Question mark on folder, top.

I don't remember there being a question mark on the top of a folder next to the I. Was that always there or is something wrong? Thanks

Perhaps a shortcut placed there for something that no longer exists; does it say '...cannot be found' when you click it ?
If you ctrl-click it & choose 'icon & text' - you should then see a name for it.
To remove - Command - drag it off , or ctrl-click & 'remove item'

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Question Mark flashing on top of folder

sure hope someone reads this.
Every once in awhile i get a question mark flashing on top of a folder icon. not every time, just occassionaly. but tonight is different.
I restarted about 4 times before I could get it to come up so i could post on these forums.
I partitioned my HD into 2 parts and updated to Maverick. every since then i have problems starting up. Ive run permissions, disk first aid, etc and all seems to check out fine.
Ive gone to system preferences and selected the correct startup disk several times.
It is an early 2008 tower model. it has ran like a well oiled machine ever since i bought it...... even it goes out today. i can say ive definitely gotten my moneys worth from this machine.
also, the original ram went out after i updated and i replaced it. im running 6 GB memory. it seems to check out ok.
I have all my data on several external HDs. i only have applications loaded on the main computer.
sure hope someone can help me. i love this machine. its been my life saver.

Have you seen this support article and proceeded through all mentioned troubleshoots?
A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start ...
You may need to erase your normal startup disk and reinstall OS X

Grey Question mark appeared at top left of all windowws

There has suddenly appeared a large grey question mark at the top left of all windows, for example,the main HD window and all the folder windows.
The finder text font is also different to how it was before.
I thought upgrading to Leopard might have fixed it but it is still there.
Any ideas?
Thanks everyone.

Buckminster, welcome to Apple Discussions.
I note that you are using Leopard on a Powerbook G4. This forum is for G4 desktops. You are more likely to get an answer if you post in the Leopard 10.5 forum @ http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235
 Cheers, Tom

Question marks across the top of new finder windows

Hello,
When I open a new finder window everything looks and works fine but I'm seeing 3 large question marks in the top gray area of the new finder window.
When I click it I get a message that says "The Item Can't Be Found".
What is this all about?
Thanks

you can put a link to any item in the toolbar. just drag it there from finder. you can get rid of such a link by command+dragging it off the toolbar. that's all there is to it.

Mba freezes and than can't reboot (question mark in folder)

My mba acts kind of crazy lately. It suddenly freezes and when I try to reboot it doesn't find my ssd and gives me the dreaded question mark in folder sign. When I try recovery mode it doesn't show my ssd, but if I keep trying sometimes after a few minutes or a few hours it boots just fine.
Is it a software ot hardware issue?
Thanks in advance for your help.

If you have the original disk that shipped with the iMac, you can try booting from it.
Put the disk in and restart the computer while holding the C key down. If the computer boots you can start the installation process. (You are not reinstalling.) After the screen where you select the language you will see a menu bar. Click Utilities and run Disk Utility. In DU, select the hard drive on the left, First aid, and click Repair disk. When that is done, quit DU and restart the computer in the usual way.
If DU tells you the disk cannot be repaired, you will have to replace it.

Boot error with question mark on folder icon

Hello.
This is very newest iMac (2014 late).
It worked very first time with basic way.
But 3 days later, iMac doesn't boot at all.
I've tried everything about reinstall and boot
Internet recovery, P+R+Alt+Cmd, recheck and verify hard drive.
However, sometimes There's no show hard drive on disk utility mode.
Can't even erase or format because I don't see it on hard drive list.
And now after power on, there's only [question mark on folder icon] and
it looks like warning me something.
Should I refund it? Or try something else?

Hi
Given Solution
1st check Hard Disk Working or Not
2nd check Partition table
3rd check reinstall Mac Os
and
after any problem vist ; [email protected]

There is a question mark at the top of my folder

I have put an image onto the grey bit at the top of a folder and it is now a question mark. How do I get rid of this??

We're talking about the shortcuts you can add to the top of a Finder window, which occasionally get unlinked and turn into question marks. What are you talking about?
Matt

File folder with question mark, file folder with question mark

Battery died went to turn on computer with adapter plug...
white screen with flashin file folder with a question mark???
How do i fix this?

That folder with the question mark icon means that the MacBook can't find the boot directory. That can either mean it can't find the hard drive or the Operating System data on the hard drive is somehow corrupted.
Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
Or if you are running 10.7 Lion, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7 partition.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. When it comes up is your Hard Drive in the list on the left?
If it is, then click on the Mac OS partition of your hard drive in the left hand list. Then select the First Aid Tab and run Repair Disk. The Repair Disk button won't be available until you've clicked on the Mac OS partition on your hard drive. If that repairs any problems run it again until the green OK appears and then run Repair Permissions. After repairing use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for restarting from your hard drive.
If your hard drive isn’t recognized in Disk Utility then your hard drive is probably dead.

Question mark in folder

I have question mark in a folder when i turn on my computer this morning. It was still fine last night. I tried few of what others people do on website but it doesnt work. Can anyway I van fix that?

Go to Startup Disk control panel in System Preferences and choose the volume for your hard drive. Close. Restart.
Might just want to reboot with shift key down to do a safe boot once.
The "?" means it is looking and took too long to find a valid boot drive.
You might also want to boot into Recovery Mode and use Disk Utility and do a Repair Disk (not repair permissions) - on the "top level" name of the drive (WDxxxxx) and again on the mac system boot volume name (Mac Computer Hard Drive - as example).
Then reboot / restart when done and when there are no errors or errors were fixed.
And of course make sure you have valid current backup(s).

