Start up flashing ? Folder

[taylor200588]

Hey

I've searched the forum and saw people with the same problem. I dropped my MacBook tonight (about 1 foot) while in it's case and when I turned it on the flashing folder with the ? popped up

I've tried booting it in disk utility and the hard drive isn't showing, I've reset the PRAM, I've taken out the hard drive and and popped it back in and still nothing.

Any suggestions welcome! I'm seriously desperate because it has all my university work on it.

Cheers

 

[miles01110]

The flashing folder means your machine can't find the startup volume. You probably ruined your hard drive when you dropped your machine. You should buy a replacement hard drive and re-install OS X from your grey restore discs.

As far as recovering your data- unless you're willing to pay an exorbitant rate, it's pretty much gone.

 

[MacDawg]

Here is the support article

 

[taylor200588]

Dam

ok thank you for your help

 

[brdnboy]

The flashing folder means your machine can't find the startup volume. You probably ruined your hard drive when you dropped your machine. You should buy a replacement hard drive and re-install OS X from your grey restore discs.

As far as recovering your data- unless you're willing to pay an exorbitant rate, it's pretty much gone.

I would agree with the first part. Go ahead and get a new drive and reinstall OS X as soon as possible. Try not to use the current drive (power on the machine) for the time being in hopes of the data being salvageable. There are lots of great recovery softwares available for the Mac. Depending on how damaged the drive is you may be able to recovery some, and maybe even all of your data. I would put the damaged drive in an external enclosure and try some of the recovery software out. If you have a good current backup then no need to recover. Just destroy the old drive and restore your back up and your all set.

 

[taylor200588]

im taking the mac to the Apple store in Aberdeen on tuesday, with a bit of luck they can give me some help!

regarding backing up! the external hard drive I used was too small then it wouldnt back up so i havent backed up in months. I know, completely my own fault!

What really annoys me is the fact it wasnt that big a fall and dont macbooks have sudden motion sensors in them to stop this kind of thing from happening?!?