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Folder with ? at start up

A

andy007

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 16, 2006
103
0
UK
When i turn my macbook on i get a folder with a question mark before the apple logo appears and mac osx starts. It has only recently started to happen. Do's anyone know what this means??

the only system changes ive made since it appeared to happen is installing a new 1gb ram module which i have tested with the apple hardware test and rember and neither reported errors and also un-installing bootcamp.
 
andy007 said:
When i turn my macbook on i get a folder with a question mark before the apple logo appears and mac osx starts. It has only recently started to happen. Do's anyone know what this means??

the only system changes ive made since it appeared to happen is installing a new 1gb ram module which i have tested with the apple hardware test and rember and neither reported errors and also un-installing bootcamp.
Click to expand...

Thats bad, it means it is not detecting a a start up disk. When did it start? Right after you did something, and does it manage to start even though it has the folder or does it stop there? You can put in the disks that came from them, boot of them and run disk utility. Thatll be your best bet.
 
it loads up but everything seems to be running noticably slower. The folder appears at the start after the black screen then disappears when the apple logo appears and logs in as usual.

I have noticed it today after i installed some more ram and un-installed bootcamp. there the only system changes in about a week and it has not been showing the folder at start up all week until today
 
Go to System Preferences in the Apple menu. Select Startup Disk and make sure that your boot drive is selected.
 
fivetoadsloth said:
Thats bad, it means it is not detecting a a start up disk. When did it start? Right after you did something, and does it manage to start even though it has the folder or does it stop there? You can put in the disks that came from them, boot of them and run disk utility. Thatll be your best bet.
Click to expand...

No, it's not that bad. Simply going into System Preferences -> Startup Disk and saying that it is the default should fix the problem. As she said, she uninstalled Boot Camp. ;)
 
Don't take risks. Make a backup of your files.

It probably is only what the poster above me have said. But why risk it? That happened to me about a month ago, and the hard drive died. But in my case the folder with the ? would never disappear.
 
benthewraith said:
No, it's not that bad. Simply going into System Preferences -> Startup Disk and saying that it is the default should fix the problem. As she said, she uninstalled Boot Camp. ;)
Click to expand...

Oooh! Yes, oops i didnt see that part. :eek:

Sorry yeah this is an easy fix, next time however....
 
bousozoku said:
Go to System Preferences in the Apple menu. Select Startup Disk and make sure that your boot drive is selected.
Click to expand...

I have done this and the ? has now disappeared. However the system still seems to be lagging a bit.
 
I have restarted a couple of times now and everything seems to be ok. Cheers for the replies
 
andy007 said:
I have done this and the ? has now disappeared. However the system still seems to be lagging a bit.
Click to expand...

You might use Disk Utility once a week to verify the boot disk and its permissions. There are some odd situations where problems with the disk will appear to be lagging.
 
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