HT201541: Update the software on your Mac

Learn about Update the software on your Mac
KAY JAKER

Q: MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

When powered on or restarted MacBook Pro makes the chime sound followed by Grey screen with a Folder that has a Question Mark on it.

I can only boot into Internet Recovery with (Command + R) at power on.

What options do I have?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Oct 20, 2015 6:18 PM

Close

Q: MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by norm123,

    norm123 norm123 Oct 22, 2015 6:37 AM in response to KAY JAKER
    Community Specialists
    Oct 22, 2015 6:37 AM in response to KAY JAKER

    Hello Kay,

    I understand that you are seeing a folder with a question mark on your screen when you startup. That is going to be because it can't find your startup disk. Let's see of we can get it sorted out.

    For starters, hold the Option key while powering on your MacBook Pro. This will bring up the Startup Manager so you can see if your hard drive shows up. If you see Macintosh HD or if you named it something else, select that option to boot to your hard drive. If you are still having issues seeing it or even booting to it, launch internet recovery to see if you can reinstall OS X. For more details, take a look at the quoted section below for more details. 

    About the screens you see when your Mac starts up
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

     

    Folder with a question mark

    If you see a folder with a question mark appear instead of the Apple logo, it means your Mac couldn't find a local or network-based startup disk. This can happen if the disk selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences isn't available. Wait a few seconds to see if your Mac is able to locate the startup disk you specified. 

    If you still see a question mark after waiting a few moments, use Startup Manager to start up your Mac, then re-select your startup disk from System Preferences.

    If a question mark appears after you install a software update, re-select your startup disk using OS X Recovery.


    Let me know if this helps or need further assistance. 

    Take care 

  • by wombcorps,

    wombcorps wombcorps Oct 22, 2015 6:46 AM in response to norm123
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2015 6:46 AM in response to norm123

    Hi I'm having a similar problem with mine - however I've tried to load startup manager to no avail, it just takes me to internet recovery. Have tried this with a new SSD drive in the hhd slot and with the HDD in an external caddy as i'd like to know both if my HDD is kaput, and why my SSD will let me format and access it in Disk Utility but not install OSX using internet recovery. Seems there's a lot of people having such problems