Oh S_it, my intel iMac 2008 wont boot, flashing question mark is all I get.

Bought a friends' intel duo iMac 2008 which was working just find until a couple of day's ago and now when I try to boot it up all I get is a flashing question mark. I unplugged all components, including the electric cord and that worked the first time but now nothing. I don't have the startup or recovery disks. Must I have these...what's a girl to do? HELP!!!
Imac 2008 Mac OS X (10.5.4) previously owned, 2G

You don't need those discs, unless you need to test for Hardware, or reinstall the original operating system.
But you should get them anyway. Any software they installed on your machine, you should have the discs for as they are not their's to give away copies because of licensing restrictions.
The first step to try is zapping the PRAM:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
Then attempting a data recovery if there is no backup*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html#RECOVER
If there is a backup, initially try to repair the directory*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Similar Messages

IMac won't boot - flashing question mark folder

Hi, I was having performance issues with my iMac, so after searching for a resolution, I followed some suggestions to reset the PRAM and SMC....after resetting the PRAM it will not boot up at all! The startup sound chimes, then a blank grey screen briefly before a flashing question mark folder appears. Nothing happens..... I have the install cd, but there is a CD in the drive and I can't get it out. Help!!
Thanks in advance....
Andrea

HI Andrea,
To get the disk to eject, start the iMac while holding down the mouse button.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Try booting while holding down the Option key.
Carolyn

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.
I have launced Internet Recovery with Disk Utility and verified the disk, and the result was "The disk appears to be OK", (this filled me with hope...). I selected the Startup Disk and I got the same result. I removed all the external peripherals and that did not solve the problem. I don't have a Time Machine backup of this Mac as it failed every time I tried to run it to my NAS drive. I have all of my iPhone app work on this iMac and don't really want to wipe my HDD. I have tried everything I can see that the forums and Google suggest... does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Ed
P.S. Disk Utility showed all available space as over 400 gigabytes... so I am pretty certain that it is not a disk space error.

If you have a USB full installer, then you can boot from it by holding the alt key at startup and selecting the usb. Once it loads, you'll be presented with a menu allowing you to select (reinstall the OS). This will then allow you to select (Macintosh HD). It will reinstall the OS without prompting you to run setup assistent or anything like that. You'll just reboot into the login screen.
You're on OS 10.8.5. You'll need a full copy of 10.8.5 (it's almost 5GB) restored to a 8GB usb.
You can do internet recovery. It's like having a full installer but the files are downloaded from the internet. When you used internet recovery to check your disk, there should have been an option to reinstall the OS as well. It is doing the same thing via the internet that I described using a USB.

Macbook pro wont start flashing question mark.

I sold a macbook pro i owned since new and it arrived with the buyer yesterday now im getting death threats!
I freshly installed 10.5 leopard on my mbp and used it for 4 hours without issue.
I did have a problem after installing ms office and deleted it and all preference files in same folder and worked ok after that. rebooted 3 times no problem.
The buyer is freaking out saying its trashed and wont boot just has a flashing question mark, why would this be happening???
Please help he's threatening me!

Just replace the hard drive.
If he lost data, look at data recovery services*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
And in the future always recommend people backup important data frequently.
If he still gives you death threats, call the police.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

G4 17' won't boot, flashing question mark folder with complications

I'm editing a final cut pro project, due to air on friday at noon and during conversion in compressor to dvd format, final cut quits then the computer freezes up. On a hard restart I get the flashing question mark folder.... i know what that means
I was able to boot up after a couple of tries from the os 10.4 (tiger) cd and the hard drive shows up but disk utility can't make the repair. This is the error i get:
booted with the tiger os cd and got to the disk utility. the hard drive does show up with some generic-y looking name. I try to repair the disk and get this error (in red):
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
then it says:
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
g4 powerbook 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9)
so then i get the bright idea that i will change the startup disk to network drive and try to start from another drive on the network. it tries to find it then goes back to the flashing question mark. I've restarted holding the c key down with the tiger cd back in there and it is spinning but it never reads it.
any ideas? I REALLY need to salvage this film if possible.
thanks!!!!!
donna
Has anyone seen this before? What is my next step--short of erasing the drive. i really need to get this project off.
thanks in advance for any and all help!!!!!
g4 powerbook 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

i'd try disk warrior except that i cant get it to boot from ANY cd right now EXCEPT apple hardware test. and i have NO idea what to do with that.
I've tried booting in option mode and all i get is the little restart button and the forward arrow button but NO drive options
it won't pick up my other laptop in target mode
i've even put in Norton Utilites 8.x and it won't boot up from that either.
i've zapped the pram--nothing
know of any other boot tricks or shortcuts?
donna

Won't boot, flashing question mark on screen

My Power book G4 won't boot up, all it does is give me a small folder icon with as flashing question mark on top of it. any ideas.
It was working fine, doing a capture with FCP 4.5 then it locked up with the spinning ball, I did a force quite, but the whole system needed a reboot, It never rebooted. I need help.

