Question mark folder on startup

Hello everyone, I tried to reset my MacBook to factory settings today, but I seem to have erased the wrong drive (the physical drive), and now the MacBook has a question mark folder that blinks on startup, is there any way to reinstall MacOS on the computer?

MacBook Air

Posted on Mar 21, 2020 8:45 PM

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Posted on Mar 21, 2020 11:52 PM

Make sure you actually didn’t erase your drive, when you press the power button to turn on your mac hold the option key too until the list of boot disks appear. Then select your boot disk.


if you did wipe it, hold command+r when powering on your mac, it will lead you to this page called “macOS Utilities”. From there you can reinstall macOS.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 21, 2020 11:52 PM in response to jeremyg42

Make sure you actually didn’t erase your drive, when you press the power button to turn on your mac hold the option key too until the list of boot disks appear. Then select your boot disk.


if you did wipe it, hold command+r when powering on your mac, it will lead you to this page called “macOS Utilities”. From there you can reinstall macOS.

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Question mark folder on startup

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