My MacBook iOS 10.6 - blinking question mark at start up and will not open. The only way to temporarily resolve the problem is to remove the hard drive and reinstall it. Works for a while. Any ideas as to what might be causing this? Thanks
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)
Hi Mainer69,
I'm sorry to hear you are having these issues with your MacBook. If you are seeing a persistent flashing question mark (?) when starting up your machine, you may find the troubleshooting steps outlined in the following article helpful:
If a flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac - Apple Support
Regards
I am having this problem too. I have a mid 2012 macbook. I first thought it was a bad harddrive and replaced it. Then thought it was the HD cable and replaced that. I then upgraded the OS to 10.11. Still having the problem. I can unplug and replug in the HD and that fixes it for a day or 2 but the problem comes back where it cant find the internal HD and I get the blinking question mark. If I plug in the original HD externally it works fine as well. So what can cause this type of problem???
I have tried these ideas but no luck. Thanks for the reply though.
HI smu960. Sounds very similar to my problem. Hopefully someone out there can help us.
If your internal HDD works just fine via USB it might be that your SATA cable (connecting the logic board with the harddrive) may be in need of replacement.
Hi Mainer69,
Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities; I'm sorry to hear you are still having this issue. If you have gone through the above linked article completely without reaching a resolution or a direction for further troubleshooting, you may be better served by reaching out to one of Apple's other available resources for more direct assistance - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action
Regards
Hi GhonaZ,
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I have already replaced the SATA cable. Still having the problem.
Hi Mainer69,
Yes, I hope so. I am waiting for it to happen again and then I am going to run a diagnostics to see what it shows. I have run it while it is working and the diagnostics came back with no errors. Maybe if it happens to you first you can try it. To run diagnostics shut down the Mac and restart while holding down the D key. Let me know if you do, Good luck!!
Blinking ? at start up on MacBook 10.6
