Weird folder question mark - why?

This annoying question mark started appearing in the menu bar of all my folders some time ago, can't pinpoint when/why. When clicked, a dialog box says "The item can't be found"
An Apple Care tech is baffled/can't help.
Suggestions of how it got there/how to get rid of it?
MacPro 10.6.8 | 2 x 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
hosted img of scrn cap: http://postimg.org/image/mvkbdshxb/

Command-click it and drag it out.
(117747)

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Can't startup blinking folder question mark

There are similar questions in these forums, but my situation is different. My MacMini froze and I had to press the power button on it to restart it. I get the folder with the blinking question mark. I do not have any disks in the drive. I have not installed any new operating systems for at least a year. No external drives connected. I shut off and started the Mac Mini yesterday with no problems.
I tried the Enter/Return key; no response. I restarted and tried the Command-Option-P-R to reset the P-Ram; got the same blinking folder question mark. I restarted and tried the Command-Option-O-F also. I just keep getting the same blinking folder question mark.
So, if anyone has any suggestions, I will sure appreciate it!

It turns out that my SATA just wen't dead. I've been experiencing several power outages while my iMac still is running. I also noticed months ago that whenever I verify disk permission there are some stuff that is beyond repair and it shows red. I just ignore it thinking that it will go away and the inevitable happened. Good thing though I just have a few gigabytes of photos taken months back I had a full backup on all the docs that I have. I tried resurrecting my Western Digital 160GB SATA using Spinrite V6 but to no avail. BIOS from Windows can't even mount the drive. I've given it up. I still have a one last hope though to bring the dead drive to a data recovery company. And hope that they can replace the SATA board or the mechanical part with a new one on a clean room and recover what they can for a fee.
Is there any hint when a drive is about to fail? I did experience frequent hangings and endless spinning beachball from time to time also some weird sound that seems my hard drive is about to blast by spinning profusely for no apparent reason.
My 160GB SATA drive is about 5 years old. Is this the regular lifespan of SATA drives? Should I replace it every say 3-4 years? I've been using it almost everyday from Monday to Saturday. I'm considering buying a drobo so I can dump all my files without worries of being burn again by a terrible Hard Disk Crash!!!
I've re installed everything on my imac using the new 500GB SATA. Good thing that everything was fine except for the SATA Drive. I've bought an AVR and 500VA APC (Power Backup incase of Power Outage) so that I could prevent it from happening again. Also do you have any idea what brand of SATA is the quietest the most silent? Thanks for your help.
Message was edited by: besprenbrian

I have an email account on qou but all the incoming emails subject and body appear as question marks, why???

I have an email account on QOU (al-quds Open University) but all the incoming emails subject and body appear as question marks, why???

Try to set the Boolean pref gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.use_gdi_table_loading to false on the about:config page.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config
Start Firefox in [[Safe Mode]] to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).
*Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
Try to disable hardware acceleration.
*Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

Blinking folder & Question Mark - Drive Good - Files Are Still there

Okay,
So I've been a long way with this iMac. It originally came to me with bad power supply. I replaced. Then it came back with bad capacitors. I replaced. Then it came back not booting. Here's where I'm stuck.
I dont see the drive if I use command - s. If I boot OS X install cd, I can select OS X 10.4.11 on [OS Volume Name] in Startup Disk, I can see all the files on the disk, I've ran all repair options including file permissions and Disk Warrior, but the OS never loads.
Tried Safe Mode, Single User, Verbose Mode, PRAM Reset, NVRAM Reset, reset-all in command-option-o-f mode, I've blessed the /Volumes/[OS Volume Name]/System/Library/CoreServices directory several different ways, still the OS never loads... blinking folder & question mark.
I dont have correct install cd for this system and can't reinstall. Any suggestions or repairing bootloader, kernel, or something advanced...???
Anyone?

Hi Jkat, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Sounds like short of a proper install disk, you've tried everything but this...
applesetupdone...
This was Posted by: JoseAranda at September 9, 2006 3:48 AM
"OK, restart your computer, hold down Command-s and type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -y Enter
/sbin/mount -uaw Enter
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone Enter
# The rm command is the remove command which deletes the file.
# Robert: I'd rename the file via: mv /var/db/.applesetupdone /var/db/.applesetupdone.old
reboot Enter
Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!
end of posted by: JoseAranda"
But not on this forum I guess.

Folder + Question Mark : Still there after zeroing and reinstalling.

My MacBook Pro decided it didn't want to boot yesterday after a crash due to low battery on start up. Tried resetting PRAM, ran disk repair (had a couple issues there), finally just zeroed the drive and reinstalled the OS (Tiger factory discs). After reinstalling, the computer is still giving me the folder + question mark icon. I can boot onto the CD just fine every time, it sees the drive and tells me there are no errors when repairing it (does seem to hang on the final 'mounting drive' stage though). Still can't boot into the OS though.
Hoping someone has an idea.
Thanks!
Message was edited by: S. Swanson

When you go to Disk Utility, is SMART verified? Have you run the extended version of the Apple Hardware test?
I had a similar problem with a PowerMac G4, and the cause was a failing hard drive. If you do manage to boot from your boot drive, download and run SMART Utility:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/smartutility.html
You can download the demo and run it several times for free. It is more critical than Disk Utility is, and can detect impending hard drive failure sooner. It could be your hard drive is headed south, especially if it is the original.
Good luck!

