Question mark that came up

I have a question mark that came up on my computer an i dont know what its for been there for awhile

Where exactly is the question mark?
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HT3964 What does a file folder with a question mark that appears upon startup?

What does a file folder with a question mark which appears on startup mean??

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.
With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 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, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7 or 10.8 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.

I Mac won't start -- we get apple logo with spinning wheel, question mark that disappears and then a blank blue screen

My daughter's old I Mac won't start. It is not backed up. We want to get some things off of it if we can.
When we turn it on, we get the Apple logo with spinning wheel for awhile, then a question mark briefly and then a sky blue blank screen. Is there any hope of getting this to work? This computer is out of warranty. Does it seem that if we reinstall the Operating System we might find old data?

First try restarting with the original install disc an run Disk Utility to repair the drive. If you have to re install the OS make sure you select archive and install or else everything will be lost.

I appears on the screen when you turn a folder with question mark that can not do

Finder with question mark

Shut down your Mac by holding down the power button until the screen goes black.
Then startup while holding down the Option key.
if the disk is ok, at some point you should see the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk then restart.
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac

HT200197 The message tells me my Apple ID has been entered incorrectly period how do I get to the screen that allows me to reenter it period question mark that allows me to reenter the ID

When I open Apple TV it tells me my ID is incorrect. How do I get to the screen to be able to reenter the correct password?

Hi, frecklesgardener.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
I understand that you need to adjust the password for your Apple ID on your Apple TV. Here are the steps that will help you make that adjustment.
Apple TV
Go to Settings > iTunes Store > Apple IDs.
If you're signed out, choose Add New Apple ID and enter your updated Apple ID or password.
If you're signed in with your previous Apple ID, choose Sign Out, then choose Add New Apple ID and enter your updated Apple ID or password.
For Home Sharing, go to Settings > Computers, then turn off Home Sharing and turn it back on.
What to do after you change your Apple ID email address or password
-Jason H.

My new mac mini (3 month) didn't start up,all that appeared was a white screen and a flashing folder with a question mark inside it.

My new Mac mini (3 month) didn't start up, all that appeared was a white screen and a flashing folder with a question mark inside it.
I followed by recommendations from 'Everything Mac': "shut it down by pressing and holding the power button for about 5 seconds.
Then hold down the Option key and press the power button again to start up the Mac mini. Keep holding down the Option key until
the Mac mini starts up."
But I got a Wi-Fi button only to chose and connect the local network. I connected to my network and I can't use this connection
becouse no icons.
Could you please help me?

Your Mini (running 10.6.4) should have come with grey-colored install disks. Now is the time to put them into service. Turn on your computer so that there is power to accept disk #1 into the optical drive. Once the disk is in the drive, shut off the computer by holding the start button down until it powers off. Then turn it on this time holding down the "C" key to make the computer boot from the disk. The question mark that you saw indicates that the computer cannot find a bootable volume. This can happen due to corrupted system files or an improper shutdown etc. Once you are in the "Installer" you can choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu in the menu bar. Use it to repair the disk and to see if that can solve your trouble.

What does a file icon with a question mark indicate?

had to turn off macbook with power off button vs. shut down and now I tried to log on today and it doesn't start up. I get an icon of a folder or file with a question mark that blinks on the grey screen page. How can I restart my Macbook to get to safari?

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.
With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 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 or 10.8 Mountain Lion, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7 or 10.8 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.

I am getting a blinking folder with question mark when I boot my computer, what does this mean?

This morning when I turned on my laptop, it made a weird ticking noise and now all I can get is a blinking icon that looks like a manilla folder with a question mark.

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.
With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 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, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7, 10.8 or 10.9 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.

HDD Failure? Flashing Folder Question Mark

Well I have had my Macbook (White) for over 3 years now and has not caused my one problem until today. I went to boot my mac and I just kept on getting to the apple screen and the spinning circle thing underneath, I left it for a bit and then force shut it down (hold power button) and tried again and again. Then I decided to go onto my Windows bootcamp side of my Mac; so I pressed the option (alt) key to view my partitions. I went on to the windows and it loaded up to a black screen and an error came up: 'NTDETECT FAILED'. So I had to force shut down again. and let it boot into Mac again. Then the flashing question mark folder came up; so I forced quit and tried to boot again and the same thing happened again so I left it on for a bit and then I heard a clicking noise and got worried and forced shut down. Then tried to boot again holding the option (alt) key to show my partitions and neither my Windows or Mac partition would show up! So I inserted my Linux live CD and that worked fine (booted etc). So I tried to boot once more into mac and fail. So I googled (thanks to my iMac) the symptoms and I found it could be a HDD failure, and tried many of the advised suggestion. I put the tiger install disk in and booted up from it (I was given tiger disk + leopard upgrade disk on purchase) and tried to use disk utility and repair permissions etc... everything failed.
1. So is it as I discovered?
2. Anything I can do to recover data/ get my HDD back?
3. Do I need a HDD replacement? If so how much will it cost? (Warranty ran out)
4. Any advice / comments?
Please feel free to share your experiences and advice. Any help is welcome!
Thanks in advance
DjHitzz

