My MacBook doesn’t identify Macintosh HD… Folder with ” ? “ on the screen. Now I'm installing MacOS on external SSD. Any chance to save data on internal?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.7
A folder with a flashing question mark means that your computer's startup disk is no longer available or doesn't contain a working Mac operating system. Here is the procedure to follow in this case: If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support.
Iit is FAR easier to read a few files from slightly damaged drive than to BOOT from a slightly damaged drive.
But without a Trusted Backup, if debugging procedures FAIL, you will eventually have to attempt to ERASE the Internal drive to recover a useable computer. This will remove all your files with no way to recover them.
If you have no backups, you could consider authorizing an External Boot Drive, installing MacOS onto that drive, and booting from that external drive to do extensive repairs and attempt to recover some files from your damaged internal drive.
But exactly as HWTech suggests, a damaged drive may be completely unusable, so all that work might still not yield any files and you still might require a major repair.
If the internal SSD has not failed, then maybe. In my personal experience it is rare these days to see the blinking folder with question mark except for a failing drive.
Edit: Take this as a wake up call that you need to have frequent & regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data. There are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all of the hardware, software, and security changes. Apple makes backups very easy by providing Time Machine with every macOS, but you can also use third party options as well.
MacBook not recognizing Macintosh HD; save internal data?
