If the icon will not change on the desktop but changed in the info window, simply eject / reconnect the drive, or restart your Mac to fix that glitch. Aura, Mercury Accelsior, Mercury Electra, Mercury Enterprise, Mercury EXTREME, Mercury Helios, Mercury On-The-Go, and OWC Envoy are trademarks of New Concepts Development Corporation, registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A Command-Click sequence on the icon graphic itself and the contextual menu pops up in the Web browser, including these options: As I've highlighted, choose 'Copy Image' and the hard disk graphic is now in the clipboard. Alexa hands free mac os. Back to the Get Info window for the hard drive.
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Summary: Follow this fix guide when your Mac shows folder with a question mark. You'll know what does this flashing question mark folder mean and how to get rid of it to boot up your Mac again.
Occasionally, you'll see certain error screens when starting up your Mac. That flashing folder with a question mark on Mac is one of those Mac boot errors.
It just appears, with no warning or pop-up in advance. You can't ignore and go past the question folder icon. Many users hope to fix this issue by a restart. However, it won't work in most cases.
Then how could you get rid of the question mark folder and boot up your Mac again?
Here is a quick overview of what you can do before you know the meaning of this flashing folder.
- 1. Manually select the startup drive for Mac
- 2. Reselect the startup disk in macOS Recovery Mode
- 3. Repair the startup drive with Disk Utility
- 4. Reformat the startup drive and reinstall macOS
- 5. Check and replace the startup HDD cable
- 6. Update firmware of your MacBook
- 7. Check the lifeboat connector on the logic board
- 8. Check the faulty SSD socket or hard drive on Mac logic board
What does a folder with a question mark mean on Mac?
The folder with a question mark icon means that your startup disk is detected or the Mac hard drive doesn't contain a usable Mac operating system.
Mac can't find the startup disk or the system folder because of software or hardware errors, which brings out the blinking file folder at startup on your Mac.
Situations you may see the flashing question mark folder on Mac
The reasons for Mac flashing a question mark folder can be varied from cases to cases.
1. The flashing folder shows just at a normal startup
It could happen if you have recently boot from an external system drive. What's more, you would see the icon if you install both Windows and Mac operating systems on your Mac machine. How to ctrl alt delete on mac.
In these cases, you see the flashing folder with question mark simply because of wrong setups. That's to say, your Mac is confused when selecting the startup volume.
2. The folder with question mark shows after new HD or SSD replacement
You could have replaced the Mac internal hard drive recently for better performance. If you're sure that you have a macOS on the new drive, then, the flashing folder might result from faulty connections.
During the disk replacement (or if you have mildly dropped the Mac), the SATA connection could get loose or damaged. So, your Mac has no startup disk to select if the Macintosh HD is not mounted.
3. The flashing folder shows after a recent macOS software update
Sometimes, this Mac has boot problems after or during the macOS update. The system files or the macOS directory could be corrupted. As a result, your Mac has trouble loading the operating system.
4. The Mac shows the question mark folder with clicking or beeping noise
In some cases, your Mac won't boot past the error screen due to hard drive corruption. Or what's worse, the Mac hard drive is severely damaged or even dead.
Hard Disk Icon Mac
There could be some other situations. For example, the Mac boots into a black screen. But no matter how this issue happens, you are going to fix it for sure.
Troubleshooting Mac folder with a question mark issue
You could see the flashing folder on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, or Mac mini. But anyway, you can try these methods one by one.
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1. Manually select the startup drive for Mac
If your Mac displays a flashing question mark at startup, you can wait for a moment and see if it can boot past the icon. If fortunately, it continues booting up, congratulations! But just in case, you can reselect a startup disk in System Preferences > Startup disk.
If you Mac can't boot past the flashing question mark, you can manually select the startup drive. You can do this by restarting your Mac while holding down the Option key.
If you boot from an external drive, you can check these factors.
- Make sure the hard drive is powered on, especially for some desktop drive that needs an external power source.
- Make sure the USB port and cable is working.
Tips: In the case of some older Mac OS X machines, you can boot from the install DVD or CD that comes along with your Mac in the optical drive.
2. Reselect the startup disk in macOS Recovery Mode
When the first methods won't work, you can boot into macOS Recovery Mode. It is part of the built-in recovery system of your Mac, which allows you to reselect the boot volume to get rid of the question mark folder icon.
To do this, you can follow these steps.
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- 1. Force your Mac to shut down by pressing the power button for seconds.
- 2. Identify if you are using an Apple Silicon M1 Mac or not, restart your Mac and immediately press one of these key combinations to boot into macOS Recovery Mode.
- The way to boot into macOS Recovery Mode on M1 Mac is different from old Macs.
- 3. When you see the Apple logo or it's loading recovery options, you can let the keys go.
- Once you see the macOS Utilities window, it means you have booted into macOS Recovery Mode. Some older Macs would show Mac OS X Utilities.
- 4. Then, you can click on the Apple logo at the upper left, choose the Startup Disk option.
- 5. Reselect the correct Mac startup hard drive that holds a macOS.
After you click on the Restart button, your Mac should then start up without the flashing question mark.
Tips: If you can't boot into macOS Recovery Mode from the local recovery system, try Internet Recovery mode by replacing the keys in Step 2 with Option + Command + R (or Shift+ Option + Command + R).
