How To Fix Mac Folder With Question Marks

Few things are more frustrating than trying to start your Mac and finally getting to the dreaded Mac folder with a question mark. You’ve probably tried using keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+R, CTRL+Option+R or Shift+CTRL+Option+R but you still get the folder icon flashing on startup.

While this may strike your heart as a Mac user, there are known causes and tried-and-tested solutions to help you get your Mac back to normal.

Continue to find out why you got the folder with the question mark in the middle of the screen and how you can fix the problem. While this issue is more common on older Macs, we will try to address the same issue for newer Mac models.

Causes of Flashing Mac Folder with Question Marks

There are several reasons why the folder with a question mark may appear on your Mac’s screen:

• Your Mac cannot find a bootable volume. This means that it cannot find the startup disk, so it cannot boot or start up. Chances are you’ve booted your Mac from an external disk before and then unplugged it, or its hard disk failed badly, so it’s having trouble locating the system folder or boot directory.
• Corrupted macOS.
• Corrupted system files.
• Hard disk drive failed badly.
• The external disk you are booting to may be turned off or disconnected.
• The ribbon cable connecting the drive to the motherboard may be damaged. This cable sits between the bottom case and the optical drive, and if there are notches in the same area of ​​the case, the cable may be the problem.

Boot Your Mac From the Installation DVD (For Older Macs)

This will force your Mac to boot from the installation DVD inserted in the optical drive. For this you have to follow these steps:

Stage 1: Insert the installation DVD that came with your Mac into the optical drive and reboot. You can use this disc, or if you have a newer version of macOS, you can use a newer disc for the same purpose.

step 2: After you hear the boot chime, press and hold the C key or Option key on your keyboard until you see the Install Disk or Apple logo.

note: If you are using 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, or 10.9 Mavericks, boot from the recovery partition and then repair the OS 10.7 or 10.8 partition using Disk Utility.

Stage 3: When your Mac starts up, select the language you will use, press the Return key on your keyboard and a Setup window will open. Ignore this window and click Utilities and then Disk Utility.

Step 4: If you see your hard drive listed, click your macOS partition for the hard drive, and then select the First Aid tab.

step 5: Next, run Repair Disk. Click the macOS partition of your hard drive to enable this button. If this fixes any issues, run it again until you see the green OK and then run Repair Permissions.

Step 6: Finally, use Startup Disk to select your hard drive to reboot your Mac from the hard drive. If it’s not recognized under Disk Utility, it’s probably dead.

Get Your Mac into Recovery Mode

If you’re trying to boot from your Mac’s internal drive, you’ll need to shut down the computer and then start it up while holding down Command+R until the globe or Apple logo appears. This will put your Mac into Recovery Mode and then you can change the startup disk by selecting the option from the Apple Menu.

Recovery Mode is useful when your Mac does not boot normally because the startup disk is damaged or corrupted.

It could be due to corrupted files or slight power fluctuations that you are not aware of, but it solves the problem without having to go through excessively lengthy actions like reinstalling your macOS.

note: If macOS Recovery is not working, you can boot using an external Mac startup disk or bootable installer.

Replace Disk

If the Mac folder with question marks appears due to your disk failing, all you can do is replace the disk and use the time capsule or other backup device you used to recover your data to the new disk.

Backup Data and Reinstall macOS

If Disk Utility cannot repair your startup disk, you may need to reformat it. Before doing this, make a backup of all important data on the disk before deleting everything stored on it. If you do not have a recent backup of data for your startup disk, you can follow these steps to back up your data to an external drive:

Stage 1: Connect an external drive similar to or larger than your startup disk. Erase the external drive using macOS Recovery and then install macOS on it. Select the external disk you want to erase, not your startup disk.

step 2: Your Mac will automatically reboot from the external drive after macOS is installed. When you see the Setup Assistant, choose the option you want to use to move data from another disk and choose the startup disk on your Mac as the source to move the data from.

Stage 3: After the migration, follow the setup assistant instructions to the end and verify that all your data is on the external drive when you see your desktop.

Step 4: Erase your startup disk and reinstall macOS (do not select your external drive) using macOS Recovery. After you erase the disk and install macOS, your Mac will automatically reboot and the setup assistant will appear. Copy your data to your startup disk by choosing the option to move data from a Time Machine backup or another disk, in this case your external drive.

note: If you can’t erase the startup disk or reinstall macOS, take your Mac to an Apple Genius or authorized service provider for repair.

Get Your Mac Back

We hope you now know what to do when you find the Mac folder flashing with a question mark on your screen. Try the fixes above and let us know what worked for you.

Next: Want to reduce the boot time of your Windows PC? Our next article shows you how to do this using Quick Start.