See the link in posting #3 on this thread. I got a "solved" point for it, and have given it as advice before:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5261554

No Boot: Flashing Question Mark Folder

So I have had this problem before and took it to the apple store, where they fixed it, but now the problem is back again.
When I try to start up the machine, all I get is a folder with a flashing question mark in the middle, as though it does not detect my hard drive.
When I book into the OSX Install DVD, and go to Disk Utility, it does not see the hard drive.
The problem happens when my osx freezes, and I do a hard-shutdown.
I took it to the apple store once, and they fixed it, without losing any data, but I do not want to go back to them, as that takes time out of my day.
Is there anything I can do to fix the issue myself?

Hi nxd,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
It definitely sounds a bit more serious this time. I'd imagine that last time they just reinstalled the OS and had you on your way. The folder with the question mark indicates that the startup sequence can't find an appropriate boot volume (your HD). From my experience this means one of two things and more often the latter:
1.) Somehow the OS was corrupted and an archive & install is necessary to restore order
2.) The HD has failed and requires either a repartition (followed by an install) or the drive itself has failed and requires a replacement.
The fact that you can't see your HD in Disk Utility off the restore disc is not a good indication. If the OS needed to be reinstalled you'd see the HD here, at the very minimum. The good news, I suppose, is that you can at least boot off the restore disk. I've seen many a failed/failing HDs prevent the system bus from evening reading the optical drive.
With all this being said, I'd really recommend getting the machine to an Authorized Service Center (or Apple Store) and have them take a look at things. The HD may require replacement, which would also result in the very high potential for data loss.

Intermittent failure to boot, flashing question mark or white screen

So, I've had two MacBooks with similar problems (I am a Mac consultant). The first one would intermittently boot to a white screen, often enough to be annoying. This current one is occasionally booting to a flashing question mark. My first thought is, of course, the hard drive, but in both cases the hard drive tests fine using SMART Utility, which is usually great at giving advance warning when a drive starts experiencing hardware errors.
On the first MacBook, the one with the white-screen boots, I tried reinstalling the system with no effect; replacing the drive eventually made the problem go away. The current MacBook, with the question-mark boots, has already had its drive replaced once, when the stock drive failed.
I will reseat the drive, which is all Apple could suggest. I just wonder if anybody else had experienced something like this and can offer any information about what might be going on.

Thanks for the reply. Aside from finding that holding the mouse button down at boot might cause a flashing question mark, I already knew all that. I will ask the owner if she is leaning on the trackpad button when she starts up her computer in the morning.
I've already reset the power manager and the PRAM; we'll see if that makes any difference. The puzzling thing here is that the problem is intermittent.
I also need to ask her if, when the computer does boot to the question mark, there has been a chime first. Somehow I think there has to be, for the system to have gotten as far as looking for a boot drive. I couldn't find anything useful in the logs; not surprising, since if it can't find a drive to boot to, it won't have anything to write a log to.
Again, the mystery is why the failure to boot is intermittent. If it happened every time, I'd know what to do!
Thanks
cavenewt

Mac book won't boot, flashing question mark

i have a mac book, dont know what OS but it says 2007 model no. A1181 on the back.
when i turn it on it just flashes with a picture of a file and a question mark inside it, it does not go away or boot up.
i have read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
but it does not explain what i have to do if the OS does not boot after the question mark is displayed.
what do i have to do to get it working again? if this is the wrong section please move it thanks.

this shows up when a bootable drive cannot be found, the boot drive is damaged, or the internal drive doesn't have an os installed at all.
how long have you owned the mac? pull the battery out & look for the serial tag in the battery bay. did you have a 60gb or 80gb drive?
you can try the suggestions in that KB article, but I fear that the drive has totally failed on you. there was an issue with these hard drives, the heads ruin the surface of the platters, making the drive totally useless & data recovery impossible.
hoping you had some sort of recent backup.

