How to fix Flashing Folder with Question Mark on Mac

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I encountered the same problem today. Tried to open an app, went grey screen, and then when I had to manually restart, I got the flashing question mark folder.

I'm on an iMac (2012? It's one of the curved back ones with no disc slot) running Mavericks.

I was able to use Command-R to get to the Internet Recovery utility upon restart. Disk utility originally gave me the green text when I ran Repair Disc - but I either forgot to do Repair Permissions or it wasn't activated (greyed out).

1st attempt was to Restore from Time Machine Backup - fortunately I had backed up just prior.

But that only gave an error that said "Error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disc." Tried it again - same error.

Then I tried reinstalling OSX from Internet Recovery (in this case, Mountain Lion). After 2 hours or so waiting for that to reinstall, it came back with an "Error while trying to install Mountain Lion" message. Tried it again, no go.

Then after re-reading these instructions, I realized I hadn't run "Repair Disc permissions" - so I tried Disk Utility again, and this time got the red lines: "Volume MacIntosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired" and "Disk Utility can't repair this disc. Back up as many files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore from backed up files"

I'm guessing this means the HD is walking dead and I need to get to the Apple Store to get it looked at ASAP. But is it worth trying to reformat the disk?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Yes it sounds like a dying hard drive.

If it were me, I'd try erasing (reformatting) even if there's little chance of success - as a troubleshooting step.

(someone here recently had similar issues and it turned out to be the drive ribbon cable - replaced free at the Apple store.)

I reformatted the HD (erased) and then I tried to reinstall OSX. Much to my surprise, it actually started to install (I received error message before), but now it seems to be stuck. The progress bar is about 1mm in, and it says "time remaining: about 20 minutes" but it's been stuck there for about the past 45 minutes.

I'd wait another 20 minutes, and if it doesn't progress, I'd conclude the hard drive (or cable) has failed.

Have you tried creating an external bootable drive and restarting from that?

If boot is successful, that confirms the internal has failed.

I bailed on the stalled OSX installation. Now attempting to restore from backup. Seems to be restoring - so far. 40% of 2TB according to the progress bar - 5.5 hours to go.

It worked! Fully restored - up and running! Phew!

Thanks for the help everyone!

I had this issue today morning while installing 10.10.3 and this is was I did.

1) I forced shut down the mac by pressing and holding the power button.

2) I booted the machine in recovery mode. (for those who dont know, you have to press and hold the command+R buttons and then press and hold the power button till your machine starts OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support)

3) Once the machine booted in the recover mode, You'll be presented with options like restore from time machine, reinstall OSX, etc.

4) Now click the apple logo on the top left. There will be an option called "Startup Disk".

5) Click it, it'll open a window showing available hard drives

6) Select the hard drive in which the OS is installed and click the restart button.

Your machine should boot up (atleast it booted up for me)

Hope this helps.

I had this same question mark folder flashing problem. I would hear the disk every time I turned my Macbook off and back on. I tried that about 8 times, and had the flashing question mark folder every time. I turned the computer off, and slapped the bottom of it a few times, (NO JOKE), and turned it on again. It worked, and I have had no issues since. I figured the disk just got jammed up or something.

tthanks a lot double wire.....as silly as the recommendation might sound it worked for me as well. I really appreciate your post.

After starting recovery by pressing command+R, I opened disk utility to repair, but my hard drive isn't in the list on the left.

Urgent help please:(

so my Mac died with that stupid flashing question mark ,now it is with Apple authorised ppl ,firs they said it might be the drive(utility and all that stuff wifi and so on not showing any hard)after they took it out seams still working,then 2 days later they change the cable from m.board to hard as second thing and saying still not working,now they want to run next diagnose to see what it is .can someone tell me please what can it be since they are saying they will need to look at it for next 7 days ,can I trust them or they just going to s... things up?

Can be perhaps the logic board or just the chip on logic board or shall they just try to plug in a new hard drive ? Help pls

I have accidentally deleted all the contents on my iMac late 2012, with no CD Drive. The folder with the question mark has come up, and I have tried to put it in Recovery mode, Target Mode, and even had my hard drive attach to see if it could recognize the external hard drive. The folder is still coming up and flashing. Not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

hello. Help me please.

I just got at macbook pro (mid 2012) from a friend. Going to use it in addition to my mac mini on recordings music in church. I was following disk utility - erase to start fresh. Now I only get the question mark. I get it - I erased to much. But how can I get the macbook to start up again.

hoping for help. 🙂

So anyways. I had this same issue in the morning. I'll explain it a bit more so you get an understanding of specifically what went wrong.

I got the question mark in the middle of the folder. Following the tutorials, I used Command + R to go into recovery mode, but my HD was not there so I could not use disk utility or reinstall mac OSX Lion.

Given the absence of my HD, I realized that most likely my HD is not damaged as I have fixed my friends macs and if it is damaged, disk utility usually gives the pertinent error or at least shows the HD.

After researching I found you can have a few things that might need tweaking. So I opened up the macbook from the back and pulled my HD out and put it back. That will most likely do nothing, but if your SATA connection is messed up at the HD end, it will resolve that issue. The SATA Connection is the black clip that connects to the HD. PS: To take the HD out, you need to take out the 2 screws adjacent to the HD (BLACK BRACKET WITH 2 BLACK SCREWS).

That did nothing for me either. Anyways. If you continue tracing the sata connection, it extends towards the middle of the macbook where it connects to a chip. There are 2 more connections above this one. I removed the connection and then clipped it back firmly. (JUST THAT ONE). Turned the computer back on and it was as if nothing ever happened.

Thus, from this I can conclude that if your HD is not showing up, and it is properly connected at the HD end there can be 2 issues:

1) The other end of the SATA wire is not connected firmly; or

2) The SATA connection is damaged, which you can either go to apple and get for $60 or from amazon for $34 (subject to very long delivery date)

Hope it helps.

Same thing happened to my Macbook Pro (mid 2012). I tried rebooting and disk repair which worked the first time, then the flashing folder with the question mark came up again the next morning and the reboot would not work. I took it to apple because I could not use it. They told me it was either my hard drive or the hard drive cable. Luckily for me it was just the cable so all my data was still there. Apparently this has been a very common problem for this era of Mac so if it keeps happening, take it to mac because they kindly fixed mine for no charge even though it was out of warranty because they believed it was a faulty cord.