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
There are a couple of reasons you could get the question mark on the folder, however, when you add the clicking sound and that disk utility can't find anything to work with, that all points to a bad hard drive. This won't make you feel better, but between 3-5 years is when laptop drives often start to fail.
So, what are your options ..... you'll need a new hard drive. If you're handy inside a computer, you can do this yourself or you can pay for someone else to do that. If you take it to Apple, they will keep your existing, broken hard drive as a trade in, which bothers some people who might want to recover data off of it or are concerned because there may be personal information on the drive. And Apple may use a refurbished hard drive, and personally, a brand new hard drive isn't that expensive ($50-$75+ depending on size), and I'd rather have a new hard drive than a refurbished one that already has had a problem.
Getting data off a dead drive .... there are services that will extract your data off your dead drive, but be prepared to pay dearly for it. You can search these discussions for recommendations or google it.
After you replace your bad hard drive, figure out how to backup your data, either to an external hard drive or to an online service. Much cheaper than paying someone to recover data off a bad hard drive.

I cant even reinstall os x after a question mark folder showed up on my mac.

I opened my macbook pro this moring and this question mark folder came up. I restarted it and it came back normally and was working just fine. I came home and the same problem occured, Ive tried to shut it down and press option key on my keyboard. Os x utilities popped up and it seemed like theres nothing for the system to repair so I moved on to restore from time machine which also didnt work. I finally decided to reinstall os x mountain lion knowing that all my files will probably be gone. but then there was no disk I could select for the new installation. What's happening? Is there any ways I could fix this problem?

its a mid2012 macbook and yes theres one near where i lve. Connecting cable as in the charger? Sorry i have very little knowledge on stuff like this. But thanks for letting me know. Just out of curiosity do u know what can i do to prevent future damge thats similar to this one?

Question Mark in Finder Windows

All of my Finder windows have a large question mark to the right of the Action icon. When I click on it I get a message saying the item can't be found. What is this?

I also got this reply from another board:
"That would be a file or folder that you had previously dragged to that area. Things that you drag there are like bookmarks, pointing to the actual file or folder. If you have a question mark, that means that the original file or folder has been deleted. So you should just hold down the Command key and then drag that question mark off of that area and it will disappear in a puff of smoke."

Question Mark on HD

How do I change the question mark that appears, instead of identification, when I open my HD icon? Is this an identification issue?

Are you talking about seeing a question mark on a drive when you go to System Preferences > Starup Disk? If you are talking about Network Startup, then you don't need to change anything. If you are talking about an external drive, then the question mark is telling you that no bootable OS is installed. To change things, you will need to install an OS.

Question Mark Showing Up?!?!

Hello,
I recently purchased a macbook pro for college and noticed that when i open a folder, there is a question mark that shoes up. Originally it was not there and now it is. What is going on?
HOw do I get ride of it??
Please help!
+Below is a link with what the question mark looks like. Please help. I desperately need it.+
file:///Users/shirleylsim/Desktop/to%20attach.png

I can't see your link to the image but, if the ? is on the Finder icon bar than just control-click it and choose "remove item".
Cheers

Launchpad deletion question mark on steam games and other apps

Hello, when in launchpad some icons if double clicked have a question mark that appears than if you hold them down the jiggle and the black x appears unlike before you double clicked it what does this mean? As an example I created a desktop shorcut for a steam game and put the icon in launchpad than I dumped the icon on the desktop in the trash. When I tried to use the jiggly method to delete the launchpad icon no x appeared but when I double clicked it a question mark appeared and than the little black x? Has what I did damaged the game or app ina anyway?

They may be in Users/your_name/Library/Application Support depending on how they were installed.

Blinking question mark and smiley face

when mac is powered on a small folder is displayed in the middle of the screen that has on it a blinking question mark that changes to a blue and white face over and over.can anyone offer any suggestions to eliminate this.
thank you

i've had this problem before, and at the time the hard drive was on its way out. you might want to consider replacing your hard drive.

Question mark that came up

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