Macbook 2010 won't boot - flashing question mark, prohibitory sign then Apple icon

Okay so some of this is my fault. We'll get to that later.
A few months back this Macbook my uncle gave me (without the Mac OS X Installer DVDs it came with) failed to boot - displaying the spinning gear/Apple icon/grey screen so many others have experienced.
I've done everything that could be done without the Installer DVDs - reset the PRAM, the SMC, attempt to go into Safe Mode (failed - only displays the progress bar until it fills up then back to the grey screen)
I've also done fsck -fy and it would always return to either "FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED" so I'd run it again to receive the result "The volume Impala appears to be okay", but whenever I would hit "reboot" it's like nothing ever happened.
I got a hold of a(n illegal) copy of someone else's Installer DVDs from the net - not so I could install that but so I could load DiskUtitlity from a bootable flash drive to transfer files to my external HD by the restore option in DiskUtility - worked for a bit (ran verify permissions, repair disk permissions, the whole shebang) but then failed, was only able to copy the "Applications" folder by restoring the volume to the external HD I had plugged in, and nothing else.
So when just this afternoon, I was fiddling with the prompt that displayed whenever you entered single-user mode, trying to move documents from inside the Documents folder into the Applications folder (because I thought that if I did "restore" all over again it would copy needed files into my HD like it did the last time - the /Volumes directory disappeared.
What could have caused this? I know that this is what's causing the flashing, alternating icons during attempted startup, but I swear that I didn't even think of doing anything to modify the /Volumes directory. One minute I was entering files /Volumes just to fiddle with it, then proceeded to go in deeper to cp or mv files into the /Applications directory, the next it was gone.
What should I do? I contacted the local Power Mac Center nearby to check if they're carrying the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Installer DVDs but I'm pretty sure that those things are limited now to the U.S. and the U.K.?
Please send help/advice, I'm broke and pretty much very very desperate.
Thank you for your time.

and also we have this older MacBook (2007 I think) that flashes the prohibitory sign (circle with slash going through it) whenever I try to boot it - started doing that a few days ago and I swear on both laptops that there are no peripherals that are plugged in except for the MagSafe (this older MacBook has no batteries installed since the last one shot out two years ago and we haven't had the money to replace it..)
Could the MagSafe be the problem? Because I haven't been doing anything dangerous on this older one (even cleared out some old files/videos to free up disk space) but still, it went ahead and got into a coma.
I can only access it via Safe Boot (pressing shift right after I power it up) and thankfully, its FireWire port using Target Disk Mode.
How I wish I could use Target Disk Mode on the later (2010) model, but alas, the only solution is to purchase the Installer DVD - only the Apple Reseller I contacted hasn't contacted me back yet.

HT1750 Imac wont load after turning it on, all i get is a blue screen. Serial number: W8*****X85

imac desktop wont load after turning it on, all i get is a light blue screen. I ve tried to unplug the computer and wait awhile before turning it back on but i still get the light blue screen. Please help
<Edited By Host>

Start up using your original install discs by inserting the disc and holding the C key while rebooting. Run Disk Utility to repair the drive and restart. If everything goes ok run Software Update again.

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen

Intel iMac will not boot past gray screen
my system:
new (month old) 24" intel imac, 2.8 ghz, 4 gb ram.
running: leopard (upgraded from tiger, which was pre-installed at purchase), installed 10.5.1 update right before this huge problem occurred.
install discs on-hand: two-disc tiget set, single leopard upgrade disc.
what led to this:
i wanted to install windows using bootcamp on a 50 gb partition.
at this point i was running leopard 10.5
i followed all bootcamp instructions, printing out the guide, as well. once i got into the windows setup, i was prompted to choose a partition to install windows. unlike the bootcamp guide, which showed three partitions, one clearly labeled "bootcamp", i saw only one partition. not wanting to risk writing over my mac partition, i quit the setup and rebooted the mac os. after some googling around, i looked for firmware updates (didn't need any), and then software updates. i decided to try updating to 10.5.1.
i then ran through boot camp again, deleting my previous windows partition, creating a new one, and moving forward as before. once again, i was only shown one partition to choose from in the windows setup. i exited the setup again to reboot through the mac os, but this time, i was only given a blank gray screen.
here's what i have tried so far:
booting from a CD, holding down the C or D keys: no response (in fact, i have to restart the computer holding down the mouse button to be able to eject the CD)
booting with option key held down: gray screen
booting with option key held down with external bootable firewire drive attached: the firewire drive appears as a boot icon, and i can click on it within a five second window, but then the screen freezes after that time period, and nothing changes
booting into target mode while attached to another mac: gray screen (no firewire icon, and drive never shows up on other mac)
resetting NVRAM: i'm able to hear the boot chimes, but no difference in performance. gray screen every time
Safe boot: nothing but a gray screen
Verbose mode: gray screen
Single user mode: gray screen
Single user mode with firewire drive attached: occasionally (not every time), i am able to get the white on black terminal to show up. from here, i'm able to run fsck, but it appears to only be checking the firewire drive. i have tried several times to boot from here, and once it took me to a blue screen with movable arrow cursor, but it never went beyond this.
is there anything else left to try before taking it to apple?
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Casey Burns
Casey Burns Illustration and Design
http://CaseyBurns.com

