MacBook pro flashing folder w/ question mark at startup, Internet recovery

[Elduderino92]

Hi all, this issue began spontaneously, I don't know what triggered it, I take good care of the computer. I've tried to start up while holding command - R, resetting the PRAM, etc to no avail. I'm an engineering student and I'm on this thing all day so I'm beginning to get anxious.

Command R takes me to Internet recovery, but I get an error message every time saying Apple.com/support, 6003F. I've looked this up and nothing has helped, I would appreciate some help on this one!

 

[Fishrrman]

Which MacBook Pro?
Retina or non-retina model?
Platter based hard drive or internal SSD?

The question mark at startup means no bootable version of the OS has been found. It could indicate a failed hard drive, either software corruption or a physical failure of the drive itself.

If the drive inside has had a hardware failure, internet recovery won't work because it needs "a good drive" on which to download and install.

I realize this doesn't help at the moment, but if you had a bootable backup drive, you would not be flopping around like a fish on the ground right now.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi all, this issue began spontaneously, I don't know what triggered it, I take good care of the computer. I've tried to start up while holding command - R, resetting the PRAM, etc to no avail. I'm an engineering student and I'm on this thing all day so I'm beginning to get anxious.

Command R takes me to Internet recovery, but I get an error message every time saying Apple.com/support, 6003F. I've looked this up and nothing has helped, I would appreciate some help on this one!

Sounds like you have a bad drive there. Or less likely, a bad drive cable if your model is one that still uses a cable.

That 6003F message I believe is because you are trying to access a network not supported by Internet recovery. Take a look at this.

Do you have a Time Machine or other backup drive you can try to boot to to test the internal drive?

 

[kolax]

Your OS has become corrupt, and chances are a failing disk caused it. I hope you have a backup, but if not, you may be able to recover data if you've got things you can't lose.

Once you get Internet Recovery working, you can launch Disk Utility and try repairing the disk. You could also clone the disk to an external drive so you can try recover data (by using the command line utility dd).

 

[Elduderino92]

Unfortunately, I don't have a back up, yes that is regrettable but there's nothing I can do now. So, if I used a different wi fi network Internet recovery could work ? I'd like to fix this without taking it in to the repairs, if I've lost data it's not a big deal.

 

[Weaselboy]

Unfortunately, I don't have a back up, yes that is regrettable but there's nothing I can do now. So, if I used a different wi fi network Internet recovery could work ? I'd like to fix this without taking it in to the repairs, if I've lost data it's not a big deal.

If you were able to get on a wifi network and DL recovery, you could try using Disk Utility to repair the disk, but I am not optimistic. Usually if it is bad enough that you are getting that ? mark, the drive is done for and needs to be replaced.