My computer is showing a File Folder with a ? Symbol! PLEASE HELP!!!

Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive

Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.

When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.

Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive

Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:

1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the left mouse button until the disc ejects.

2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard.

3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.

4. Press COMMAND-E.

5. If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:

/usr/bin/drutil eject

If this fails then try this:

Boot the computer into Single-user Mode. At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.

noel_95 wrote:

Also i cant seem to get my cd out of the drive! If ylu could help me with this I'd be really thanksful! Thanks so much again!

You didn't try to install Linux did you?

If you did you have more problems to fix. 😁

First of all, CALM DOWN. Need to have a cool head while doing system recovery to avoid causing more damage.

The quickest and safest way to save all your valuable files before anything else happens is to find someone with a Mac similar to yours (at least in terms of ports and MacOS X version). Buy/borrow a FireWire cable (800 to 800 if both Macs are unibody). Turn your Mac off, connect it to the other Mac with the FireWire cable. Start your Mac on while holding the T key down, a FireWire icon will appear onscreen and the Mac will not boot up. On the other Mac, an icon will appear: that is your Mac's hard disk drive. Copy over all the files you want to save. When you are done, you can try reparing your Mac's drive with the other Mac's Disk Utility program.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

noel_95 wrote:

It doesn't show the apple logo but rather a File Folder with a ? Symbol!

That's the firmware telling you it can't find a bootable drive or partition.

The drive could be dead or simply it can't find what it's looking for, like the Startup Disk if it got changed somehow.

I CANNOT lose my information on my harddrive cause I have very IMPORTANT work on there!

Well your data is still on the drive, as long as it's mechanically working it can be recovered.

So I don't have a start up disk for that and the one...

10.7 doesn't come with a boot disk, but a boot partition (or section) on the internal drive.

and the one i have is stuck in my computer right now!

That's the 10.6 disk, it's not going to help you so don't try booting from it unless your going to erase the drive., which you don't want to do.

Do this.

1: Hold the option key down and reboot the computer, select OS X Lion and boot.

2: If you get in, go to your System Preferences > Startup disk and select the OS X Lion partiton to boot from.

3: Reboot and see if that works.

4: If not reboot holding the command and r keys down, you should boot into the Lion Recovery and Disk Utility is there to repair your OS X Lion Partition.

5: If that fails, then you need to do some data recovery or hire someone to fix your computer.

If under AppleCare or warranty, have Apple do it as it's a defective drive.

6: If you hold command and r keys (or the option key) and nothing happens there is nothing to boot or select, then your drive is dead.

Read through these User Tips

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3046

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3172

Learn to make a backup before disaster strikes

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045

noel_95 wrote:

I think what the problem is is that the hard drive is dead because it's not showing up when I hold control!

Try again with the option key pressed down, you should have a selection of OS X Lion and a Lion Recovery.

Or at least Lion Recovery, choose that. If it starts up your drive is fine, it's just not OS X that's booting on the other section. Use Disk Utility to repair the OS x Lion.

So what does this mean?

If your drive is dead, then if your under warranty or AppleCare then scheduale a appointment for a replacement hard drive, however they can't recover your data from a dead drive.

Else if your out of warranty/AppleCare you can replace it yourself.

Also i cant seem to get my cd out of the drive!

Kappy's five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive

Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:

1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the left mouse button until the disc ejects. (you need a wired mouse for this)

2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard. (wired or built in keyboard)

3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.

4. Press COMMAND-E. (wired or built in keyboard)

5. If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:

/usr/bin/drutil eject

If this fails then try this:

Boot the computer into Single-user Mode. (single user mode is command and s keys held down at boot)

At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.

Have you tried booting in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key on startup until you see the Apple grey backdrop with the spinning cogwheel and the progress bar? It forces a hardware diagnostics, and boots your system as barebone, with only the kernel extensions that are strictly necessary.

You'll find some interesting information here (yeah, it's old, but most of the keyboard shortcuts and commands are still in use nowadays): http://www.crashdump.fr/apple/les-options-de-boot-sur-mac-os-x-detailles-442/

Normally, you can just keep the Trackpad button (if there's one) clicked down on startup, until your disk comes out. It may take several seconds (up to a minute in a recent test on a friend's MacBook), but it'll come out.

noel_95 wrote:

how do I eject my cd??

Got a wired mouse?

Hold the left mouse button down, or the track button and reboot the computer, keep holding it.