3. Repair the startup drive with Disk Utility
If you can't see any startup option in the Startup Disk window, probably, the startup drive is corrupted and that is the cause for the flashing folder with a question mark on your Mac.
Then, you need to check and repair the hard drive with First Aid to boot your Mac from this drive.
The worst situation is that you don't see your built-in startup disk even in the Disk Utility. It indicates that there's a hardware issue. You need to check the connections of your hard drive or contact the Apple authorized service for Mac repair.
Some other times, the startup drive is showing up in Disk Utility. However, Disk Utility finds issues with your startup disk that it can't repair. In this case, you need to move forward to the next part.
4. Reformat the startup drive and reinstall macOS
Disk Utility can't repair serious corruption inside your startup drive, which means you need to reformat it and assign a new file system.
However, reformatting will wipe your files off the hard drive. If you don't have a backup of your Mac, you would lose important files after reformatting.
So, to prevent data loss, here is your safe guide:
- 1. Rescue data from the unbootable Mac. (Of course, you can ignore this step if you have a backup, or if you don't have anything important on the Mac.)
- 1. Boot your Mac into macOS Recovery Mode and select Disk Utility from macOS Utilities.
- 2. Select the startup drive in Disk Utility and click on the Erase button at the top menu.
- 3. Name it as Macintosh HD, choose GUID scheme, and APFS format if you want to use macOS 10.13 and later.
Now, you'll have a fresh new Mac hard drive but it contains no Mac operating system. To boot your Mac up without the flashing folder with question mark, continue with reinstalling macOS.
How to Reinstall macOS to start up the Mac?
Here is a guide to reinstall macOS to start up your MacMacBook Pro, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and iMac. Read more >>
5. Check and replace the startup HDD SATA connections
You internal Mac hard dirve is working on the basis of HDD cable transmitting the electronic signals between the logic board and the hard disk drive. Therefore, once it's loose, damaged, broken, or deformed, you might get the Mac folder with quesiton mark at startup.
Does wow run on mac. Here is how can you check the connector of the startup HDD.
- Check and remove any foreign object on the connector
- Make sure the connector is clean and corrosion-free
- Check if the flex HDD cables are broken or damaged due to overstress and bent.
The SATA hard drive is connected to the logic board in your Mac in the way of bending 90 degrees twice. This particularly can be seen in 13' MacBook Pro 2012 model (on the edge of the super drive).
So, it's likely that the copper wire inside the flexible plastic cable is broken or damaged at the bent section.
Then you'll need to replace it with a good HDD cable.
If your Mac mini, MacBook Air, or MacBook Air shows folder with a question mark, you can check the SATA connection like this.
- 1. Open up the cover of the Mac.
- 2. Find the SATA connection of your hard drive. You can remove the connection and then clipped it back firmly.
This works well if your Mac doesn't recognize the internal hard drive for booting up. But if it doesn't help, either the hard drive or the SATA connection is damaged. You'll ask for a repair or replacement service from Apple.
6. Update firmware of your Mac Computer
If you see the Mac folder with flashing question mark after a recent macOS update, it may be a result of incompatible firmware that should be automatically upgraded by the installer.
Possibly, the firmware fails to complete the update during the whole system update. Then, the new system can't be recognized by the old firmware, causing boot issues.
Then, you can manually erase the disk and reinstall the macOS with stable network connection and enough free disk space.
7. Check the lifeboat connector on the logic board
Inside MacBook Pro in 2016 and 2017 with Tochbar, a critical bridge connector called lifeboat is used to connect the SSD circuit to the CPU so the CPU can read and write data to the SSD chips.
However, if you have send it for repair and forget to put it on, or if the lifeboat connector cap is not functional, you will get the flashing folder when turning on Mac.
Here are some basic checks you can perform to make it work again:
- Make sure there is a lifeboat cap and it's on.
- Remove the lifeboat connector cap and check if it's corroded or dusty.
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8. Check the faulty SSD socket or hard drive on Mac logic board
Sometimes, Mac can't find the startup drive just because the drive itself is in trouble.
Your removable SSD drives on the Mac logical board is connected using SSD sockets. Once these components are corroded, damaged, or dusty, you'll receive the 'Mac folder with question mark' error on Mac booting up.
Hard Disk Icon On Mac
So, think if you have spilt any liquid on your Macbook Air or Pro. If you see the SSD socket is corroded, you can cut off the corrosion and map the pins with 99% alcohol. If it doesn't help, you need to replace the socket.
For most Apple iMac, pre-2013 MacBook and MacBook pro that use mechanical hard drives, the Mac flashing folder with question mark appear when there is a mechanical disk failure, and you might hear beeping or clicking noise. Or if you can't feel the vibration of the hard drive spin motor, the hard drive is dead.
Go ahead to replace or upgrade it with SSD, and reinstall Mac operating system.
Conclusion
Most of the time, errors like the circle with line through it and the folder with a question mark on the Mac screen means a system software issue. You can simply fix this by reinstalling macOS. But it could also result from the hard drive corruption.
In this case, you should get your important files off the Mac as soon as possible. Then you need to replace or repair the disk, in case it crashes your Mac again.
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