Help, My mac starts up with a folder with a question mark.(URGENT)

[ewufibro]

it has apple hhd as a disk then untitled as a volume, then apple ssd as a disk then untitled 2 as a volume.

 

[Jack Neill]

A bit more info on the spec of your machine would be helpful.. In the meantime..

If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support

A folder with a flashing question mark means that your startup disk is no longer available or doesn't contain a working Mac operating system.

support.apple.com

 

[ewufibro]

A bit more info on the spec of your machine would be helpful.. In the meantime..

If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support

A folder with a flashing question mark means that your startup disk is no longer available or doesn't contain a working Mac operating system.

support.apple.com

i am running high seirra on internal and catalina on my external hard drive.

 

[Jack Neill]

Have you held down option when you turn it on and tried to boot from both?

 

[ewufibro]

Have you held down option when you turn it on and tried to boot from both?

catalina is fine but high sierra is broken

 

[The Clark]

catalina is fine but high sierra is broken

Sounds like it may have gotten corrupted.

 

[ewufibro]

Sounds like it may have gotten corrupted.

I think the startup disk is.

 

[DeltaMac]

Are the HDD and SSD both internal drives?
Do you have a fusion drive? If both drives are visible, then the fusion drive is likely split, otherwise, you would not see separate drives for both the HDD and the SSD.

Please tell us which Mac you have...

 

[ewufibro]

I think a 2017 imac, and yes it is a fusion drive .

 

[Fishrrman]

The flashing "?" means that the Mac can't find "a bootable copy" of the OS from which to start. This doesn't mean the drive itself "is bad" -- only that there's something wrong with the copy of the OS that impedes booting.

What happens if you boot from Catalina, then open disk utility, select the fusion drive, and try "first aid"...?

 

[DeltaMac]

I think the fusion drive is now split (separate drives, and not a joined volume)

OP, show us a screen shot of your Disk Utility, showing the internal drives.
You could also open your Terminal, then run the command diskutil list. Post the result.

 

[ewufibro]

The flashing "?" means that the Mac can't find "a bootable copy" of the OS from which to start. This doesn't mean the drive itself "is bad" -- only that there's something wrong with the copy of the OS that impedes booting.

What happens if you boot from Catalina, then open disk utility, select the fusion drive, and try "first aid"...?

I did this and it said run first aid from recovery to fix this error

 

[DeltaMac]

So, did that fix your issue?

 

[Jumpthesnark]

I think a 2017 imac, and yes it is a fusion drive .

The fusion drive on my late 2014 5K iMac split, it was random and sudden. I used recovery mode and disk utility to run repairs, but it ended up staying two different drives. I back up weekly, so I just bought a 1TB SSD and the repair tools & sticky tape strips for the monitor, took it apart, installed the SSD and installed the most recent backup. It was a pain but it's been running fine since.