hero again.
BTW, I am not a newbie to the tech world but I don't do nearly as much in the Apple arena as I do in the PC world. Then again I've been a senior tech in the industry sine before IBM had a PC. In fact, my first real work was on a 6502 processor that used the same machine code as the Rage of the day, the Apple ][. All that to say I usually can find my way around a problem but this one has me stumped.
I appreciate any assistance offered.
Thanks,
Thom

I tried to reboot with the option, command P. And R keys pressed. I heard the ding several times it still showed the question mark! I also tried the shift option and it only displayed the network selection. Also I tried to press C so I could boot from USB and it didn't work either.
If I cannot get this to work I fear my only other choice is to use a FireWire enclosure. This isn't a good option as my daughter does mostly movie work and iMovie has this terrible "feature" that forces all movies to be stored in one place. It sure would be handy if it allowed movie projects to set the storage location individually. I suppose I could simply move all the movies to the drive and try to find a way to point all iMovie projects to the external drive.
Unfortunately, my daughter is one of those Mac users who isn't savvy enough to use anything but the default settings. Heck I've tried to explain to her that she ought to get rid of the big files once she has done her work. That's why her drive is always full.

New hard drive, pages & keynote questions

I recently got a new hard drive for my macbook and I lost my word, powerpoint, etc applications. I have tried to download pages and keynote from the app store, but it says that my computer needs a software upgrade. Every time I try to do this, it upgrades my computer, but I still cannot get these applications. My computer is a 10.6.8, and it says that I need a 10.7.4 for the pages and keynote. I have tried to upgrade to this, but it keeps saying that i need like 10.7 first, but I don't understand why I can't just upgrade immediately to 10.7.4. Do I really need to upgrade through every step to get to where I need to be in order to get these applications? If someone could help me I would appreciate it, I need pages and keynote for my school work.

You need to either phone the Apple Store and order a download code for Lion, or purchase Mac OS X 10.8 if your computer is compatible, or install the DVD version of iWork.
If you previously purchased a version of iWork compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.8 from the Mac App Store, contact the Mac App Store staff.
(69461)

New hard drive still won't be recognized!

Hello, recently I've been having several problems with my mid-2009 MacBook Pro; 2 minute beachballs and failure to startup. So I've purchased a new new WD Scorpio Black thinking it was a HD issue, but after replacing my old HD with the WD, Disk Utility wouldn't recognize the new drive. So I searched around and found out that Hard Drive Cable failure is an issue on this certain MacBook. So I ordered a new Hard Drive cable and just replaced that today, thinking that my new HD would be recognized. However after going into Disk Utility via the OS X Install DVD, my new Hard Drive was still not recognized. So I put back my old stock HD and it was recognized instantly and seems to not have any issues anymore. Could it be that the drive is DoA? Or should I purchase an external enclosure and format my new hard drive that way? I'd appreciate any other suggestions, thanks!

Try system preferences, utilities and open disk utilites, click on HD your disc (what ever you named it, or if you did not ,the 2nd disc id down is your disc) click disc repairs, if the reponse is this disc has problems click disc repair. If this doesn't work re-post and some one will walk you thru this .

Hard drive clicking, flashing question mark at start up

My Macbook (leopard) is making a clicking noise for about ten seconds on startup. After being stuck on the grey screen for awhile, the flashing question mark folder pops up.
I've tried running disk utility from the install disks, however the HD doesn't show up on the directory. I'm only seeing the DVD drive. Also tried starting up using the option key but nothing happens. Safe mode was unresponsive, too.
Is my HD dead? And is there any way to get any of my files off of this computer? I haven't backed up in a while, so I am kinda concerned about my iTunes library.
Just a note... About two nights ago it froze up where force quitting wouldn't even do anything. I did a hard shutdown and then everything was fine until this happened yesterday.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Message was edited by: efd856

The symptoms you describe do indeed sound like a dead hard drive. If the drive does not show up in Disk Utility, you are not going to be able to get anything off of it using Target Disk mode.
Data recovery is possible - there are companies that specialize in it - but it may not be economical. Costs tend to be between $500 and $2500 depending on the size of the drive and nature of the failure. Some companies in the USA that offer this service:
[DriveSavers|www.drivesavers.com] 800-440-1904
[Ontrack Data Recovery|www.ontrack.com] 800-872-2599
[Lazarus|www.lazarus.com] 800-341-3282
Is your iTunes music on an iPod or iPhone? You may be able to recover it using software to transfer back to a computer. Search the iPod forums for names of the software. Music purchased from the iTunes store will transfer back to an authorized computer without any problem.
Best of luck.

New hard drive on laptop

I had to install a new hard drive, so naturally I lost all my songs; they're still on my iPod mini, and I know that I can't upload them onto the new hard drive. My question is this: if I plug my mini into my laptop and open iTunes, will it sync and download "nothing" over what I already have on my mini? (in other words, will I lose everything if I sync with an iTunes library that doesn't have anything in it?)
Also, can't find a **** phone number for tech support anywhere on this site! grr

