MBP won't boot - folder icon with ? displays

Alex_L · 25 Sep 2009 at 17:15

Hi

i have a friend who has a unibody MBP and when she turns it on it goes to a white screen and then shows a folder icon with a question mark on it.

I haven't had a chance to look at it, but i'm assuming either the hard drive has failed, or OSX has fallen over.

If its the OS thats died, is there anyway to get access to the hard drive and lift off her home folder?

Or indeed any other suggestions for getting round this problem?

Talbs13 · 25 Sep 2009 at 20:26

Sounds like a dead HD.

Try booting in Safe Mode, cant remember what the command is, and if it's actually called Safe Mod!

Feek · 25 Sep 2009 at 20:35

Single user mode is what you're thinking of, hold down cmd-s as you boot the system. You can then do an fsck to correct any errors on t'drive.

Caged · 25 Sep 2009 at 23:03

If you want to get to the files and the OS install is knackered then use target disk mode and connect it with Firewire to another Mac (or PC with the appropriate file system drivers installed). Alternatively taking the drive out is easy on the unibody laptops.