I turn on my Mac and see a blinking prohibitory symbol, a flashing question mark, or blinking folder.

I turned on my computer and just see a little blinking prohibitory symbol (a “no smoking” sign without the cigarette) or a blinking folder and happy face.

This means your Mac can’t find a disk with the proper software to start. There are a few things you can try, but these computers often wind up at Tekserve for data recovery.

First try to zap the PRAM: Hold down Command-Option-P-R while turning on the Mac. Keep holding those keys down until you hear the startup bong two or three times. Then press the "x" key, which will sometimes tell your Mac to start up from OS X (for computers with OS 9 installed).

 If your Mac won’t start up normally you can start up your Mac using a system disc or the built-in recovery partition introduced in OS 10.7 Lion.

WARNING

In some instances, repair programs will make things worse. Please read the next section carefully.

For OS 10.6 or earlier, you’ll need a system install disc (this is the first gray disc from the set that came with your Mac) or any operating system installation disc you’ve purchased. With the system disc in your computer, restart the Mac while holding down the C key. If holding C doesn’t work, try holding the Option key during startup, which should allow you to select the Mac OS disc icon and press Return. If the disc is immediately ejected, you may have a stuck button on your mouse or trackpad. Turn off the Mac, unplug the mouse, and try again. It will also be ejected if it isn’t really a system disc and is lacking the software needed to start up your computer.

For OS 10.7 or later, your Mac should already have a recovery partition installed. Once your Mac is off, hold down Command-R immediately after you press the power button to access it. If this doesn’t work, try using the instructions above with the gray system install DVD that came with your Mac.

1. Wait for the installer disc or recovery partition to finish loading. We are not going to install the system now; we are starting up this way so we can run Disk Utility.
2. In OS 10.6 and earlier, look under the Utilities menu, and choose Open Disk Utility… In OS 10.7 and later, a Mac OS X Utilities window should appear, select Disk Utility.

WARNING

Don’t click Erase—that will wipe out everything on your drive.

3. If you see your startup disk on the left side of the Disk Utility window, you can try to repair it using Disk Utility. Select your startup volume by name, and then click Repair Disk.
4. When finished, quit Disk Utility. If you’re using OS 10.6 or earlier, look in the Utilities menu, and choose Startup Disk. If you’re using OS 10.7 or later, look in the Apple () menu, and choose Startup Disk. For either system, if you see your disk in the list, select it, and click the Restart button. If you still get a blinking icon, you might need to reinstall your system.

If your hard disk or volume didn’t show up in Disk Utility, you can try using a utility like DiskWarrior. However, make sure the repair program is up to date and read Can I make things worse by doing repairs with DiskWarrior or similar utilities? before using it.

Published March 24, 2009 12:00 PM
Last modified on November 25, 2011 11:11 AM