I'd call Apple support at this point. You'll need
to put this issue on the record.
Call U.S. iPod and Mac technical support: 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273)
The wait may be long for an agent to come on the line
so expect that and have some other stuff to do in the meantime.
If you have the applecare protection plan, I'd ask about "onsite"
service.
I like your work ! Good luck !
Slim
Message was edited by: slimpikkunz

My imac desktop wont boot up there is the logo and the timer pls help

my imac desktop wont boot up there is the logo and the timer pls help

What model iMac do you have and what operating system are you running? By Timer are you referring to a progress bar?
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Support - Apple
Resolve startup issues and perform disk ... - Support - Apple

Imac wont boot only shows flashing question mark folder (long)

Imac 21.5 late 2009 with no upgrades.
Had previously turned on bootcamp inadvertently without installing Windows OS. On shutdown accidently picked start Windown on next startup and since has only shown flashing question mark.
Tried to boot to single user mode, safe mode or verbose mode without success.
Could not find orginal OS disk that came with computer so used OS disk from a 13' Macbook pro (mid 2009). Would boot to OS installer but got error when it tried to install. Was able to get past this and use Disk Utility and did repair permisions and repair disk without change in result.
Tried rest PRAM and NVRAM without success.
Then found that the OS disk from the Macbook was a different build and finally found OSX installation disk that came with computer and will boot to MAC OSX installer. Did repair disk permision and repair disk without change.
Reloaded OSX without change.
With disk in will boot to single user or verbose mode but I dont know enough to know what to fix from there. I am assuming somehow boot files have become corrupt.
Any help? Thanks

I didn't read your complete post however by the subject line alone it appears your computer cannot locate it's startup volume per: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440
The easiest way to remedy that is to restart while holding down the C key on your keyboard. After the computer has restarted then go to System Preferences - Startup Disk and choose the internal HD and then click restart to test.
Roger

Microsoft Office 2004 (Word) unable to save files I have been running Office 2004 on my Intel iMac with Snow Leopard for some time and all of a sudden I cannot save a document. Word just stopped responding and I have to force quit. I can open Word and cr

Microsoft Office 2004 (Word) unable to save files
I have been running Office 2004 on my Intel iMac with Snow Leopard for some time and all of a sudden I cannot save a document. Word just stopped responding and I have to force quit. I can open Word and create a new document but I cannot save it. I reinstalled Word but that didn’t help. Then went to the Internet and found at least one other Mac user having the same problem which it suggests is caused by a recent Mac Security Update:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2004-macword/word-2004-wil l-not-open-or-save-documents/b04eb870-9b0d-4f3b-bb47-b122301e36f6
So I check for a new Mac Security Update and sure enough there was one. I downloaded it and now Word seems to be working, as it should. I can both open and save files. The only problem remaining is that when I open Word I get the following error message “An unexpected error occurred while trying to load the Microsoft Framework library”. I contacted Apple but they were unable to help.
How can I get rid of this error message?

Look, I realize you might have to get your machine working, so this is how you revert back.
Restore proceedure to pre-Security Update 2012-001 v 1.0 & v 1.1
#1 Backup your personal data off the machine.
Backup files off the computer (not to TimeMachine). If you don't have a external drive, get one and connect to the USB/Firewire port and simply drag and drop copy your User folder to the external drive, it will copy all your files. It's best to have two backups of your data off the machine when trying to restore.
Disconnect all drives now to prevent any mistakes from occuring.
#2 Reinstall OS X 10.6 from disk
Get out your 10.6 install disk and make sure it's clean and polished (very soft cloth and a bit of rubbing alcohol, no scratches) If your disk is borked, you'll have to order a new one from Apple with your serial number.
Hold c boot off the 10.6 disk (wired keyboard, internal optical drive), use Disk Utility First Aid to >Repair Disk of your internal drive (do not format or erase!!), Quit DU and simply re-install 10.6.
Note: Simply reinstalling 10.6 version from disk (without erasing the drive) only replaces 10.6.8 with 10.6.x and bundled Apple programs, won't touch your files (backup anyway) or most programs, unless they installed a kext file into OS X itself. (only a few on average do this)
#3 Update to 10.6.8 without Security Update 2012-001 v1.0 or v1.1
Reboot and log in, update to 10.6.8 via Software Update, but EXCLUDE THE Security Update 2012-001 by checkinig the details and unchecking the blue check box.
#4 Reinstall any non-working third party programs
When you reboot, make sure to reinstall any programs that require kext files installed into OS X, you'll know, they won't work when you launch them or hang for some reason as they are missing the part they installed into OS X.
If for some freakish reason you get gray screen at any time when booting (possible it might occur when you reinstall older programs), hold the shift key down while booting (Safe Mode, disables kext files) and update your installed third party software so it's compatible with 10.6.8.
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
That's it really.

Oh S_it, my intel iMac 2008 wont boot, flashing question mark is all I get.

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