[kramer3380]

my computer was acting a little slower than normal, i figured that it was because i hadnt shut my computer off in a few days. I shut it down using the menu, NOT just holding the power button down. now when i turn it back on after a few minutes i realize that the screen is all white with a flashing folder icon and in the middle of the icon is a question mark.. can someone please tell me what is going on with my computer. i never have any problems with my imac. any advice would be greatly appreciated

[Jacke]

That means it can't find a valid system folder on the harddrive. Try booting with the system/install cd and see if the harddrive is recognized, if you can select it as startup drive, and if necessary, run the disk checker in Disk Utility. (Or at least that is what I think from my experience with OS 9, I've never had it happen on OS X. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

[Andrew Stephens]

Yeah, your Mac has lost track of where to find a valid system folder. This may be a glitch you can fix easily or it may be a disc error. Start the Mac from the original Install DVD (hold the c key down on start up and insert disc into drive as power comes on). You can select Disc Utility from the installer disc using the top menu bar.
This should pick up any major disc errors. Then use the start up disc utility to select the internal drive to start from and restart the mac.

The flashing icon also appears if the drive has suffered total failure or otherwise fails to mount.

[chipchen]

If it was running slower before this happened... could be failing hard drive or corrupted files. My first suggestion is to put your computer into target disk mode and connect it to another Mac to try to back up all your files. Then re-install like the guys said above. If those don't work, it could be your hard drive needs to be replaced.