Flashing ? on startup

[gmanrules123]

I've had my mac for about a year after someone gave it to me. I think it's pretty old, I'd say about 5 years maybe. Its using snow leopard right now. I was on safari yesterday and once I opened my email the computer froze. Mouse and everything. So I held the power button down to turn it off and when I turned it back on there was a flashing folder with a ? on it.

I looked this up on google but every thing I found told me to put a disk in the computer. I can't do this because I dont have the disk and the disk drive is broken anyway. Anyone know how to fix this?

 

[iLog.Genius]

It means that the HDD is either going or the files on the HDD are corrupted or not readable thus preventing the computer from finding an OS or HDD. At this point, I don't think it's worth it to spend time troubleshooting with so much gone bad.

 

[gmanrules123]

There has to be a way. Even a way to completely restore the computer would be fine.

 

[mrsir2009]

It means the computer can't find an operating system or the hard drive/files on it are corrupt.

 

[gmanrules123]

It means the computer can't find an operating system or the hard drive/files on it are corrupt.

So how to I fix it?

 

[iLog.Genius]

If it's an older Mac, the only way at this point would to have a second Mac with FireWire 400 to use through Target Disk Mode. Without a working SuperDrive, there's not much you can do.

 

[franko v]

This happened to my mid-2007 MacBook -

I replaced it in 2008 (I had to pay for a new HDD) - but I happened upon this article a few months ago...

http://www.apple.com/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/

I'm not sure if your MacBook falls under this window, or even if it does whether you NOT being the original owner can get it replaced, BUT it doesn't hurt to find out from Apple.