Startup disk gone

I went into preferences and somehow I hit something and it changed my startup disk to a question mark. Now it says it starts from a network startup or I have to have it start from OS X. How do I get the question mark off of my startup disk, (hard drive) and get it to startup from the hard drive?
tgrlily

tgrlily,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
If necessary, hold the 'x' key down at startup to force the Mac to boot off the OS X System on the hard drive (more exactly, off the first partition on the hard drive if you partition the drive), then open Applications> Utilities> System preferences, click on Startup Disk, and select the OS X System on your hard drive as the boot volume.

Similar Messages

IMac won't boot, startup disk gone?

Hello, my name is Jesse. English isn't my main language so I'm sorry for grammar mistakes!
I didn't use my iMac much last week. A few days ago I checked my email or something and left it on for about 30 minutes.
When I tried to start up the computer in the evening it went to a grey screen and there were 4 option I could do:
- use a backup
- reinstall mac os x lion
- use safari for help
- something else I forgot
Every time I try to boot the computer it goes to this window so I cant use the computer anymore.
I think the StartUp Disk is broken.
I am pretty sure I didn't do anything bad with the computer to cause this.
Maybe because of the high temperatures lately it broke??
There are files for work etc on the computer that I NEED. So I don't want to reinstall the computer and lose all the files.
My questions are:
- What might of caused this?
- Do I lose all the files on my iMac?
- Can this be fixed easily or is it very expensive?
I tried starting up holding Shift/Option key but both times I ended up at the grey screen with the 4 options.....
Thank you so much if you can help me!
- Jesse.

Have you tried booting into Recovery Mode (see OS X: About OS X Recovery - Support - Apple) ?
What version of the OS did the system have on it when you bought it?
As for what caused this, there are a lot of things that can cause a disk drive to fail, age, temperature, shock can all make a disk fail. How old is the iMac?

I have a MacBook Pro. I was gone for 30 days and when I got back it tells me that my startup disk is full. I have a 500 GB drive and it shows that I have about 500 MB available. It constantly changes. How do I fix this?

I have a MacBook Pro that is telling me my startup disk is full. I left for 30 days and when I came back to use it, it tells me that the disk was full out of 500 GB. I don't have that much on it and it was perfectly fine when I left. I Verified the disk through disk utility and it told me it had issues so then I repaired it and it said everything is fine. It still says the hard drive is full. How do I fix this problem. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Have a read here Where did my Disk Space go?
Stefan

"Startup disk almost full", where has my HD capcity gone?

Startup disk 80 GB, Ext 1: 500GB, Ext 2: 1TB (Partitioned: Time Machine 300 GB 2Ronnies 630 GB)
Problem:
I was re-populating an iPhoto library by copying folders from Ext 1 to Ext 2 when I was warned that I had only 1 GB left on my startup disk. I have checked and I have not inadvertently created the new iPhoto library on my startup disk, it is where it should be, on Ext 2. Disk Utility says my startup drive appears to be ok and I have cleared my caches and log files using OmniDiskSweeper. I checked to see if there were any unusually large files on my startup disk and noticed my Volumes folder is showing 45 GB.
Listed below are the other large folders:
Applications = 3.79
System + 4.34
Library = 7.76
Users = 8.45
I listed the Volumes in Terminal and I can see that a partition in Ext 2 is listed 3 times.
Question;
Is the thrice-occurring Ext drive the reason for my diminishing startup disk capacity? If so, what can I do to fix it and if not, what else could be the problem?
PLEASE HELP! Cadbury Creme Eggs are the only reason the above issue hasn't driven me over the edge and I am down to my last dozen!
P.S should Ext 1 be showing up in my volumes folder even though I have ejected the drive?

Isetan wrote:
I listed the Volumes in Terminal and I can see that a partition in Ext 2 is listed 3 times.
You have the "doppelganger volume" problem: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9620
Question;
Is the thrice-occurring Ext drive the reason for my diminishing startup disk capacity? If so, what can I do to fix it and if not, what else could be the problem?
Yes.
P.S should Ext 1 be showing up in my volumes folder even though I have ejected the drive?
Those are actually local folders that can be deleted, assuming they don't contain unique copies of files that should have been written to the external drive.
In the future, you can reduce the chances of the problem happening again by assuring that the external drive is mounted whenever you run anything that tried to access it.

