Question mark folder...

[Charlee78]

Hey guys! Discovered this forum last week and I wonder where it was all my life!! Thanks in advance for anyone who read this!

I have an old macbook pro 3.1 that I keep for parts but with this forum there might be a chance I could save the thing. I get the question mark folder when I boot it. Everything I did try so far:

-Replaced the hard drive with a known working unit
-Replaced the hard drive cable assembly with a known working unit
-Created a USB flash drive with El Capitan install. I am able to select usb when holding option at startup but then screen stays grey after selecting the usb installer. I did try the usb drive in another Mac and it loads fine.
-Try to load windows 7 via dvd drive. Holding option dosen't show the disc. Might be the drive that is defect, I don't know
-Holding keys while booting:
-D: Goes to question mark
-Option+D: Goes to question mark
-Option+R: Goes to question mark
-Option+Cmd+P+R: Reboots and goes to question mark
-Holding power button: Flashes the led and then reboots to the question mark
-Holding option key shows the hard drive, the recovery disc and the usb flash drive, when selecting any of these the screen goes grey and nothing else happen, except the led on the flash drive goes crazy like if the computer is working.
I'm guessing the bios just doesn't know where to find the boot.efi. On more recent MacBooks there is a chip you can buy with a fix for that but not in my case...

 

[tromboneaholic]

A bad hard drive ribbon cable causes this 90% of the time. If you replaced the cable, I'd try swapping it again in case it got damaged.

 

[Charlee78]

I know for a fact it's not the problem because I took the cable from the macbook pro I use everyday to test and it works right now.

 

[_Kiki_]

re-flash the EFI can be a solution

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

-Option+R: Goes to question mark

You are supposed to use Command+R, not Option+R.

 

[Charlee78]

re-flash the EFI can be a solution

Okay, How can I do that?
[doublepost=1544538797][/doublepost]

You are supposed to use Command+R, not Option+R.

I will try that as soon as I get home but I'm pretty sure that's what I did.
[doublepost=1544540665][/doublepost]I found a way to replace the efi but as I cannot load from disk I was wondering if I can do it from USB stick?

https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...book-and-is-it-possible-to-restore-a-previous

And I found this too:

https://www.lifewire.com/mac-firmware-restoration-2259978

 

[Charlee78]

Update! I tried to hold the power button like stated in lifewire to get into recovery mode but I got a long beep and a reboot. After that I held option and it loaded the lion installer. Everything went smoothly and it works as it should!

Well except for the screen that is dark, not like I need a flashlight to se it but compared to my other macbook pro it's like when I set the brightness half way.