Comments on: Mac Disasters: When the Flashing Question Mark Strikes

By: Sam Jarman

Sam Jarman — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:25:33 +0000

@htothill http://www.macgurulounge.com/mac-disasters-when-the-flashing-question-mark-strikes/comment-page-1/

By: free

free — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:37:05 +0000

Purchasing a software appliance or affairs can be a big consideration, abnormally if purchasing avant-garde and usually big-ticket programs such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop. If because purchasing these programs it is important that you or your agents be accustomed with the affairs and are abiding it’s traveling to be able of what you charge it to do.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:34:34 +0000

You saved my Mac!!! I have no fingernails left, but my Mac has come back from the blinking question mark folder dead!!! I am an illustrator and have
Huge amounts of unbacked up art (soon to be rectified) on my Mac, and I thought I lost it all! It was stressful, but the best lesson I could have had how important it is to back up files!!!

By: oxxy cheng

oxxy cheng — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:26:44 +0000

thank you for posting this — was very helpful.
Much appreciated

By: JesusAli

JesusAli — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:32:43 +0000

Just a note I forgot to ever ad.

In some instances, when using the Apple Aluminum Keyboard, the Start Up Modifier Keys WILL NOT function correctly. This happened to me while trying to boot a 1st gen Mac Mini.

So if you’re trying to boot a Mac Mini with an Aluminum (silver) keyboard, and it doesn’t choose the DVD drive (C key) or provide Volume options (Option key) as described above, try with an OLDER MODEL USB KEYBOARD.

This was the only solution I could find. It seems certain that this affects some Mac Mini’s. I don’t know if it effects other models.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1924423&tstart=0

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:13:38 +0000

Seems some of us on the all-in-one iMacs may have bought one from a bad batch of the production line. OSX is an awesome OS but apparently Apple used some crap hardware. I finally had to take my computer in to get it fixed by a local small business. They were able to get everything I wanted off the hard drive and onto an external that I bought recently and change the hard drive for a flat rate that was way cheaper than Apple. If all else fails with the dreaded flashing question mark, replace the hard drive. Of course all the problems start after the warranty is up. Lesson learned? BUY AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE & DISK WARRIOR! Backing up your data is awfully easy and cheap these days.

By: ANA MARIA

ANA MARIA — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:56:40 +0000

I fixed my computer with the first step. thank you!!!

By: JesusAli

JesusAli — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:12:48 +0000

Chilli:

Intermittent issues are curious. Do you Shutdown your computer each night? Some people think Macs never need to be restarted, but they do benefit from it. Servers can stay up longer because they usually only turn on and run 1 program without ever opening and quitting other programs.

Have you run Disk Utility? That will show you if your hard drive is having problems. Regularly restarting your computer will help prevent hard drive problems.

Good luck.

By: Chilli

Chilli — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 03:31:46 +0000

Hi, I have a very similar problem to Dan, on my 2008 iMac. Every so often, the computer starts acting sluggish, requiring a restart, and then instead of restarting normally it shows me the flashing question mark. Unplugging from the power source and waiting a long period of time (sometimes 24 hours) seems to be the only way it reboots normally. This problem started a few months ago, and after occuring regularly for a month or so it went back to normal, without any problems until this week. So it seems like the problem isn’t fatal. But it is severely annoying. What’s going on?

By: Louis van Proosdij

Louis van Proosdij — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:28:58 +0000

@Vinvin http://www.macgurulounge.com/mac-disasters-when-the-flashing-question-mark-strikes/