flashing ? folder + recovery mode won't launch?

[wavymedia]

This is awful. My mac was running fine, then My mouse pointer turned into the wheel, I had to start force quitting apps, and that didn't work so I restarted the machine.

Now when I try to launch I just get a flashing '?' folder.

So I want to open recovery mode by holding cmd+R, but this doesn't work and all I get is the flashing folder.

Running El Capitan, 2008 macbook pro (yeah pretty old but I recently added a samsung SSD which the system is installed on and upgraded ram. It runs very well)

Does anyone know what I can do about this?

thanks

 

[Alrescha]

Does anyone know what I can do about this?

That sounds like hard drive failure (or cable, etc., etc.). If you still have the old drive, you might swap it back in and see if everything else works. If that is the late 2008, I think it is a pretty easy swap.

A.