Folder with question mark on start up

[StevieG-09]

Has anyone else had this happen to there mac?
When I turn it on it goes to the normal white start up screen then a grey folder with a question mark comes into the center of the screen.
Read up on it on google and seems to be the hard drive got corrupt or something :S
so got to try putting my install cd into to reboot it
just wobderig if it happened to anyone else??

 

[Reev]

Try holding down the option key when you turn it on, it'll come up with a list of bootable drives which you can load from.


Mine has been stuck on the blue screen when loading once or twice and this has fixed it, never had a folder with a question mark though. This is why I have my Time Machine back up every hour just incase, though.

 

[StevieG-09]

Okay thanks mate, will try that.
Really hope i dont loose everything on my mac :/

 

[Reev]

Not got a backup?

 

[StevieG-09]

Well not anywere else but my laptop, I think it's all backed up onto my laptop but nower externaly

 

[matt|H]

Not much point in backups if they are on the same drive fella.

Should be alright though, just try booting into single user mode (holding cmd/opt/something - google it ) and try getting in that way.

 

[DMS]

Try holding [Command + Option + P + R] together when you start it up too, but make sure you're holding them all before the chime. See if that helps.

 

[StevieG-09]

Which one is the option button?
I did what it said on apple support and nothing happened
told me to put the install disc in and hold c on start up.. Nothin
now disk won't come out

 

[StevieG-09]

Know what it is now. Tried the command/option/p + r and the screen went black so I left go and just chimed again and is still doin exactly the same thing

 

[DMS]

When you hold the "C" key on startup, are you pressing it before the chime? If not, you're doing it wrong.
It should pick up the fact that the disk is in the drive and boot from it, then you can repair the startup disk. Might as well repair disk permissions while you're in there as well.

 

[sn00p]

Hold cmd+s on boot and when single user mode appears type:

fsck -y

Once it's completed a whole cycle without errors, type reboot.

Hopefully it'll restart properly then.

 

[StevieG-09]

Finally got it to work last night, cleaned up the disk through disk utilitys so job done!
Thanks for the help people, I thinks time for a new mac about now