Blinking Question Mark Folder in Macbook Air

Not sure how widespread it is, but mine went 3 weeks before the warranty was up. Couldn't boot into recovery, got it replaced by the Apple store. There are also ones on ebay or through OWC that you could put in if Apple wants too much to replace it. Seem to be hearing a lot more about it right now.

 

I'm starting to wonder if the firmware update that Apple released for Toshiba SSD's several months ago might be a culprit. It's not unknown for previous SSD makers releasing a 'new and improved' firmware that ends up bricking drives.

 

Sorry to hear about the problem.

1. Try booting into internet recovery ('Cmd+R' on boot) and once it finishes loading, look under Utilities in the menu bar (top left) for "Disk Utility". If Disk Utility sees your SSD and it shows the right size (120-128GB or so), that is a good sign. Run verify disk, and check disk permissions for good measure.

2. You can also run the hardware test at home. You get into it by pressing 'D'. That can help identify the problem. My SSD failed, and this option froze midway through the test.

Good luck.

 

^^^^Or, if you have an external USB drive with an OS on it you could start it from there.

Lou

 

You don't need all your sectors to go bad to take out a SSD. Sometimes they just die for no apparent reason. What's troubling is the vast majority are toshiba/sandforce 2012 ssds.

 

Another dead toshiba sandforce drive. This is e third thread i have read on here about this this week. Sandforce is crap, owc uses sandforce also. If you buy a new ssd dont get it from owc and dont get a toshiba with a sandforce controller

 

Check your hard drive cable. I had the same occurrence with my MBP and HDD. Apple replaced the cable and all of my data was still there. Unfortunately they must use cheap cables that burn out if you hard restart a lot.

 

same exact problem and configuration!!! happened to me a few days ago. prior to the problem, was your computer crashing an unusual amount of times?

 

Where is a good source of mba 2012 ssd drives that isn't apple or owc?

 

^^^^I don't believe that there is another solution However, just throwing this out, you could put a large capacity USB3 Flash Drive in one of the USB slots. Not very elegant, but maybe hold you over in the short run.

Lou

 

(A pic showing the 2012 MBA SSD drive - courtesy of ifixit.com)

Oh how I wish it was a 2009/2010 MBP problem of just a sata cable. If Apple used a standard msata interface I could drop a 512gb Crucial Msata card in there (and have money leftover for a steak dinner for 2!) for the price Apple is charging for a 128gb drive replacement.

My previous 2012 MBA was upgraded with a Samsung 256gb SSD that was purchased used off of Ebay. They will sometimes pop up time to time for a decent price. Got mine for $260.

 

Wow, this exact thing just happened to me 2 days ago. Same setup, bought brand new in June 2012. I don't know what to do now that it's out of warranty. I'm checking to see if the Visa I bought it on has an extended warranty on my purchase.
Maybe if this is a widespread issue, then there should be a recall.

 

Maybe if this is a widespread issue, then there should be a recall

I bought my MacBook Air 12 months and 3 weeks ago.

It has jammed a few times when using i movie. I turned it off using the on/off switch and restarted normally each time. Apart from that, just a normal Mac that works.

It died on me last night, and I've tried everything suggested on here to get it started, but nothing works.

It just returns to the white screen with the question mark folder.

This is my fourth Mac computer, and I've had a very good innings from the previous 3, all of them are still operational, albeit a little slow.

It's disappointing to say the least, to find this problem on a product that's barely had 12 months of use. I'll return it to be repaired, and investigate where I stand in terms of warranty, but after reading numerous posts concerning this problem, my gut feeling is to GET A NEW ONE.