I have a white intel i mac and when i boot up a file with a question mark shows up

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I have a white intel i mac and when i boot up a file with a question mark shows up

i installed wnow leopard and then attempted to use boot camp to install windows (thats a whole other story though) after i got windows on it and then got it back to the mac side i found i could not get back to the windows side so i attemted to delete the windows partition and recreate my full mac partition (thats not as easy as i thought it would be, anyway i ended up with a partition that said it was the alloted mac partition space and another one, that apperead smaller in disk utility, that said it was 160 gb (my total disk size) while i was trying to fix that i hit the power strip switch with my foot and the whole thing shut down when it booted back up the only thing on the screen was a file with a question mark on it, i think it is just booting from the misconfigured parition but im not sure ive tried inserting my snow leopard and xp system disks but it doesnt seem to be booting from them.

iMac

Posted on Dec 19, 2013 7:26 PM

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Answer 1

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rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,370 points

Dec 19, 2013 7:37 PM in response to pnutbutr

The question mark means your system cannot find the startup volume. Please click Flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac for how to handle it.

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Answer 2

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Dec 19, 2013 7:39 PM in response to pnutbutr

At startup hold down the Option/Alt key t bring up the One time Boot Selection, Startup Manager, screen and then select the OS X install DVD. Give it about 30+ second for the DVD drive to read and display the OS X install DVD.

Then use Disk Utility to Repartition the drive as one partition and then try installing OS X.

Could be you simply killed that drive with all the new installs of OS X and then Windows and then using Disk Utility to erase the Windows partition. If that is the case you'll need to replace the drive before you'll be able to reinstall any OS on it.

In any event Never use Disk Utility to erase a Windows install. Use the Boot Camp Assistant a second tim to Remove Windows and the partition it is installed on.

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Answer 3

pnutbutr Author

Level 1

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Dec 19, 2013 7:49 PM in response to pnutbutr

Thank you for your help but my computer still wont boot from the cd even when i hold the c key and when i press the option key it comes up with a lock and an input field

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Answer 4

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Dec 19, 2013 8:03 PM in response to pnutbutr

The Lock and input field means there is a Firmware password installed. If you don't know that password you'll need to take the system to an Apple store to have it removed

pnutbutr wrote:

Thank you for your help but my computer still wont boot from the cd even when i hold the c key and when i press the option key it comes up with a lock and an input field

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