How do I restore a disk image on the startup disk?

Hello,
Where do I begin? Ok, my computer is an iMac and I mainly use OS 10.6.8. I have partitioned the disk into three parts: Snow Leopard, Lion and Tiger ( and I'm thinking of deleting Tiger). The main OS I use on my computer is Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I wanted to try out Yosemite so I upgraded the Lion partition and it soon became Yosemite. I was able to switch back and fort a couple of times last night, but today, when I went to the Startup Disk to go to Yosemite the disk image for Yosemite was gone and it only shows the disk image for Snow Leopard. I did a little research and if I'm not mistaken and read correctly, it indicates that Apple has done away with the disk image for Yosemite? How is one to switch back and forth between systems? Thank you for any insight to my question. -Della
P.S. If I have posted in the wrong category, please feel free to repost in the correct category, but please let me know. Thank you!

If it's a Windows executable file other than a self-extracting zip, you won't be able to open it without installing Windows; on a PowerPC Mac, this requires Virtual PC or the Q emulator.
If it's a self-extracting zip, StuffIt Expander will open it.
If it's actually a disk image, change its extension to dmg or iso and double-click it.
(109118)

Hard time for selecting Startup Disk (partition) in Mac Classic II.

Dear coleagues, I'd like your help to understand and solve a tricky trouble. I'm sorry for the long text, but the issue is probably living in a small detail.
The issue regards a Mac Classic II with internal and external HDDs. Internal HDD has two partitions, a smaller with System 7.1 (first) and a larger with System 7.5.3 (second). This one is installed there since 5 years ago, working fine.
The (just installed) external HDD has 6 partitions (because of its size 9 Gb). It has been formated runing VCP in this Classic II itself and all partitions are initialized with HFS. It is intended to be a backup for my Classic II as well as my Mac Plus. I've started Installing System 7.5.3 in its third partition. Other partitions remain still empty.
Using only internal HDD I can already perceive that "Startup Disk" control panel is unable to change the boot partition attribute between partitions in the same drive. When I open "Startup Disk" it usualy both partitions of internal HDD are highlighted. I can select a Zip Drive, for instance, and it will boot from Zip. But, when I switch it back to HDD, doesn't bother wich partition I select, it will always boot with the same partition (usually 7.5.3). Then, If i open Startup Disk CP again, both partitions are again highlighted.
To switch between partitions in the same drive, I use Lido 7.5.6 PMount and there I select the boot partition. Then every time I select my HDD, that'll be the default boot partition.
My conclusion is that in Mac Classic II the Startup Disk CP is unable to set a partition within a drive, it selects the drive only. The boot will obey the drive's partition table flag. That's why I can do it whith Lido, writing directly at HDD's flags.
Now, attaching the external HDD, I can see all its partitions in Startup Disk CP and then I select one of them (the 3rd, with 7.5.3). Before rebooting, I close and open again the Startup Disk CP, then I can see all its 6 partitions highlighted. Just like I've been doing with the internal HDD, probably the solution to set a specific boot partition would be through Lido 7.5.6 PMount again. But Lido is unable to handle this drive. It appears gray in the drives list.
What does it sound to you? What would you recommend to test? Is there an alternative for Startup Disk CP?
Thank you.
Regards, Ciro (Brazil)

Dear Jan, good Evening.
Thank you for your time.
In fact I can select a specific partition, but by closing and reopenning Startup Disk CP I realize that the selection has been attributed to the physical drive (all partitions highlighted).
I have tried Startup Disk CP in both System 7.1 and System 7.5.3. They do the same way.
Internal HDD has been formated, partitioned and initialized with Apple HD CS Setup.
This external HDD in a different way. Apple HD SC Setup hasn't been able to "see" it, probably because of its prior format system. Lido neither. That's why I went to VCP. Moreover, as it is too big for 68030, I had to format it attached to a Performa 6360. After formating, I've let VCP make set the partitions in HFS mode (partitions with 512, 1024 and 2032 Mb).
I've mounted VCP in Mini VMac to get some screenshots for you:
Bringing it back to Mac Classic II, it could be mounted with Lido, but System 7 has asked to initialize all partitions again. I've accepted, installed system 7 on it, and it didn't boot. Then I've repeated the partitioning and initializing procedures using Apple HD SC Setup (since now there's a Mac HDD with "small" logical drives). Nothing changed.
I'm following your tip about System Picker. I've downloaded the sit file and read about it. It seems to be able to overlay the problem. I'm gonna try it and report back here.
But I feel still uncomfortable not to be able to do things the regular way. As far as I know, the boot partition is an attribute of a drive partition in partition map, just like the "Active Partition" found in FAT systems. I should be able to write there as I can do with Lido in internal HDD.
Thank you, Jan.
Best regards,
Ciro Bruno.