White screen with a flashing folder & question mark

My IMac froze today and when I turned it off and then back on, it just sticks on a white screen with a flashing folder & question mark... Help?

Reinstall Snow Leopard without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.
Reinstalling Lion Without the Installer
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Startup stuck on a Flashing Folder/Question Mark

Aloha,
I have been looking for a solution to my problem for several months now and have never found a solution.
One day my computer froze so I forced a shut down by holding the on/off button.
When I turned on the machine again the folder/question mark appeared.
I have tried all the hot keys.
Option-only shows the refresh and forward buttons but no options.
I thought my hard drive failed, so I bought a new one and installed it.
When I placed the OS DVD in to install a fresh copy I still got the flashing folder/question mark.
I don't know what to do, any suggestions?

sione wrote:
I don't know how to get to the system preferences if i can't get past the flashing folder/question mark.
Correct you'll not be able to...
The question mark appears when the boot loader cannot find a valid OS system/partition.
Here is what I would try:
1. Boot from the OSX installer by inserting the disk into the Mac then power-off. Power-on the Mac and immediately press and hold the "C-key" until you get the installer Language screen. Select your language and continue. The next screen should be the Welcome screen, go to the top and select Utilities/Disk Utilities from the tool bar. Once Disk Utilities is open select your internal (if it appears) then select the first aid tab. In the first aid pane select to run "Repair disk". If "Repair Disk" results in errors then run it again until it reports no errors found. Once "Repair Disk" is complete with no errors then press and run "Repair Permissions". Once complete reboot to test the Mac.
2. If the above does not work then try booting with the Startup Manager, by pressing and holding the "option-key" during boot. The GUI Startup Manager will appear and you can select the drive you wish to boot from.
3. Alternately press the "X-key" during boot.
4. And lastly before we give you the bad news... make sure that the mouse or track-pad button is not being pressed or stuck during system boot.
If none of these works then you most likely have a bad drive. And you'll need to replace it. You do have a back up right?
Do you have another Mac, to use for troubleshooting?

Installed Leopard, boots sporadically - Flashing Folder / Question Mark

I have installed Leopard onto my PowerMac G4. It was working for a few months, now it won't boot up most of the time. I am getting the flashing folder/question mark when I turn the computer on.
This problem doesn't occur all of the time. I was messing around with the two internal hard drives, switching them around inside the machine, and whatever I did must have worked because the computer booted up just fine. All of my files were in tact and everything looked normal. This lasted for about a day. Now my computer is back to the flashing folder on startup.
What could be causing this problem, and how can I fix it? Thanks!

Thanks for helping me, I really appreciate it.
It is the strangest thing. Sometimes it will recognize the hard drive and boot up normally. Other times it hangs on the Apple logo with the spinning wheel. And other times it doesn't recognize the drives at all and gives me the flashing folder. Same thing when I try holding down the option key and use the device manager. Sometimes it will see the drives, and other times it doesn't show anything.
I have replaced the hard drives, the hard drive cables and the PRAM battery. I am running out of ideas! Anything else that you can suggest would be greatly appreciated.

Flashing Folder/Question Mark on Startup

I have been having an issue with my machine for the past couple days, and cannot find the Install Disks to remedy this situation (my OSX 10.4.4 disks will not recognize), so ANY help would be appreciated.
I have been able to troubleshoot using FireWire target disk mode. I've run DiskUtility and DiskWarrior on this machine from another machine and everything checks out with the hard drive, but I keep getting the Flashing Folder/Question Mark on Startup. Safe boot (Shift key at startup AND Shift-Command-V) do not work. Resetting the NVRAM / PRAM does not work.
Suggestions?
I don't need the info on the machine, as I am trying to set this up fresh for my wife.

But I was going on the assumption, as it was an internal drive (not an external data only drive), he had an OS installed, since his problem seemed to be that out of the blue he was getting the flashing folder question mark on startup. He had written +"I have been having an issue with my machine for the past couple days...."+ implying that it had booted normally before that.
Anyway, you're probably right; I'm just puzzled: how would his once bootable OS disappear just like that? Obviously something I'm not understanding here.

Flashing folder question mark on boot

I started my computer today, and I hear this high-pitched noise and then clicking sounds. Then I see the flashing folder question mark. Could this be hard drive failure? Or is it the DNSChanger virus? I've tried to access the Recovery, but Command-R and the Option key don't work. When I use Option, all I see is a white screen with a pointer.