Do not connect a full iPod to an empty iTunes!! You will erase the iPod.
These links will give you several methods of recovering whatever songs remain on your iPod; some free, some third-party software, some more comprehensive for restoring Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, etc. Read them and their associated links before deciding on a strategy that works for you. There are many various third-party software programs that will offer a more robust process, or an easier GUI. Do a Google search for them if the links below leave you wanting…
Don King Resurrected: Deleted files from hard drive (free user steps – music recovery only)
MacMuse: Computer Crashed (free user steps – music recovery only)
Copying music from iPod to computer (a primer on various methods and software)
Copying Songs from Your iPod to a Mac or PC (resource for 3rd party software)
iPodRip Software
PodUtil Software
Senuti (Mac OS X v10.3 or higher Recovery Utility)
XPlay (Software For Music Recovery &/or Cross-Platform Functionality)
XPlay Photo Browser (For recovering Photos)
Extremely Simple Method:
1 - Open iTunes
2 - Edit=>Preferences=>’Advanced/General’ tab
2a --- ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’: checked
2b --- ‘Keep iTunes Music folder organized’: checked
2c --- Click OK
3 - Attach your iPod to the PC and hold down the ‘Shift+Ctrl’ keys until the iPod is fully recognized (this will defeat the auto-sync process)
4 - If you get a dialog box to link the Library, decline this option
5 - File=>Add Folder
6 - Browse to and open ‘My Computer’ and select the iPod
7 - Click OK
8 - The music files should start to transfer back into iTunes
No Playlists, or Ratings, Last Played, & Play Count attributes will be transferred from the iPod to iTunes using this method
After recovering your song files, strongly consider developing a thorough backup strategy for just this type of situation (and many other potential disasters).
You need at least two full sets of your music, not including what is on the iPod:
-- One full set on the PC within iTunes (on internal HD or ExHD)
-- One full set on an separate external backup medium (CD/DVD/ExHD/other)
-- One (full or partial) set on the iPod
Music files on just the iPod and only one other medium is not considered having any backup.
If you cannot store your complete music files on the computer’s internal HD, then create and maintain at least two external sets (any multiple combinations of ExHDs, DVDs, CDs).
Backup both the music files and the Library database file (iTunes Library.itl). What are the iTunes Library files?
Here is a post on developing a thorough backup strategy:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=1498152

Switching music library to new hard drive

Hi.
I recently bought a new external hard drive and transferred all of my music onto it from my old external hard drive. I'd like to change the music folder location to the new hard drive. My question is this: if I change it to the new hard drive, will the playlists be lost? I exported the library, but I think if I import it after changing the folder location that there will be double the songs in the library, but only half of them will be valid and I'd rather not have to go through all my songs and delete the ones that aren't found. Or will the library not be imported at all because it's a new location?
Long and confusing question, but I've probably just made it too complicated in my head. If anyone can offer me some advice, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.

If you want to move your library to an external location, do it this way.
Copy the entire iTunes folder over to the new external hard drive (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside it). Once copied then use these instructions to open the library from its new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
That's it. Nothing else to do. Just start using the library from its new location. Just make sure the external is always powered up and mounted before opening iTunes. If you start iTunes and the external is not on, it will default back to the internal drive location for anything added to the library. You may not notice it for a while and find a bunch of your stuff is spread across the external and the internal drive. You would then have to change the preference back to the external drive location and do a Consolidate library command to correct.
Patrick

Can I order a recovery disc for my HPG72 259WM and use it on the new hard drive?

My hard drive crashed on my G72 259WM and I did not have a recovery disc. If I order a recovery disc can I load that on my new hard drive to get my computer up and going?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi
Yes you may order the Recovery disc and install it on your new Hard drive you have two option to order the disc either you could call HP Technical support and order the disc or you can click on the link given below to order the part.
Order Recovery Discs for Windows 7, Vista, or XP
Let us know how it goes!
"I work for HP."
****Click the (purple thumbs up icon in the lower right corner of a post) to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
Regards
Manjunath

How can i transfer music from my Ipod nano to my new hard drive

Hi, I have a I pod Nano 6th edition.I downloaded music from my CD collection and I purchased a few CD's from ITunes. I had problems with the hard drive and had to have a new hard drive installed. I was advised to save my ITunes library and my photos and any other important documents on my hard drive.I saved everything onto a pen drive.
I have tried to reinstall everything onto my new hard drive. I had no problem with the photos or documents,but the ITunes folders are giving me problems.
I have downloaded the updated ITunes web site onto my new hard drive.I have tried to send the folder from pen drive to the iTunes folder and My Music folder.
I also tried dragging the folder from the pen drive to the my music folder. For some reason 3 tracks from about 4 hundred have arrived in the My Music Folder.
I am afraid to plug my Ipod into the laptop as I was told I could lose every thing
Is there any way to solve my problem??
Help
Jill

Follow the instructions here > How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer
As noted from that article, you may need to authorize the computer.
From the iTunes menu bar click Store > Authorize This Computer

How do i format a new hard drive without using an external drive

My hard drive crashed so i bought a new hard drive and have already placed it inside the macbook pro. i tried to use my install disks but nothing happens. i realized that i never formatted the new hard drive and started researching. i can not use my old hard drive since it is damaged so is there a way to format the new drive without using the old drive or an external hard drive?

Formatting, Partitioning Erasing a Hard Disk Drive
Warning! This procedure will destroy all data on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure you have an up-to-date, tested backup of at least your Users folder and any third party applications you do not want to re-install before attempting this procedure.
• With compute rshut down insert install disk in optical drive.
• Hit Power buttonand immediately after chime hold down the "C" key.
• Select language
• Go to the Utilities menu and launch Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel. (You are about to create asingle partition volume.)
• Click on Options button
• Select GUID Partition Table(Intel Macs)
• Click OK
• Select number of partition in pull-down menu above Volumediagram.
(Note 1: One partition is normally preferable for an internalHDD.)
• Type in name in Name field (usually Macintosh HD)
• Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
• Select Erase tab
• Select the sub-volume (indented) under Manufacturer ID (usuallyMacintosh HD).
• Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
• Click Erase button
• Quit Disk Utility.
Open installer and begin installation process.
cornelius

New Hard Drive still have Question Mark Folder

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