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David Brown19

Q: HARD DRIVE LOST??

I had a scratch disk error appear yesterday. I restarted the computer and now all I see upon restart is a folder icon with the 'finder' icon and a question mark flashing back and forth. Can someone tell me what this means? Any help is greatly appreciated.

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Mar 30, 2007 2:56 PM

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Q: HARD DRIVE LOST??

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  • by arnie,

    arnie arnie Mar 30, 2007 4:45 PM in response to David Brown19
    Level 5 (4,065 points)
    Mar 30, 2007 4:45 PM in response to David Brown19
    flashing "?" means PowerBook can't see OS X system folder to start from.

    it could be caused by corrupted files or failed hard drive.

    you could try starting from OS X install disc and run drive check from Disk Utility, see what it says, do not try repairing the hard drive though since it could make things worse.
  • by userremoved,

    userremoved userremoved Sep 19, 2014 5:17 PM in response to arnie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 19, 2014 5:17 PM in response to arnie
    flashing "?" means PowerBook can't see OS X system
    folder to start from.

    it could be caused by corrupted files or failed hard
    drive.

    you could try starting from OS X install disc and run
    drive check from Disk Utility, see what it says, do
    not try repairing the hard drive though since it
    could make things worse.


    I have the same problem. When I tried to back up my data, it failed with a disk problem--so I tried disk repair using the Tiger disk. (unfortunately I had no idea that Apple's disk repair would make things worse) That ended with:

    Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit.
    1 HFS volume checked
    1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
    Repair attempted on 1 volume

    After that, it stopped recognizing my resident disk. I finally loaded Tiger on my backup drive so I could at least get to the internet. When I go to About this Mac and look at ATA under hardware, it does show my internal hard drive but I still can't get to it.

    Please, someone help me--I've been up all night and really need a solution.
  • by cornelius,

    cornelius cornelius Apr 24, 2007 11:40 AM in response to userremoved
    Level 6 (17,825 points)
    Apr 24, 2007 11:40 AM in response to userremoved
    WhatsWrong:

    Welcome to Apple Discussions.

    Although the symptoms your computer exhibits appear to be similar, the underlying issue may be quite different. To ensure that your question gets the greatest exposure without getting entangled with someone else's thread, may I suggest that your post a new topic by clicking here.

    Good luck.

    cornelius