How To Fix Folder With Flashing Question Mark

hey everybody welcome to the apple ninja today we're going to go over how to fix your mac when it starts up with a flashing question mark folder on the screen if you have a flashing question mark folder on the screen that means that your startup disk is no longer available or the startup disk doesn't contain a working mac operating system so there are a few things that we're going to go through to try to fix this we've got an intel mac a 2018 t2 mac and then we've got a 2020 m1 apple silicon mac and we're going to provide some different steps on how to fix and resolve that issue on both of these devices the first thing that we're going to want to do is we're going to want to confirm that the macintosh hard drive actually shows up in the boot option menu so you're going to want to power down this mac by holding on the power button until it shuts completely down once it's completely down first thing we're gonna do on this mac is we're gonna hit the power button and hold down the option key and that's going to start us up into the boot option menu selector and once we get there we see that we have the macintosh hd on the left there that's a great sign it means that we have a working volume that we can work with and at least try to repair it and see what we can do the first thing that we want to do is we want to hold down the control key you're going to see that this turns into a circle on the intel mac and i'm going to click return to see if just selecting the macintosh hd as a default volume allows it to boot up this mac on the m1 mac we're going to hold down the power button from a completely shut down state and continue to hold it's going to say continue holding for startup options once it says loading startup options we can let go of the power button so we see that we have the macintosh hd here that's a great sign i'm going to select it and then i'm going to hold down the control key and it's going to say always use i'm going to select it and see if that boots up the mac all right so let's say it still doesn't boot up the next thing we're going to want to do is we're going to want to power this mac down holding down the power button we'll do it to both of them the next step we're going to do is we're going to perform an nvram reset the intel mac is the only one that's capable of doing that we cannot reset the mv ram with the key commands that i'm going to show you so it's only going to be available on the intel mac so what we're going to do is we're going to hit the power button and immediately after hold the option command and p and r keys and what's gonna happen is you're gonna see the apple logo one time then you're gonna see it a second time and once the progress bar starts we're going to be able to let go of our keys knowing that we've reset the nv ram on this mac on the older macs that have the startup chime let the startup chime chime twice before releasing the keys so now we've reset the envy ram on this mac but let's say it still doesn't boot i'm going to power it down and what we're going to do is we're going to boot this intel mac into recovery so i'm going to hold down the power button and immediately after hold down the command and r keys this is going to boot us into recovery i usually let go when i see the progress bar you can probably let it go as soon as you see the apple and click next just choose a language it's going to launch the recovery i'm going to select disk utility from the very bottom click continue once that comes up i'm going to select the macintosh hd from the left hand column and i'm going to click first aid select run and it has completed then i want to go up to the apple menu down to startup disk select the macintosh hd click restart and restart again and see if your mac boots up properly on the m1 apple silicon mac i am going to hold down the power button continue holding for startup options once it says loading startup options you can let go then i'm going to choose options and continue then i'm going to select disk utility continue and on the left hand side choose the macintosh hd and then come over to first aid we're gonna select run and let it repair the drive all right now that that has completed click done go up to the apple menu down to startup disk choose the macintosh hd if it's not already selected select restart and restart again and confirm that the mac now boots properly on older macs with mechanical hard drives one of the best things that you can do is listen to the hard drive and see if you hear any clicking noises if you hear clicking noises what that means is that you definitely have a failing hard drive and you're going to want to try to back up those files from within the recovery partition so that you have a backup of your data if you don't already have one also another thing to note about mechanical drives is that you can stick your hand on the mac itself and you'll feel the hard drive spinning a lot of times when mechanical drives fail what happens is the spindles on the inside gets stuck by the reed right heads and it doesn't move so you'll be able to feel if it's not moving when you have a mechanical hard drive within that mac and what we used to do back in the day is we'd gain access to that hard drive and bang it a couple times and a lot of times that would loosen it up a little bit just enough for it to work for a little while it doesn't mean it's going to continue to work so back up your data as soon as you get that drive working another thing to note is that if you don't see the hard drive at all in your boot option menu that is a good indicator that you have something definitely wrong with that hard drive and you're going to want to attempt to see if you can see it within disk utility so that you can attempt to repair it so now that we've got these macs in this state what we're going to do now if the mac still is providing the flashing question mark folder what we want to do now is we want to boot into recovery on this intel mac so i'm going to power this guy down and then i'm gonna hit power again and hold command r to access recovery let it go power this guy down as well click and hold because i'm going to enter the startup options on this one on the right i'm going to let that load this one's loading recovery right now i'm going to select options continue all right so now if the mac is still just completely messed up it's not working none of the steps so far have fixed it you can attempt to reinstall mac os over the top of what you have if you don't wipe the drive with disk utility it's going to maintain all of your user data files so you can run a reinstall and see if that fixes your issue if you need to though what you can do if you have a backup of your files is launch disk utility select the macintosh hard drive and do an erase rename it macintosh our hard drive again select erase and then come close out of this you can do command q and then reinstall the mac os and that should hopefully repair anything that is wrong with that device at that point in time and you're going to be able to do the same exact thing on the m1 mac over here so if you have issues with that drive beyond what you think reinstalling the mac os will provide then you're going to want to wipe the drive with this utility and then reinstall the mac os but let's say you don't have a backup of your files and you really need to get those files off because you're concerned about even reinstalling the mac os what you can do is connect a usb drive to the mac go up to utilities down to terminal and then what we're going to run is a copy cp space minus capital r for recursive because we want to copy all the folders and subdirectories and all the files then we're going to do a whack volumes hit tab macintosh hd back whack and tab and i want to make sure it has the macintosh hd data volume so then i'm going to do users and apple ninja and i want to copy all of that data from that folder to this external hard drive so then i put a whack volumes and this drive is called install mac os big sur i'm just going to copy the files over to that mac os big serve volume oh no space left on the device but it's still going to attempt you're going to see that it's running if there was space on this device it would have copied all those files and you'd be able to go through with a wipe and get rid of it you are going to have to reinstall your applications with this method and it's going to be the same exact process on the m1 apple silicon mac hopefully this solves your problems and you no longer have the flashing question mark folder if you like this video definitely throw it a thumbs up that helps the channel and if you're subscribed i can't thank you enough for the support and if you're not subscribed definitely get subscribed so that you don't miss out on the upcoming videos and you guys have an amazing day take care

Channel: Apple Ninja

Views: 39,555

Keywords: How To Fix Folder With Flashing Question Mark, Folder With Flashing Question Mark, mac recovery mode, internet recovery Mac, upside down question mark Mac, folder with question mark Mac, mac os recovery, macbook pro recovery mode, macos internet recovery, macbook folder with question mark, macbook pro folder with question mark, macbook pro flashing folder question mark startup, mac flashing question mark folder, macbook question mark, question mark folder, apple ninja, macOS, mac

Id: HBUSIc4k7Lo

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2021