Few things are as annoying as trying to start your Mac and ending up with the dreaded Mac folder with a question mark. Maybe you’ve tried using keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+R, CTRL+Option+R or Shift+CTRL+Option+R, but you still get the flashing folder icon on startup.
While this may scare you as a Mac user, there are known causes for this as well as tried and tested solutions that will help you get your Mac back to life. back to normal state.
Follow along to find out why you get a folder with a question mark in the middle of the screen and how you can solve the problem. While this issue is more common on older Macs, we’ll try to resolve the same issue for newer Mac models as well.
What causes Mac folder to flash with question mark
There are several reasons why a folder with a question mark appears on your Mac desktop:
- Your Mac cannot find a bootable drive. That means it can’t find its startup disk, so it can’t boot or boot. Maybe you’ve booted your Mac from an external drive in the past and then unplugged it, or your hard drive has failed so badly that it’s having trouble locating the system or startup folder. motion.
- macOS is broken.
- System files are corrupted.
- The hard drive has failed miserably.
- The external disk that you boot from may be turned off or disconnected.
- The ribbon cable that connects the drive to the motherboard may be damaged. This cable sits between the bottom case and the optical drive, and if the case has a dent in the same area, the cable could be the problem.
Boot Your Mac From the Installation DVD (For Older Macs)
This process forces your Mac to boot from the installation DVD located in the optical drive. For that, you must follow these steps:
Step 1: Put the installation DVD that came with your Mac in the optical drive and reboot. You can use that disc, or if you have a newer version of macOS, use the newer disc for the same purpose.
Step 2: When you hear the startup chime, hold down the C key on your keyboard or the Option key until you see the Install Disk or Apple icon appear.
Note: Boot from the recovery partition if you are using 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, then repair the OS 10.7 or 10.8 partition using Disk Utility.
Step 3: When your Mac boots, choose the language you’ll use, press Return on your keyboard, and the Settings window will open. Ignore this window and click Utilities and then Disk Utility.
Step 4: If you see your hard disk in the list, click your macOS partition for the hard drive, then select the First Aid tab.
Step 5: Next, run Repair Disk. To enable this button, click the macOS partition on your hard drive. If this fixes any issues, run them all again until you see green OK, and then run Repair Permissions.
Step 6: Finally, use Startup Disk to select your hard drive to reboot your Mac from the hard drive. If it’s not recognized in Disk Utility, it’s probably dead.
Put your Mac in Recovery Mode
If you’re trying to boot from your Mac’s internal drive, you’ll need to shut down the computer, then start the computer while holding down Command + R until the globe or the Apple logo appears. That will put your Mac in Recovery Mode, then you can change the startup disk by choosing the option from the Apple Menu.
Recovery mode is useful when your Mac doesn’t start up properly due to a corrupted or damaged startup disk.
That could be caused by corrupt files or a slight voltage spike without your knowledge, but it fixes problems that don’t take you too long, such as doing a reinstall of your macOS.
Note: You can boot with an external Mac boot disk or a bootable installer if macOS Recovery doesn’t work.
Replace disc
If a Mac folder with a question mark appeared because your drive failed, the only thing you can do is replace the drive and use a time capsule or other backup device you’re using to restore it. restore your data to the new drive.
Backup data and reinstall macOS
If Disk Utility can’t repair your boot drive, you may have to reformat it. Before doing that, back up any important data from the disk before deleting anything stored on it. You can do the steps below to back up your data to an external drive if you don’t have a recent backup of your data for your startup disk:
Step 1: Connect an external drive the same size or larger than your boot drive. Erase the external drive using macOS Recovery and then install macOS on it. Select the external drive you want to erase, not the boot drive.
Step 2: Once macOS is installed, your Mac will automatically reboot from the external drive. When you see Setup Assistant, choose the option you want to use to move data from another drive, and choose the startup drive on your Mac as the source to move the data.
Step 3: After the migration, follow the setup assistant instructions all the way through and when you see your screen, confirm that all your data is on the external drive.
Step 4: Erase your startup disk with macOS Recovery and reinstall macOS (don’t select your external drive). After wiping the disc and installing macOS, your Mac will automatically reboot and the setup assistant will appear. Copy your data to the startup disk by selecting the option to move data from a Time Machine backup or another disk, in this case your external drive.
Note: If you can’t erase the boot drive or reinstall macOS, take your Mac to Apple Genius or an authorized service provider for repair.
Get Your Mac Back
We hope you now know what to do when you find a blinking Mac folder with a question mark on the screen. Try the fixes above and let us know which works for you.
Next: Want to reduce the boot time of your Windows PC? Our next article shows you how to do that using Quick Launch.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
