White screen and "question" sign? Disk fail?
Hi there! After some hanging i switched of my iMac manually. Trying to restart then i've got a white screen with a blinking guestion letter on a folder icon... ^( Does it mean i've lost my startup disk? Or what? Tryed to restart from system CD (10.6) but disk utility shows no hard disk, but installation CD and somewhat called "media" - unformated with zero capacity... Some ideas?
The blinking question mark means your Mac can't find a valid OS on any attached disk to start from. Together with what Disk Utility shows, this is quite possibly a sign that the startup disk has failed. (This may be what caused the crash.)
However, I'm not sure what "media" might be. In Disk Utility, you can highlight it & press Command + i to get info about it. One of the items of info should be its "Disk Identifier." If that has an "s" in it (like "disk0s2") it is a partition on a drive; if not (like "disk0") it is an entire drive. If there is no "Disk Identifier" entry at all, it is something other than a drive or partition.
If it appears to be an entire drive, it may be the one containing the startup disk (IOW, your internal drive). This may mean that the drive has not failed, but only that its partition scheme info has become corrupted. If so, you can select it, switch to to Disk Utility 's "Partition" tab, reformat the drive, & restore it to a useable state. Note that this will erase anything on it, so if you do not have a backup you may want not to do this until you see if a data recovery utility (like Data Rescue II) can save any or all of your files.
Similar Messages
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Most of the time when I turn on the Mac I get the white screen and question mark appear. Sometimes it will turn on and work. But often the coloured spinning wheel starts up especially after trying to use iphoto it freezes and a couple of times the screen has then gone black. The computer seemed pretty warm yesterday when this happened.
Any suggestions of what I should do to fix it would be greatly appreciated.
KateSee this on the question mark when you start up: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US
See this on the spinning beach ball: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html -
My Macbook Air 2011 got a white screen and a folder with a question mark. I tried to press option+r and try to install the OS X Lion but it didn't show the disk Macintosh Hd
You are using Snow Leopard so you have no OPTION+R shortcut. You need to boot the computer from your Snow Leopard DVD or USB flash drive.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
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 Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. -
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.
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hey so i've a prob my mac book pro screen is white screen and the loading sign and it never boots up so is there any way i can back it up on windows 7 before i restore/or find a fix.
thx,
brandon2000well no reply from the community. sniff- do i stink!? - probably a little bit. If i have lost all that data then I'm gonna really really pong.
Any ways i have purchased a 1tb usb HDD and have managed to duplicate the dmg file onto it. however still unable to mount the **** thing. so now i have ordered disk warrior which will be in my possession tomorrow.
fingers toes eyes crossed. -
I recently bought a Macbook Pro, this is my first Mac. I restarted it, but when it started back there was a plain white screen and then it prompted me to insert the reboot disk. Has anyone else had this problem and is there a way to do this manually like with PC's?
The new Mac's came with OS X Lion 10.7 and there are no boot disks.
Since it's so new, take it back to the Apple Store and let them deal with it.
If not you can hold Command and r (as in rotten) keys down and boot the computer.
You'll be presented with a several options, including one to reinstall OS X Lion provided you have a Apple ID, which means you have to use Safari in there to set one up. To do that you need to set up a email account with Google or Yahoo. Once you get the ID, then you can download Lion and reinstall it.
It's so stupid not having a copy of the OS on hand to perform your own repairs.
Of course Apple will be happy to sell you a $69 Lion USB stick.
Like I said, take it back to the store, and try to get your money back, that will force them to think about just giving you a replacement machine that works.
Lion doesn't work really but it can be acceptable until the patches get released. -
Not used my G5 Powermac (late 2004) for about 2 years. Was going to set it up for the lads to do school work.
However it only boots in with Installation disk, but colour dots on white screen and message comes up to reboot machine. However nothing happens apart from me keep trying. Also the numerous fans get louder and louder and louder.....
Any ideas folksCan you please provide details on the exact model?
For a start, the PRAM battery is likely dead. PRAM tells the computer which drive to start with, other basic information. Still, you can usually get the computer to start, though bad PRAM is unpredictable and could be stopping that.
