About the screens you see when your Mac starts up
Prohibitory symbol
When you see a circle with a slash symbol instead of the Apple logo, it means your Mac couldn't find a valid System Folder to start up from.
If you're using your Mac at a school or business, it might be trying to start from the wrong version of macOS. Contact your IT department for more help.
If this is your personal Mac, try reinstalling macOS using macOS recovery.
Reinstall El Capitan or Later Without Erasing Drive
Please be sure you back up.
- Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Utility Menu appears.
- Select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
- Select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the side list.
- Click on the First Aid icon in the toolbar. Wait until the Done button activates, then click on it.
- Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
- Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.
Also, see this User Tip: Basic Steps for Upgrading OS X.
Internet/Network Recovery of El Capitan or Later on a Clean Disk
If possible backup your files before proceeding.
- Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the (Command-Option-R) keys until a globe appears.
- The Utility Menu will appear in from 5-20 minutes. Be patient.
- Select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
- When Disk Utility loads select the drive (usually, the out-dented entry) from the side list.
- Click on the Erase tab in Disk Utility's main window. A panel will drop down.
- Set the partition scheme to GUID.
- Set the Format type to APFS (SSDs only) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
- Click on the Apply button, then click on the Done button when it activates.
- Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
- Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.
Note:
1. To install the version of OS X that was currently installed use Command-Option-R.
2. To install the original factory version when the computer was new use Command-Option-Shift-R.