Process "deskjet" is using up over 1GB of RAM and over 60GB of VRAM after an hour or so of use. ALSO, "Your startup disk has no more space" error.

The blowers will kick on and I get the: "Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory." with a list of running apps that aren't going over anything abnormal (Chrome, Finder, Activity Monitor). Quitting any of the applications that appear the dialog continues to pop up. Performance doesn't appear to suffer but the computer definitely acts like it's busy with only a few applications open, however force quitting deskjet slows down the blowers (fans).
I have 20GB remaining on my boot drive. I have also lived several months with less than 5GB remaining and have never seen this error from Mac OS X 10 - 10.8. The only thing different between then and now is the boot drive is a SSD.
I focus on the printer drivers because that's something I can't find anywhere else through Google or Discussion searches. The "startup disk" error has some hits that I have yet to go through completely, although initial results show that it may be a vague bug/leak with SSDs.
(Edit: After clearing up another GB or so and 10 minutes of "deskjet" being killed, it's the longest I've gone without the dialog popping up. Although once I restart that driver will go out of control again).
-Less than a month old clean installation of Mountain Lion 10.8.2
-Early 2008 MBP
-SSD bootdrive
-500GB secondary HDD
-4GB RAM
-Permissions have been repaired just yesterday.
-SMC and PRAM reset as well, although it won't hurt to do it again when I get back home.

Why is my computer slow?
..Step by Step to fix your Mac

Cannot find hard drive in startup disk or when trying to reinstall OS X

I just wanted to double check to see what the problem would be before going in any repair place.
I have recently had a gray screen and obviously when ever I start it will go to the gray screen with a folder with a question mark appears.
I've gone to the OS X utility by pressing and holding option, but whenever I've tried to do any of the repairs such as:
reinstalling the OS X
going to startup Disk
It won't show any hard drive what so ever for me to even try and fix.
But when i'm in Disk utitlity it has the base disk0 and it verfies it and says its okay.
really confused and not that well informed with Macbook pro hardwire problems.
I think its just a HD fail. but I'm trying to see if there is any other possiblities.

Take the HDD out of the MBP and install it in an enclosure. Connect it to the MBP via USB and boot the MBP via startup manager:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1310
If the MBP boots, you have a faulty SATA cable. If it does not, you will have to access the HDD via the recovery partition or the original install disks and run Disk utility>First Aid.
Ciao.

Startup Disk Memory Inexplicably Low/Missing

I normally keep a close eye on the amount of info going into my partitioned Mac HD (presently: capacity 29.88 GB, 27.64 Used, 2.23 Available), but I received a message today to the effect that "your startup disk is low in available memory..." while only running Safari... The last time I had checked (about 1 month ago) I had between 9 and 10 GB of available space, so needless to say I was rather surprised to get this message. I immediately did a "Get Info" on the drive and was SHOCKED for TWO reasons! 1) that the available memory was so low... but ALSO as I checked and RE-checked the memory was DISAPPEARING before my eyes! I was only running Safari (although a couple hours prior I had worked on and saved a 5+ page site in iWeb with a fair amount of imagery... I have 1 GB of RAM. I restarted and the drive has since stabalized at 2.22-2.23 GB Available. I restarted in Safe Mode and restarted again and ran a repair permissions on it. All seems to be ok for now BUT I haven't reopened iWeb for fear that that may be eating up what little memory is left AND then there is this OTHER issue of where these other 8 or so GB have gone to???? When I calculate Finder items in the HD they total 19.5 GB not the 27.64 that "Get Info" pulls up for it. One more note: I installed iLife '06 about a month ago... What is happening here?
PowerBook G4 17" Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi, O.
1. IMO, with only 2-3 GB of available (free) space, you're critically short of free disk space. Cache files and virtual memory swap files could readily and quickly consume that. See my "Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space" FAQ.
2. A runaway process constantly writing to log files can chew up disk space. Check these Console logs for clues, specifically large blocks of repeating messages that recur at high-frequency. If you find such blocks, post some samples for diagnosis. Again, do not post the entire log or logs, just copy/paste samples of blocks of repeating messages that recur at high frequency.
Common causes of runaway processes writing to logs include software associated with Canon and HP scanners, software for HP All-In-One devices, and Adobe Acrobat version 7.x prior to version 7.0.5. Depending on the messages you post, I can give you specific actions to take if one of those apply.
3. See also my "Freeing Space on your Mac OS X startup disk" FAQ.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Can't free up enough startup disk memory