Some computer models use software to control cooling fans. If there's no software commands they automatically go into high speed to prevent overheating. Your software obviously isn't loading, so runaway fans. -
Trying to start my IMac click on my admin icon and enter the correct password but then flashes to white screen and back to sign in, my desktop wont come on ... help!!!!
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. Alternatively, 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.
When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu. Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password and OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password. -
While trying to open a link on FB, my computer went to a white screen and become unresponsive. I had to do a hard close. It did reboot and the Disk Aid finds no problems when I ran Verify Disc. This happened 2 weeks ago as well and I had to do a Safe mode reboot. Things seem a little slow when I use internet-Google Chrome (updated). I have a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9.4 I'm not sure what else needs to be done? I'm not supertech savvy.
Hello! Since you don't have the startup disk your best shot is using fsck. Tom
when you re-start, hold down the apple key AND the "S" key You'll start up into a command line interface.. it'll look strange but just hang in there. When it's done booting up, you should see something that looks like this: localhost:/ root# at this point, type in 'fsck -f" please note the space before the dash, and of course, ignore the quote marks, then hit return You computer will no go thru some low level checks on your HD. Most likely you'll get a list of a few files that have problems and this procedure will fix them. This should take about 2 or 3 mins, so don't be in a rush. When the line says "VOLUME WAS MODIFIED", this means that changes were made. At this point you should be back at the same localhost:/ root# prompt. run fsck -f again. Wait for it to finish. if you continue to get the "Volume was modified" message, continue to run fsck -f until you'll get a prompt that says The Volume(your HD) appears to be ok, again with the localhost:/ root# prompt. AT this point, type reboot, hit enter and your computer will start up normally. This is not difficult, but you may want to give it a shot when your feel you have a few moments where you can attempt something new and not stress too much. -
Hi, my Macbook doesn't turn on, it just show a white screen and after a while a big question mark blinks but nothing else, cannot click the question mark, cannot do anything.Also it makes a funny noise. Any suggestions?
Suppose it's a HDD crash. Boot from Install DVD which came with your MacBook(Press C during startup) and open DiskUtility to repair your HDD if it's able to mount.
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My iMac goes to the white screen and stops
My mac was acting really poorly, I thought for sure I had a virus or spy ware and I inserted my reinstall disk and double clicked the restore icon. My screen gave me a question to restart and reinstall the OS X system. I clicked the OK button. The computer restarted came up to the white screen and now is frozen there. I have tried restarting several times with the same result. Is my mac now toast or what.
Josh Mellicker wrote:
Does the white screen have a series of small multicolored color "chips" on it? And is there a band at the bottom that is half "noise"?
michaelfromutah wrote:
...I inserted my reinstall disk and double clicked the restore icon...
What "restore icon"?
If you have the Mac OS X install disc in the drive, switch on your Mac, and hold the Option (⌥) key.
You will see a grey screen, with Macintosh HD & after a few seconds, a CD with Mac OS X Install DVD.
Click on the DVD and then the arrow underneath it. This will start up the Mac OS X installer.
From here, you need to choose your language and then from the Utilities menu, choose Disk Utility.
Then choose Macintosh HD from the left, and choose "Verify Disk" not permissions
Let us know how you go. -
My macbook pro won't start up. I get the white screen and the grey apple icon the spinning wheel......and it doesn't change !
Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
To restart an unresponsive computer, press and hold the power button for a few seconds until the power shuts off, then release, wait a few more seconds, and press it again briefly.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
If the startup process stops at a blank gray screen with no Apple logo or spinning "daisy wheel," then the startup volume may be full. If you had previously seen warnings of low disk space, this is almost certainly the case. You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.
Step 3
Sometimes a startup failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 4
If a desktop Mac hangs at a plain gray screen with a movable cursor, the keyboard may not be recognized. Press and hold the button on the side of an Apple wireless keyboard to make it discoverable. If need be, replace or recharge the batteries. If you're using a USB keyboard connected to a hub, connect it to a built-in port.