Compukid wrote:
When I tried Option, it showed a white screen and the cursor.
That's the firmware driven, no drive means either OS X is fried and can't boot, or the drive is dead, or it may be that something is wrong with the Mac or a cable, which if the drive is still good, will work later or in a SATA to USB adpater on another Mac or PC with MacDrive installed. You won't know that unless it's pulled out of the machine.
When I tried to move the mouse (a wireless one, if that helps), it did not move.
Can't use a wireless mouse, as the drivers load with OS X and OS X isn't booting, use the wired one or the trackpad.

I have a grey screen with folder and question mark-why?

When I turn my computer on I see a grey screen with a folder and question mark over it. The folder and question mark are blinking then a couple minutes later the screen turns black. Help please!

Kfrost5792,
if your MacBook Pro didn’t originally come with grey installation discs in the box, then you can substitute “booting from Recovery mode” for “booting from your grey Mac OS X Install disc”, and from the OS X Utilities menu that appears on the desktop in Recovery mode, you can select Disk Utility there to erase your internal disk, which will allow you to perform an OS X Internet Recovery the next time that your MacBook Pro is powered up.

Blinking file folder question mark on start up!

My mac was working fine I shut it down because the mouse froze like it does some time. It turned back on with a white screeen and and a blinking file folder with a question mark on it and stays that way until it shuts down! Its a white screen behind it and it makes the start up noise. What is going on and how can I fix it? I already kept it off for a while then took out the battery.. any other suggestions?

I got this same message after using Disk Utilities to create a new partition formatted in FAT 32, booting from my windows XP CD, reformatting that partition to NTFS, and installing Windows XP on that partition. (So I can dual-boot without using Boot Camp Beta, which is expired)
I worked around it just fine by holding the "alt" key when booting, which (after entering my firmware password) allows me to select the boot partition. It's like I somehow selected "Neither" for my default startup disk.
It's possible that your problem goes beyond this.
By the way, in my Windows reformat, I did end up deleting several 200 MB partitions that appeared on my drive...it looked like this:
(partition) (size) (name) (file format)
Partition 1: 198 MB [unknown empty
Partition 2: 250000 MB [Windows FAT32
Partition 3: 202 MB [unknown empty
partition 4: 850000 MB [Unknown unknown
this one is formatted in the mac file system, but XP (of course) doesn't
recognize it....
partition 5: 201 MB [unknown empty
Anybody know what's going on here? I sucessfully merged the first three from the XP cd, but I don't know what's up with Disk Utility and why it leaves these spaces after partitioning.....

The mother of all blinking folder/question mark posts.

So here's another question mark/blinking folder post, only I've narrowed things down quite a bit. Let's start from the top.
Powermac G4 quicksilver won't boot, and will only show the infamous blinking folder icon.
-unplugged keyboard and mouse
-unplugged SCSI interface
-unplugged CD drive
-tested memory, all ok
-changed slot RAM uses
-booted with X held down
-booted with C held down
-booted with SHIFT held down
-booted with Option held down (brought up screen with two buttons, but no bootable devices)
-Cleared PRAM
-Cleared NVRAM
-Replaced battery
All of the usual tasks and no results. Dead drive, right? Nope. It won't boot through the HD, or any normally bootable CDs, but when I access Open Firmware (Control+Z), I'm able to view all of the HD's contents (dir hd:\) and all of the contents from whatever CD I put in there (dir cd:\). As it can read from both, but will boot from neither, I'm now thinking it has something to do with the main board.
Has anyone else exhausted the blinking folder issue to the point I have, and still found results somehow? I'll be hooking it up to another mac via firewire tomorrow, but the unbootable CD makes me think that's not the solution. Any ideas on where to go from here? It's way out of warranty by the way.
Thanks in advance for your time everyone!

Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
Next step, download a copy of the Apple Hardware test, and burn it to CD. I know, your QS isn't cooperating, so I hope you have access to another Mac.
http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html
Hopefully the machine will run the AHT fine, and you can run a hardware test. I'm hoping not, but could be the ATA controller on the MOBO.
BTW- you didn't mention booting into single user and running fsck. See what that results in. Startup holding command+s. After the prompt type +/sbin/fsck -fy+ (that is a space between fsck and -fy). Press Return, and see what happens:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

My Mac book pro turns on with a grey screen with a blinking folder question mark. Help!

My bag carrying my computer fell on the ground as I was entering a cab. I checked my computer immediately for damage and it seemed to work fine. After about an two hours, I went back to my computer and it had a black screen and was getting very hot. I held the power button down and it restarted only to have a grey screen with a blinking folder + a question mark. I've already looked on the forums, and I don't have the CDs with me as I am traveling, and I don't have much backed up.
I appreciate any advice provided.
Thank you!

Hey peawok,
The following document goes over troubleshooting steps for when you encounter a folder with a flashing question mark during startup:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
Take care,
Delgadoh

Macbook air folder question mark

I have a folder with a question mark in the middle. I tried holding Command + R but in return i get a big lock asking for my password. I don't remember what password i had. How can i fix it?

You have a failed SSD. If it is a 2012 model Apple has a recall on them for this problem.
In any event you need to take the system to an Apple store to be checked out.

Weird folder question mark - why?

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