Hi,
"Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory."
I am trying to free up space to stop this message from popping up on my screen. I've emptied my trash, but the problem isn't gone.
I have a iMac with OS X 10.6.8, with 4GB of Memory.
My local disk capacity is 499.76 GB and i am only using 179.07GB.
I am unsure how to remove temporary files, even though i am clearing temp files from my browser's history.
I don't know which program can be reliable and safe to remove the temp files for me
I'll appreciate if someone can help.

Reboot to clear out virtual memory.
Your problem is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.
That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination. In Activity Monitor, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more memory over time without ever releasing it.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details:
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines: About the Virtual Memory System

Startup disk disappear from the desktop

Well, without any reason, The startup disk is disappear from the desktop.
(Just only the startup disk)
I found this 2 times before, once on my 8 cores Mac Pro, once on my iMac G5.
I couldn't do anything to fix them, so I formatted and re-install OS.
with my iMac, it ran Tiger before, there's no problem until I changed to Leopard,
After about 2 weeks under the new Leopard,then the startup disk disappear from the desktop,
it shown the hidden status in disk utility and could not mount it,
So I formatted and back to install old Tiger.
Everything's fine. that's really good Operating system.
Bad luck, about 2 months ago, My iMac G5 had some problem with motherboard and the harddisk also damaged, I send it to Apple Thailand, They fixed it and send back with installed Leopard inside my new hard disk.(well... again)
Now after a few weeks. it happen again.
Startup disk disappear from the desktop.
This problem never exist on my Mac Pro, just with the iMac G5.
(Please don't tell me to check the finder preference about the sidebar setting.
it's already set to show every items there even the iDisk)
I wondered why I don't see anyone have problem with this.
I'm really want to find the answer about this.
I asked this question to Apple Thailand's support team but they didn't have any idea.
Who's gonna answer this

I found a solution to the problem and posted it here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1858340&stqc=true
I pasted the solution below:
from a Terminal window, type:
ls -lOd /
(That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash)
You should get something like this:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t 32 root admin - 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
Sounds like you might see something like this instead:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t@ 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
(note it says "hidden" instead of "-")
To fix this, type:
sudo chflags nohidden /
and provide your admin password. You won't get any output back from the command but the icon should now appear on your desktop, and the hidden flag should go away if you repeat the 'ls -lOd /' command.
And just in case you missed it above, you've got to be sure Hard disks are turned on in Finder General Preferences under "Show these items on the Desktop"

How to fix this error? The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.

Hey guys,
I am trying to install windows 7 ultimate 64 bit via bootcamp assistant. I open bootcamp assistant from utilities and i get the second window and try to click continue and i get a pop up, saying "The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extneded (journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows." I looked around on the internet, i found that my internal HD must be set to OS Extended (Journaled). I went into disk utility and i clicked partition tab and the option was set to OS extended (journaled). Any ideas on how to overcome this error so i can install windows 7?

Error is:
1: common
2: misleading and poorly worded
3: space must be:
A: contiguous, that means unfragmented and in ONE section, not multiple
B: files cannot be loced, anchored or in such a manner as to prevent or block partition operation
C: to move, unlock and shuffle files requires booting from another drive or device
Shrink the HFS+ volume by as much or more than you need to set aside to use
If that does not,
Try iDefrag from another hard drive or by burning and using its own CD that is just for consolidating free space
Clone your system (should have backups already, clone is just bootable)
Erase and restore from clone - SuperDuper does consolidate files and free space and result in unfragmented (99% success rate)
None of which has to do iwth what that error message says. This error has been almost a daily threat topic - has gotten less but has not "gone away."

