Flashing folder when I startup

[rbasra]

Hi guys,

I tried turning my macbook on and after being stuck at the white screen for a couple minutes a folder started flashing. I have tried resetting the PRAM, and also starting the disk utility through the recovery disk, however when I launch the disk utility it doesnt show the harddrive in the devices and only lists the cd/dvd drive. I have about 10-15 gigs of music that I need on my laptop, is there any way to recover that, and if so how? I dont want to reinstall the OS because I will lose all my data.

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[macdatadrive]

Although you probably know this, the flashing folder means that there is no OS being detected. One thing, although expensive that you could do would be taking it into the apple store and see if they can restore the HDDs contents. If you had an external enclosure you could use that on another computer to see if your files are still there. On a MacBook pro though, I think you can't do that.

 

[keysersoze]

This flashing folder on boot happened to my wife's 2009 13" MBP about a month ago. I assumed it was a dead hard drive-- since it was under Applecare, I took it into the shop.

Turns out the cable from the logic board to the Hard Drive had died! I hadn't heard of that happening, but the Apple tech says he has seen "a lot" (whatever that means) of them lately.

All of her data was fine and the hard drive was fine... after the cable was replaced it was all good.

 

[GGJstudios]

This may help: Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

 

[rbasra]

Update

I finally took my laptop to the apple store yesterday, and luckily it was just the cable that had gone bad, so my laptop is functional again. Woo =)


On a side note, I got used to my new iPad so much, i forgot how heavy those MBPs are - could do proper weights with those. LoL

 

[6daniels]

This flashing folder on boot happened to my wife's 2009 13" MBP about a month ago. I assumed it was a dead hard drive-- since it was under Applecare, I took it into the shop.

Turns out the cable from the logic board to the Hard Drive had died! I hadn't heard of that happening, but the Apple tech says he has seen "a lot" (whatever that means) of them lately.

All of her data was fine and the hard drive was fine... after the cable was replaced it was all good.

same thing happen with my 2009 13inch Macbook Pro, I'm taking it to the Apple store this week. I hope it's just a dead cable..