Hi,

I have a very interesting problem.

My hard disk is functioning, but working slow. That's why I want to upgrade to a SSD.

The SSD is working very well on a Macbook Pro 13" early 2011 from a friend and one Macbook Pro 15" 2014, but not mine.

When I replace the harddisk with the SSD I get the  Flashing folder with Question mark.

I replaced the harddisk cable, but with no result.

My date are :

Serial :  C02G17F7DH2G

Model : MacbookPro 8.1

Model : A1344

Processor : Intel Core I5   2.3Ghz

Memory 4 MB 1333 Mhz DDR3

ROM version MBP81.0047.B27

SMC version 1.68f99

OS X 10.9.4

I am desperate for a solution.

Hi,

You asked this:

>>

. 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?

>>

Mine doesn't even detect any hard drive.. !

I did a upgrade from 10.9.4 to latest and saw this issue

Anyway to fix it ?

- Ravi

Thanks. This worked out fined.

ok so can anyone help me

i have a late 2012 macbook air and it was running os x yosemite beta. i was just browsing on my laptop, someone walked in my room, i chatted with them and when i returned, like 30 seconds later, the screen was black. so when i tried turning it on again, it gave me the flashing questionmark. i tried sa boot, PRAM amd bunch of other things but nothing is working. could my harddrive be toasted?

thanks

By doing any of this, is there the chance/possibility that every thing on the hard drive/computer will be lost or saved? Or, by doing any of this will starting up your computer again allow yourself to access everything that was already on there?

hi, i also have the same prob with Skimpi90... I have the disk0 in the left, indented underneath is Mac Os X Base System, where the Repair Disk button is greyed out.. Does this mean, the disk is dead and ill have it replaced alrady.. Any other option? tnx

Hi frederic

I tried what you said as I was getting the flashing folder when turning on the MacBook also.  I used the recovery partition and followed your instructions to repair the disk (twice as instructed) and got green "ok" each time.  I then did the "permissions" thing and then waited for it to finish.  When finished I rebooted the machine only to find I still have a flashing folder.  Now this is not to say I cant run the OS because if I hold down the option key (then enter my BIOS/Firmware password) I get my MAC and Windows HDD appear (as I run both mac and m/s).  I select one and it loads and runs no problem....but each time I reboot, if I do not hold the option key down at the chime, I get the flashing folder...even after the repair....but like I said the OS (when selected at start-up via the option key) runs fine.

How would I get rid of this flashing folder as I do not believe the HDD is on its way out?

Lol after a little playing around...I booted the mac up (after the flashing folder) and went into startup disk in system preferences and reselected the mac os as the default os and clicked reboot and now no folder.....:)

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I encountered the same problem today. Tried to open an app, went grey screen, and then when I had to manually restart, I got the flashing question mark folder.

I'm on an iMac (2012? It's one of the curved back ones with no disc slot) running Mavericks.

I was able to use Command-R to get to the Internet Recovery utility upon restart. Disk utility originally gave me the green text when I ran Repair Disc - but I either forgot to do Repair Permissions or it wasn't activated (greyed out).

1st attempt was to Restore from Time Machine Backup - fortunately I had backed up just prior.

But that only gave an error that said "Error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disc." Tried it again - same error.

Then I tried reinstalling OSX from Internet Recovery (in this case, Mountain Lion). After 2 hours or so waiting for that to reinstall, it came back with an "Error while trying to install Mountain Lion" message. Tried it again, no go.

Then after re-reading these instructions, I realized I hadn't run "Repair Disc permissions"  - so I tried Disk Utility again, and this time got the red lines: "Volume MacIntosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired" and "Disk Utility can't repair this disc. Back up as many files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore from backed up files"

I'm guessing this means the HD is walking dead and I need to get to the Apple Store to get it looked at ASAP. But is it worth trying to reformat the disk?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Yes it sounds like a dying hard drive.

If it were me, I'd try erasing (reformatting) even if there's little chance of success - as a troubleshooting step.

(someone here recently had similar issues and it turned out to be the drive ribbon cable - replaced free at the Apple store.)

I reformatted the HD (erased) and then I tried to reinstall OSX. Much to my surprise, it actually started to install (I received error message before), but now it seems to be stuck. The progress bar is about 1mm in, and it says "time remaining: about 20 minutes" but it's been stuck there for about the past 45 minutes.

I'd wait another 20 minutes, and if it doesn't progress, I'd conclude the hard drive (or cable) has failed.

Have you tried creating an external bootable drive and restarting from that?

If boot is successful, that confirms the internal has failed.

I bailed on the stalled OSX installation. Now attempting to restore from backup. Seems to be restoring - so far.  40% of 2TB according to the progress bar - 5.5 hours to go.

It worked! Fully restored - up and running! Phew!

Thanks for the help everyone!

I had this issue today morning while installing 10.10.3 and this is was I did.

1) I forced shut down the mac by pressing and holding the power button.

2) I booted the machine in recovery mode. (for those who dont know, you have to press and hold the command+R buttons and then press and hold the power button till your machine starts OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support)

3) Once the machine booted in the recover mode, You'll be presented with options like restore from time machine, reinstall OSX, etc.

4) Now click the apple logo on the top left. There will be an option called "Startup Disk".

5) Click it, it'll open a window showing available hard drives

6) Select the hard drive in which the OS is installed and click the restart button.

Your machine should boot up (atleast it booted up for me)

Hope this helps.