Step 5
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 6
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to start up, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can start up now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
Step 7
If you've started from an external storage device, make sure that the internal startup volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Start up in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know the login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you start up in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, the startup volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 11. If you ever have another problem with the drive, replace it immediately.
If you can start and log in in safe mode, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then restart as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the startup process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 8
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select the startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then restart as usual.
Step 9
If the startup device is an aftermarket SSD, it may need a firmware update and/or a forced "garbage collection." Instructions for doing this with a Crucial-branded SSD were posted here. Some of those instructions may apply to other brands of SSD, but you should check with the vendor's tech support.
Step 10
Reinstall the OS. If the Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 11
Do as in Step 9, but this time erase the startup volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically restart into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer the data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 12
This step applies only to models that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery: all Mac Pro's and some others (not current models.) Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery, if there is one, is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a startup failure. Typically the failure will be preceded by loss of the settings for the startup disk and system clock. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
Step 13
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider. -
20" Imac has white screen and freezes at start-up
my 20" imac will not start....help...All I get is a white screen and tone at start-up then it stays white. I tried hooking up a bootable firewire drive and pressing the alt/option key at start up nothing. I also tried the command/option/p/r at start up, it will reboot to the same screen. I also tried running the hardware diagnostics at start-up...no response. Computer was purchased on Nov .4 2007, warrenty just expired.
Help......Please....I had the exact same problem today. My iMac 20" (iMac 8,1) would't boot any more, staying stuck on a white screen immediately after the normal start-up chime. Nothing worked (no safe mode, no DVD boot, no disk selection icon when starting with alt pressed, no Apple hardware test, no parameter RAM reset, power management chip reset had no effect, no verbose mode, not even open firmware).
I browsed the forums, but what I found didn't help, so I was about to stop trying and have it fixed by Apple. But my son told me he had noticed that after "a long time" (he's 4...), a folder with a flashing ? would appear. I figured that wouldn't happen in case of a severe hardware failure, so I tried one last thing: I hooked up an old PowerBook in target disk mode via Firewire and restarted the iMac. I tried several times (with and without alt pressed), but nothing happened (when pressing alt, a functional mouse pointer would appear, though).
Then I restarted a last time and left the iMac sit there on its white screen for about 20 minutes... and that's when the miracle happened: it finally booted off the target-disk mode PowerBook's system!
I ran Disk Utility, which saw the iMac internal HD as disk2s0 (or something like that), and launched the disk repair process. After about three error-ridden verify-repair cycles, the green ok message finally appeared and the volume mounted as if nothing had happened. I rebooted off the internal disk without a glitch, and I still have to find damaged or lost files.
I guess I was lucky that my HD problem was benign enough to be cured by Disk Utility. But even if that had not been the case, at least I'd have known that the HD failed, and maybe I could have saved some files using recovery software. Whatever the case, if you've got an external bootable drive, it's definitely worth trying before handing your iMac over for (usually horribly expensive) repairs.
Good luck! -
White screen and constant beeping
I have a 2011 macbook pro. This morning when I powered it on all I get is a white screen and constant beeping sound. The beeping goes away after about 2 minutes. Then there is a folder with a flashing ?. Is this something I can take care of at home or do I need to take it in to an apple store?
I noted that nowhere in that article is beeping mentioned.
Instead of seeing the Finder or the login window after startup, your computer may stop responding and the display may only show a persistent gray screen (you may also see an Apple logo, spinning gear, spinning globe, prohibitory sign, or a folder with a flashing question mark on it). Note: The below steps may not apply if a blue screen appears during start up. -
My Macbook Pro is frozen on the login page with a white screen and only my login picture. How do I fix this? I can't turn it off and I closed it and let it charge but it's still not working. It's only 3 months old and was working perfectly fine 30min before this happened.
Hello Kierasully,
I would start your troubleshooting with the article below for issues of not being able to log in to your Mac. Start with booting up in to Safe Boot as well as resetting PRAM on your Mac. If that does not work, then verify the hard drive with booting to the Recover HD and go to Disk Utility to verify it.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/en-us/ts2570
Regards,
-Norm G.
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