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Folder w/ Question Mark at Start Up - Hard Drive is Fine

T

techie4life

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2007
355
0
Georgia
It has been awhile since I've posted, but this forum has always been helpful to me, and I have a pretty serious issue, so it's time to post again!

I have a mid-2009 model MacBook Pro. 2.53 Core 2 Duo, with an upgraded 320Gb 7200 RPM WD Black hard drive and 8 gigs of RAM. I do a lot of video and photo editing, hence the RAM upgrade, and I'm afraid I might have killed my computer.

The other day, I went to boot up, and I got a white screen with a gray folder and question mark flashing in the middle. After doing some research on my phone (that's my only computer), I found out that the issue is most likely caused by either a bad hard drive, or a bad hard drive cable. I got my installation DVD and tried to boot from it and run Disk Utility, but my Hard Drive wasn't showing up. However, I listened to the drive, and could tell that it was spinning just fine. I ordered a new hard drive cable, because I had read that that cable is a wear item, and many people had problems with them failing. The cable came in today, and I replaced it just fine, but I'm still getting the white screen and flashing folder. Just to confirm my suspicions that the drive is still good, I took it out and put it in my friends MBP, which I am typing on right now. The drive is absolutely fine!

So my question is, any ideas? I'm afraid that it might be the logic board, which wouldn't be a fun repair to make, and quite costly at that.

Thanks in advance.
 
duervo said:
I would try this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I've tried that several times.

Update: While my HD was in my friends computer, I formatted a flash drive I had laying around and put the Mountain Lion installer on it. I used an extra 32Gb SD card that I have, and went through the installer and installed 10.8 on the SD card. So, I technically have a "working" computer, but it's nowhere near "working". It still won't recognize my HD anywhere...but it 100% works.
 
Are you able to boot your friend's MBP off your drive, or are you merely just mounting it as an external drive to view its contents to test that it can be seen?

If you're just mounting to look at its contents, I would try booting your friend's system from it. It's possible that something may have gotten corrupted on the drive that prevents it from being used as a boot device (i.e.: bad sectors near the start of the drive can cause boot issues.)

Also, try a verify/repair on the drive while it's attached to your friend's MBP.
 
duervo said:
Are you able to boot your friend's MBP off your drive, or are you merely just mounting it as an external drive to view its contents to test that it can be seen?

If you're just mounting to look at its contents, I would try booting your friend's system from it. It's possible that something may have gotten corrupted on the drive that prevents it from being used as a boot device (i.e.: bad sectors near the start of the drive can cause boot issues.)

Also, try a verify/repair on the drive while it's attached to your friend's MBP.
Click to expand...

I was able to boot my friend's MBP from my drive, not just mounting it as an external drive.
 
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