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jessebert

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2010
5
0
When I turn on my Macbook, it boots, but then shows me a a tiny file icon with a "?" in it. After that I can't get it to do anything. When I turn it off, and repeat, the same thing keeps happening. Anyone have this problem, and what can I do to remedy it?
 
Earth

How about this one...just went to turn it on to follow your steps and it gave me a little square with "earth" blinking in the middle of it. then it alternates between the "?" and "finder" icon
 
How about this one...just went to turn it on to follow your steps and it gave me a little square with "earth" blinking in the middle of it. then it alternates between the "?" and "finder" icon

Earth refers to network boot I think. The ? and Finder icon mean that the boot volume could not be found. Please complete the steps in the guide and then report back
 
Steps

Holding down the option button does give me two options...one is a 3/4 circle with an arrow at one end. The other is an arrow pointing to the left. My mouse is "ticking watch", and the hands turn for about a minute, then stop. I can move it around while they are ticking, but then they stop and it no longer functions. The computer at this point is frozen. I also went threw 1-3 and it does nothing. I don't have the hardware disks with me right now so I couldn't do any of the other items.
 
Holding down the option button does give me two options...one is a 3/4 circle with an arrow at one end. The other is an arrow pointing to the left. My mouse is "ticking watch", and the hands turn for about a minute, then stop. I can move it around while they are ticking, but then they stop and it no longer functions. The computer at this point is frozen. I also went threw 1-3 and it does nothing. I don't have the hardware disks with me right now so I couldn't do any of the other items.

You need the install discs in order to troubleshoot it and possibly revive it. If you're under warranty, you could call Apple and let them fix it. If you're not, then I suggest you to search for the install discs and if you cannot find them, call Apple and ask for replacement discs, they only cost like 20 bucks.
 
install disks

Will i lose everything on my computer? We have all our pictures/itunes on it. I don't care about anything else, but i don't want to lose those.
 
Will i lose everything on my computer? We have all our pictures/itunes on it. I don't care about anything else, but i don't want to lose those.

Do you have a backup? If you don't, then you should buy an external HD enclosure and put the hard drive from the MacBook in it and try to copy the data to another computer. It's possible that the hard drive is dead which means that all your data is lost :(
 
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