Computer wont recognize startup disk..

My I mac just started getting wonky. On Re-start, it would not recognize start up disk. Re started using Install disk, went to disk utilities to run repair and the hard drive was not even listed in the menu. Looked ar re-installing sysrem, but no hard drive was available to install to. After a few more attempts, hard drive became available, ran disk repair, said everything was fine, repaired permisions, selected my startup disk and restarted.. Nothing. Blinking folder. Tried restart again, this time got spinning wheel on grey mac screen.. Computer seemes to be hot.
Left it over night and it started up fine in the morning. Any help would be appreciated. Should I re-install system? Or has my drive gone bad?
thanks

Reinstalling the operating system does not look like the answer, more likely a hardware fault. If you have important material on the hard drive, this would be an excellent time to get an external drive and backup the material. Even better, use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, both free downloads, to make a bootable clone of the system on the external drive. Then you could start from that drive if the internal drive is failing.
Have you run the hardware diagnostic tests? That might not be a bad idea...see if anything is identified as going bad.

"Your Mac OS X Startup Disk Has No More Space For Application Memory"

I've been having a problem in the last few days with my Mac. I would be surfing the net, or doing whatever, and an error message would randomly pop up on my screen. It would say: "_Your Mac OS X Startup Disk Has No More Space For Application Memory_". Then the dialog box would give me the option to PAUSE or *Force Quit* applications. But instead of letting me click these buttons, my Mac would just automatically freeze after the dialog box popped up!
The odd thing is, is that I truly was NOT using that much memory...much less than I usually do. Plus I have 4 GB of RAM, and I know I wasn't maxing it out.
Does anyone know why this error message would be popping up like this (especially since there was no way that I was using all my Application Memory)? And does anyone know why my Mac just freezes instantly when the error message pops up?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! It's quite hard use my Mac right now, since I never know when it's gonna freeze up on me!
Thanks!

I assume that means no backups? That's a problem you need to fix next.
You might be able to start your Mac in "Target Disk Mode" while connected to the other Mac. You do this by holding down the "T" key while booting. And I was wrong: you must use Firewire, not USB.
The other Mac will see your HD as an external F/W drive. You may have to "mount" it via Disk Utility, if it doesn't show up on the desktop and/or Finder sidebar.
You probably need to do a lot of examining what's not needed, and perhaps some maintenance, but you don't want to do that under pressure.
To get it running and buy just a bit of time, your best bet is to copy some big stuff (like video) either to the other Mac's hard drive or to one or more DVDs, then delete it from your HD.
Once you get several GB free, you should be able to boot it. Then get started cleaning it up. There are many threads in this forum with links and suggestions for how to do this. Just search for +Disk Full.+
Did this happen all of a sudden? If so, it's possible you had some sort of runaway or continually failing process, filling up some logs and/or caches. If you don't do routine maintenance, either by clearing your browser cache, etc., manually, or via an app like OnyX, that's another thing you might want to investigate.

"Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" - uploading files problem

Hi everyone,
I'm running a late-2012 27 inch iMac - 3.4GHz Intel Core i7, 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3 with the 3TB fusion drive, OS 10.8.4. At present there is 1.92TB of available storage.
I have received this message "Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" just before a full on crash multiple times in the past couple of days whilst using WeTransfer to send over some large files (500MB+). The applications I have had open at the time have been: Activity Monitor, App Store, Firefox, and Finder. Over the course of uploading the files, the active system memory has gone from 1.04GB and steadily increased until it more or less maxes out around 29GB, at which point the Page Outs rocket up to around 40GB/s and the swap memory fills up pretty quickly until the computer basically can't take any more and blacks out.
This is a pretty new thing, haven't really had an issues before. My main software used: Sibelius 7 & Logic Pro X. I've also recently started working with Final Cut Pro X, which seems to have been struggling at points. I've tried closing everything, restarting the computer and not opening anything (specifically NOT FCPX) before attempting an upload. I've even gone so far as to remove FCPX from my system, and yet the problem is still recurring. Both "kernal_task" and "WindowServer" have been running high on CPU when these problems have occurred.
Does anyone know what might be the issue and how it could possibly be resolved?
Really appreciate any help, I'm in the middle of a fairly sizeable project and the deadlines are just around the corner.
Thanks,
Tom

There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory. That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

Startup disk gone

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for