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MacBook wont start - blank screen followed by flashing question mark
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Apr 2008
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My macbook has been fine for a while, then today i turned it on and its doesn't load, instead just a blank screen, after about 10 minutes i get a folder with a question mark flashing, however i can't do anythin,
it had all my uni work on it which is devistating, any ideas how i can retrieve any of it or get the thing working again??
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Cambridge, UK
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How old is your MacBook? It sounds, unfortunately, like your hard drive may have died.
To start with, you could put in your restore disc and start the Apple hardware test by holding D after the chime. This will tell you if there are any hardware faults.
Next, you could purchase an external SATA 2.5" enclosure to put the drive in, then hook it up to another Mac to see if it is recognized and to see if you can retrieve your work.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: surrounded by dogs
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also, your system folder could have become corrupted (so the hard drive is still alive)
to retrieve your information from a corrupted system hard drive, its easiest when you know someone with another mac. simply connect the 2 computers with a firewire cable (super cheap on ebay, 6pin to 6pin) and reboot your comuter while holding down the t button (to boot into target mode). if your hard drive is still alive, it should load like a hard drive connected by usb or firewire to the other mas.
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: great northwest
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The same thing happened to my new MacBook this morning: folder with flashing question mark, and ominous clicking from the right side. Rushed it down to the Genius Bar and, as I feared, it was a dead hard drive, which they immediately replaced for free. (They don't have to ship them off to replace a drive anymore, apparently, at least with MacBooks.) My genius told me they're seeing lots more of hard drive failures now that larger capacity drives (which apparently are more vulnerable to failure) are becoming more common. Mine was 160GB. Fortunately, I'd bought a Time Capsule literally two days earlier and I just restored everything (as far as I can tell so far) using Time Machine tonight. So it cost me a few hours of my time in biking down to the store, getting it replaced, then waiting for the restore process, but otherwise Ok so far. I'm glad, too, because my last CD backup was a couple weeks old. Now I'm using .mac Backup as well as my TC and will occasionally burn a CD for documents as well.
I hope your problem isn't a dead drive. But very hard drive will die eventually, though this was the first time it's happened to me. And with a new machine, too. Lesson: back up!
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