If you have ever seen the above screen on powering on your Imac , Macbook or Macbook Air then there are some simple steps you can take to determine what is wrong.
The question mark display means one of the 5 following outcomes.
- Your hard drive has not been detected.
- A valid operating system has not been detected
- The drive has failed completely.
- The drive is failing and the file system is corrupt.
- The drive is good but the file system has become corrupt.
With the following steps you can determine if the drive exists and if so whether the system is repairable.
STEP 1 Power off your Mac by pressing the power button.
STEP 2 Start your Mac in Recovery Mode
- Hold down the power button
- Immediately press and hold Apple Recovery keys (? + R)
- Release the keys when you see an Apple logo or the Internet Connection logo below.
STEP 3
Once recovery mode has finished loading you should see the Recovery Utilities screen (see below).
STEP 4 Disk Utility
Select the Disk Utility option from the screen in Step 3 and a screen similar to the following should be displayed.
If your drive has been detected it will be listed on the left hand side of the disk utility under the Internal heading.
STEP 5 If your drive is not displayed then you will need to phone a professional to proceed.
STEP 6 Your drive is detected.
If your drive is found by the Mac disk Utility then you need to select the drive and then run the FIRST AID option.
A screen similar to the one above will appear and may or may not find errors. Once FIRST AID has completed you will need to reboot your mac and hopefully your problems will be resolved. If not you will need to phone a professional for further diagnosis of the problem.
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