Blinking Question Mark on boot up

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Blinking Question Mark on boot up

My trusty 2011 MBP went a bit strange the other day which the beachball appearing for ages and then the desktop background went black. I powered down by holding the power switch, then tried rebooting. I keep getting the blinking question mark. I have reset NVRAM but that's no good. I've started up in recovery mode but no drive shows up at all.

Is this drive kaput? I do have a time machine back up of it which is lucky. Is it worth buying a new drive or a new mac?

Thanks in advance.

Dan

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Mar 5, 2022 7:17 AM

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Answer 1

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mdp1101

Level 3

977 points

Mar 5, 2022 7:26 AM in response to Dan Farrell

Hello.

You are right. The hard drive is over 10 years old, so there is a chance it has gone kaput.

This link may help: If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support

Considering that you used your computer every day, the chances are unlikely you are missing a operating system.

Lucky you. 2011 Macs still have the easy ability to get in to it and swap the hard drive. If you can get your time machine backup off the computer, you can either settle for swapping it or getting a new one.

Regards,

mdp1101

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Answer 2

Dan Farrell Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 5, 2022 7:28 AM in response to mdp1101

Fantastic. Thank you so much.

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Answer 3

mdp1101

Level 3

977 points

Mar 5, 2022 9:25 AM in response to Dan Farrell

Your welcome 🤗

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Answer 4

Dan Farrell Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 12, 2022 4:05 AM in response to mdp1101

Hi - I replaced the hard drive today with a new SSD but am still getting the blinking "?". COuld the SATA cable be broken and is it possible to replace this?

Thank you.

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Blinking Question Mark on boot up

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