MacBook rapidly flashing prohibited sign, apple logo, and missing folder icon after restoring macOS on it. Reason for restoring was blank screen on start up. (2012 MacBook Pro)

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MacBook rapidly flashing prohibited sign, apple logo, and missing folder icon after restoring macOS on it. Reason for restoring was blank screen on start up. (2012 MacBook Pro)

The Macbook was working fine although sometimes it would shut down unexpectedly while sleeping (not sure it has anything to do with this) and reported a sleep/wake issue once started back up. Otherwise worked fine.

When I pulled it out of my bag one day it was shut down and when I started it it just showed a blank white screen. I then tried to boot into my second boot camp partition and it says disk error. So logically I put in a different drive that I know works. I went to recovery mode and did a clean install of macOS on it. But as it tried to install it it seemed to crash and it shows the apple logo, the prohibited logo, and the missing folder icon cycling between them and flashing rapidly. When I force shutdown and start again same thing happens. It will do this infinitely. When I remove the drive and start it it just shows the missing folder icon as it should normally.

What could the problem be and how can I get this working again?

thanks 🙂

MacBook Pro

Posted on May 9, 2022 5:47 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

60,518 points

May 12, 2022 5:13 AM in response to lenny216

Yes, the SATA Cable is most likely the problem. It may work adequately when just reading or just writing to the drive, but when you read+write to the drive simultaneously like during boot, then the cable is not able to keep up especially when using an SSD, but I've seen this happen with a hard drive as well.

https://eshop.macsales.com/search/?q=hard%20drive%20cable&filter.catidpath=3406/3410

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Answer 2

May 10, 2022 9:08 AM in response to lenny216

Hello lenny216,

It sounds as if you need to reformat and install a fresh copy of macOS.

Your computer must be connected to the internet. If you’re reinstalling on a Mac notebook computer, plug in the power adapter.

1. Choose Apple menu > Restart, then immediately press and hold Command-R.

2. In the Recovery app window, select Disk Utility, then click Continue.

3. In Disk Utility, select the volume you want to erase in the sidebar, then click Erase in the toolbar.

4. Type a name for the volume in the Name field, click the Format pop-up menu and choose APFS, then click Erase Volume Group.

5. When the erase process is complete, click Done, then choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility.

6. In the Recovery app window, select Reinstall for your macOS release, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.

More information is available here: Erase and reinstall macOS - Apple Support

Have a good day.

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

60,518 points

May 10, 2022 5:24 PM in response to lenny216

I'm assuming the non-Retina model?

Sounds like you may have a failing hard drive if you have "disk error". Try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. Unfortunately the diagnostics don't detect most drive failures. I can provide instructions for creating & using a bootable Linux USB stick to check the health of the drive if you are interested. Sometimes it may even be a bad hard drive SATA Cable (especially on the 13" non-Retina model where the cable had an extremely high rate of failure).

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Answer 4

lenny216 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 11, 2022 11:27 PM in response to HWTech

yes non retina.

I thought so too which is why I replaced it with a new SSD, mac works fine in recovery mode and I installed a clean copy of macos on the ssd but as it restarted to enter the setup screen it does the same thing. It just refuses to boot into any OS. flickering apple logo, missing folder sing, and prohibited sign all at the same time. the ssd is recognized and working in recovery mode.

i have no idea but is there something like a kernel issue or other type of corruption that happened when the original hard drive failed?

thanks for the help

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Answer 5

lenny216 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 11, 2022 11:32 PM in response to srbwanderer

I tried and it seemed to work but then dosent boot into the os. it panicks and flickers all icons infinitly. Even used a new ssd. i think there is a deeper issue preventing it from booting into an os somehow because recovery mode works fine. am very confused.

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Answer 6

lenny216 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 12, 2022 11:56 PM in response to HWTech

I installed the ssd in the optical drive slot, now it boots 👍. I’ll get a new SATA cable I guess. Thanks for the help.

Was just confusing that it showed in recovery, made me think it works but explanation makes sense

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Answer 7

lenny216 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 11, 2022 11:34 PM in response to lenny216

just read again, since the mac detects the drive in recovery mode, can it be the SATA cable? i have the thing to install the ssd where the optical drive goes. I will try later and see if it works

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MacBook rapidly flashing prohibited sign, apple logo, and missing folder icon after restoring macOS on it. Reason for restoring was blank screen on start up. (2012 MacBook Pro)

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