How to Fix Mac Folder With Question Mark

Few things are as frustrating as trying to boot up your Mac and end up with the dreaded Mac folder with a question mark. You’ve probably tried using keyboard shortcuts like CTRL + R, CTRL + Option + R or Shift + CTRL + Option + R, but you still get the folder icon blinking at startup.

While it may scare you as a Mac user, there are known causes and proven solutions that will help you get your Mac back to normal.

Follow the next step to find out why you are getting the folder with the question mark in the middle of the screen and how to fix it. Although this problem is more common in older Macs, we will try to solve the same problem for newer Mac models as well.

Causes of flashing Mac folder with question mark

There are several reasons why the folder with a question mark appears on your Mac screen:

• Your Mac can’t find a boot volume. This means that it cannot find its boot disk, so it can neither boot nor boot. You probably started your Mac from an external drive and then unplugged it, or its hard drive failed terribly, so it’s having trouble locating its system folder or boot directory.
  
  
• MacOS corrupt.
• Corrupted system files.
• The hard drive failed catastrophically.
• The external drive from which you are booting may be turned off or disconnected.
• The ribbon cable connecting the reader to the motherboard may be damaged. This cable is located between the bottom case and the optical drive, and if the case has indentations in the same area, the cable may be the problem.

Boot your Mac from an installation DVD (for older Macs)

This process forces your Mac to boot from the installation DVD placed in the optical drive. To do this, you must follow these steps:

Step 1: Place the installation DVD that came with your Mac in the optical drive and restart. You can use this disc or, if you have a later version of macOS, use a newer disc for the same purpose.

2nd step: Once you hear the startup chime, hold down the C key on your keyboard or the Option key until the installation disc or Apple logo appears.

Note: Boot from the recovery partition if you are using 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion or 10.9 Mavericks, then repair the OS partition 10.7 or 10.8 using Disk Utility.

Stage 3: When your Mac starts up, choose the language you will use, press Return on your keyboard and an installation window will open. Ignore this window and click on Utilities then on Disk Utility.

Step 4: If you see your hard drive in the list, click on your macOS partition for the hard drive, then select the First Aid tab.

Step 5: Then run Repair Disk. To activate this button, click on the macOS partition on your hard drive. If that resolves issues, run it again until you see the green OK, then run the repair permissions.

Step 6: Finally, use the startup disk to select your hard drive to restart your Mac from the hard drive. If it is not recognized under Disk Utility, it is probably dead.

Put your Mac in recovery mode

If you are trying to start from the internal drive of your Mac, you must turn off the computer and then start it while holding down the Command + R keys until the globe or the Apple logo appears. This will put your Mac into recovery mode, then you can change the startup disk by selecting the option from the Apple menu.

Recovery mode comes in handy when your Mac doesn’t start normally because the startup disk is damaged or corrupted.

This may be due to corrupted files or slight surges that you are unaware of, but it solves the problem without you having to go to extreme lengths, such as reinstalling your macOS.

Note: You can boot using an external Mac boot disk or a bootable installer if macOS Recovery does not work.

Replace the disc

If the Mac folder with a question mark appears due to your disk failure, the only thing you can do is replace the disk and use the time capsule or other backup device that you used to recover your data on the new disk.

Back up data and reinstall macOS

If Disk Utility cannot repair your startup disk, you may need to reformat it. Before doing this, make a backup of all important data from the disk before erasing everything stored there. You can follow the steps below to back up your data to an external drive if you don’t have a recent data backup for your startup drive:

Step 1: Connect an external drive of similar or larger size to your startup disk. Erase the external drive using macOS Recovery, and then install macOS on it. Select the external drive you want to erase, not your boot drive.

2nd step: Once macOS is installed, your Mac will automatically restart from the external drive. When you see the installation wizard, choose the option you want to use to move data from another disk, then select the boot disk on your Mac as the source from which to migrate the data.

Stage 3: After migration, follow the instructions of the configuration wizard until the end, and when you see your desktop, check that all your data is present on the external drive.

Step 4: Erase your startup disk using macOS Recovery and reinstall macOS (do not select your external drive). After erasing the disk and installing macOS, your Mac will automatically restart and the setup wizard will appear. Copy your data to your startup disk by selecting the option to migrate data from a Time Machine backup or another disk, in this case your external disk.

Note: If you can’t erase the startup disk or reinstall macOS, take your Mac to an Apple Genius repairer or an authorized service provider.

Recover your Mac

We hope you now know what to do when you find the Mac folder flashing with a question mark on your screen. Try the fixes above and let us know what worked for you.