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Need Help! Flashing grey folder with a question mark

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Dannygarza91

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 20, 2013
5
0
I have a macbook and it starts up but then a flashing grey folder with a question mark pops up i tried holding the comand-r/comand-s/shift nothing happens. :( i tried i tried to press option an all that pops up is the courser i need some help.

info: Macbook a1278
 
Dannygarza91 said:
I have a macbook and it starts up but then a flashing grey folder with a question mark pops up i tried holding the comand-r/comand-s/shift nothing happens. :( i tried i tried to press option an all that pops up is the courser i need some help.

info: Macbook a1278
Click to expand...

What you have described usually points towards a problem with the hard drive. When you hold down the option key at boot, do you see any icons or is it just a blank screen? Do you have access to a osx install dvd. Boot from an osx install dvd, go into disc utility and see if it's possible to repair the disk.
 
madmacfan said:
What you have described usually points towards a problem with the hard drive. When you hold down the option key at boot, do you see any icons or is it just a blank screen? Do you have access to a osx install dvd. Boot from an osx install dvd, go into disc utility and see if it's possible to repair the disk.
Click to expand...

i have a blank screen an no i do not have a install dvd
 
I had the same problem as well. It turned out to be the hard drive corrupted, so Apple replaced the hard drive for me.
Happened again, so I changed to SSD myself and reinstalled OSX. All works perfectly for 6 months!
 
Dannygarza91 said:
No I don't have apple care I purchased it from a guy on Craigslist
Click to expand...

As others mentioned, this is almost certainly a bad hard drive. Your Macbook uses a standard 2.5 inch laptop drive. Just go to Best Buy or Walmart whatever you have in town and grab a new drive and install it. If you check the iFixit web site they have walkthroughs how to swap the drive.

If you have a Time Machine backup with Lion 10.7.2 or better you can option key boot to the backup drive and restore.

Otherwise you are probably best off just calling 1800MYAPPLE and they will sell you a Snow Leopard DVD for $19.99.
 
Like others have said it is probably a bad hard drive, but it could also be the hard drive cable. I've had this issue a lot with my mid-2009 MacBook Pro which is very similar to yours.
 
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