No startup drive found!

[yamaka122]

Ok,so I was playing with kubuntu linux and I decided to install it on an external hard disk. After a successful installation I powered off, took out the external hd, and powered up again. However, all that was (and still is) there is a flashing folder. Pushing options does nothing. So I inserted the Mac OSx disc and went to the disk utility and the same amount of data as before this was there. So I clicked repair and it said it was ok. Then I did two reinstallations of the OS one updated and one archive and reinstall. However I continue to get the same thing! Could this be a hardware problem?

(My warranty is still good but would using linux voided it?)

Thank you in advance

It is a Macbook running (or was running) the latest version of OSx

 

[BlueRevolution]

Could this be a hardware problem?

No.

It sounds like there's a problem with the boot sector of your computer's hard drive. There may be some easy way to fix this, but the way I know of is as follows.

1) Back up your system. If you can't boot to it, you may have to use Terminal from the OS X installer to copy everything onto an external drive.
2) Using Disk Utility, select the drive, go to the Partition tab, and choose a 1-partition volume scheme. Click Options and select GUID Partition Table. Name the partition and leave it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
3) Do a fresh install of OS X.
4) Restore your backup.

 

[yamaka122]

Thank you

Thank you so much

1.How do you back up the drive in the terminal

2.How did this happen?

 

[BlueRevolution]

1. Make a new folder on your destination drive for the backup, then run:

cp -rv /Volumes/source /Volumes/destinationfolder

Any spaces in the path should be escaped\ like\ this.

2. Blame the Linux installer.

 

[yamaka122]

ok thank you again

1.how do I make sure it backed up correctly? and will everything (including settings) be saved? This will wipe my hard disk right?

2. which option do I choose for reinstall?

 

[yamaka122]

when I enter:
cp -rv /Volumes/source /Volumes/destinationfolder (filling in the correct names)
It says illegal --e then
usage......(then a lot more)