Question Mark in folder window header

I just noticed a question mark "?" at the top in the header area in all my folder windows.
http://www.sasnet.com/question.png
Has anyone seen this before or know what it is, or what to do about it?
Steven

If you drag a file to the toolbar and hold it there until a plus sign appears, it will appear in the toolbar as effectively an alias. If you delete the original you will get this question mark. To remove it, command-drag it off the toolbar.

Question mark in folder window

Just noticed this, I see a question mark next to the search bar on the top right corner inside any window folder I open.
any help?
rd

At some point put an alias to a file/folder there (click and drag on a file or folder up to the toolbar of a window and let go of it will put a shortcut to that file or folder in all finder windows). If you delete that file/folder the system can no longer find it and will replace the icon in the toolbar with a ?
To get rid of the ? just right click (control click) on the icon and select "Remove Item" from the drop down menu. You can remove it using the View menu's "Customize Toolbar...", just drag it out of the toolbar and it will disappear with a poof.

Flashing Question Mark on Folder Icon on Startup: Not Yet Fatal

I running into a potential problem with my White, 13" MacBook. I'm running 10.5.6 (upgraded from 10.4).
I recently bought a new, larger capacity hard drive. I used the Applications "SuperDuper" to clone my existing drive onto the new drive. My computer runs (as far as I can tell) the same as it always did. However, whenever I startup the computer, it briefly flashes the dreaded "giant folder with a blinking question mark". However, this is quickly replaced with the Apple Logo, and the computer boots normally.
I have repaired permissions, and verified the disk using disk utility. The disk verified with a message along the lines of "The disk appears to be ok".
While my computer's working now, I'm concerned there might be a deeper problem, and I'd like to catch it before it becomes critical. Also, if this is something standard that happens when you replace a hard drive with a new one, I'd like to know that as well so I can stop worrying.
If your answer is "put your old drive back in", pretend I did that and am still seeing the problem. What now?
Possible data point, I opened the console and saw the following two lines right before the "got boot device" line
4/29/09 5:00:07 PM kernel Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
4/29/09 5:00:07 PM kernel AppleYukon2: 532111ab,00000000 sk98osx_dnet - CheckDictionaryEntry failed, expected vs. dictionary
Thanks in advance for your help.

Open Startup Disk preferences, select your startup volume from icon list, click on the Restart button.

Question mark in folder flashing. Nothing works, can I conclude my HD is dead?

My computer screen froze the other day and the only thing I could do was to restart it.
However, when I did, all I got was a grey screen and a question mark flashing in a folder.
I have since then tried everything suggested in these cases. Nothing works, no matter how I reboot, I never get anything else than the flashing question mark on a grey screen.
I have 3 old installation discs (Panther!) - should I try these?
Or can I conclude that my hard disc is dead?
My Imac is from 2008 (or 2009…) and was running on Mavericks.

If you have the original disk that shipped with the iMac, you can try booting from it.
Put the disk in and restart the computer while holding the C key down. If the computer boots you can start the installation process. (You are not reinstalling.) After the screen where you select the language you will see a menu bar. Click Utilities and run Disk Utility. In DU, select the hard drive on the left, First aid, and click Repair disk. When that is done, quit DU and restart the computer in the usual way.
If DU tells you the disk cannot be repaired, you will have to replace it.

PLEASE HELP- flashing question mark in folder

Hi everyone,
last night I was just on my macbook as usual and suddenly it froze, so I turned it off. When i went to turn it back on, all that appeared was a flashing question mark in a folder.
I have tried all the suggestions on this page http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042 , but none of them worked because it didn't even recognise/find the harddrive in the disk utility section. I don't have apple care ($419 is a lot of money for a student!) but I only bought the macbook about 6 months ago, so it is still within warranty. What should I do now?
Any help is much much appreciated!
Melissa

Melissa,
I just had the same exact problem last night too. I called the apple technical service number and nothing they did helped because the hard drive wasn't found. I even got a fire wire cable and tried to hook my MacBook up to another Mac and tried the target disk mode hoping I could pull off data that I needed, but the other mac couldn't find the disk either. I'm kind of worried about losing some of my data. If you could let me know if you find any solution that would be awesome! I plan on going to the apple store this weekend to get it looked at.
-Michelle

Flashing Question Mark in Folder at Startup - Retrieving Lost Data on HD

I've had my macbook for 9 months and Thursday it started making a clicking noise. I remember accidentally opening iMovie, then all my applications slowed down. The rainbow wheel wouldn't go away and everything froze (clicking noise continued). So I shut it down manually using the power button and instead of starting up, the flashing question mark in a folder popped up. I took my computer to an Apple Store and they told me I can either get the hard drive replaced, meaning all my data would be lost, or I could contact a hard drive recovery company to try to retrieve as much of it as possible. They said it would be fairly expensive ($500-$1000)..
Does anyone have any experience with any of these companies? Do they try to fix your old hard drive (I've noticed that a number of other people have had problems with 9-month old macbooks) or do they retrieve as much data as they can and save it to a new hard drive? And how long could this process take? I am a college student and I need access to a computer as well as the information on my own laptop.

Funny I has a very similar problem with my 8 mo old MacBook on the 15th and got the same reply from the Genius at the Apple Store today.
I spoke with someone at one of those companies located in the Boston area. They could look at my computer with in the hour if it was an emergency, turn around time could be pretty quick or take up to a week. They charge $95 to look at it and then will give you a list of files they can retrieve. You can then make a decision as to whether they should go ahead and recover. The fee for them to actually recover your files is $500 at a minimum and it could be higher. They do not fix your hard drive. They said my warranty would still be valid when they were done. hope that helps...I can't decide what to do for myself, it was just pictures that I had not backed up yet. Good luck.

Question mark on folder, top.

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