Macbook won't startup only displays folder with flashing question mark

[Beverly Archer]

Please help in solving the following issue. I have a Macbook pro which is running on Mac OS X 10.5. The Macbook was working fine for all this time but now it wont boot at all. When the power button is pressed, it gives a clicking sound and displays a folder with a flashing question mark. I have never faced such problem with the Macbook before and hence dont know how to solve the issue. So if anybody knows why my Macbook won't startup only displays folder with flashing question mark then please share some information which might help me in solving the issue. Any help is highly appreciated.

[Maya Angelou]

I suspect that the hard drive of the Macbook is not working properly and hence the system is not able to access the hard drive due to which the system is not booting. The hard drive of the Macbook can get corrupted due to frequent read write cycles which result in development of bad clusters. You can download and run the different diagnostic tools on the hard drive to check the consistency of the hard drive.

[Gavisht]

You can try and use the Target disk mode on the Macbook and see if it works. To access the Target disk mode on the macbook, connect the Macbook which is not booting with some other Mac computer using a firewire cable. Go to the system preferences and select Startup Disk. Now from the options given below, select the Target Disk Mode. Now save the settings and restart the computer. The computer should directly start in Target disk mode. See if you are able to access the hard drive or not. If target disk does not work then replacing the hard drive is only option.

[Otilio]

Insert the Apple support which is available with the macbook and boot the system from the disk. There is a disk utility tool in the support disk, run the disk utility tool on the hard drive and see if there are any faults with the hard drive. If the errors are of solvable nature, repair them using the Disk utility and see if the system boots. Hopefully running the disk utility on the hard drive will solve the problem.

[Panchu]

PRAM reset may solve the problem which you are facing. If the system RAM gets flooded with invalid entries then computer may give such problems. Performing a PRAM reset will clear all the invalid entries from the RAM and hence will bring back the computer to working state. The steps for performing PRAM reset can be found out on official support website of Apple.

[Theodot]

The operating system on the macbook is missing. The flashing folder with a question mark indicates that the system is missing the operating system. Hence you will have to install the operating system on the Macbook again to solve the problem. Insert the installation disk of the operating system and boot the system from it. Complete the installation procedure and check if the system is working properly or not.

[Beverly Archer]

Thanks for the suggestions. Reinstalling the operating system on the Macbook really solved the problem. I guess the flashing question mark on the empty folder indicates the operating system is missing and hence reinstalling the operating system on the hard drive solved the problem. Now the system does not gives the same folder with flashing question mark.