The flashing question mark folder of death (Mac help)

[Jayems]

So it's probably not as well known as the red ring of death, but my work computer has fallen victim to the flashing question mark folder of death (imac 20").

My comp has been on the fritz for the last few months, so much so that I've had to stop turning it off out of fear that it wouldn't boot up again. Anyway, it always started back up after a few tries and I managed to backup 95% of my important things.

Having said that, anyone ever experience this and have success at getting it booted back up?

Having read up on it, the issue appears to be the computer doesn't know where to boot from. I've tried holding down opt before booting — that didn't work. I also tried booting from the OS X disc, to no avail.

Nothing is working.

It'll have to go in for repairs, but if someone has any ideas on what to try in the mean time so I can pull the rest of that 5% of stuff off it, I'd aprpeciate it. A co-worker had the same thing happen to him about a year ago and they wiped his harddrive when they repaired it.

[silentsim]

Hard-drive issue. I know you are saying you tried booting from the CD, but hold down option at the grey screen-chime with the system restore Cd in. If it boots, run Disk Utility and verify/repair disk on your startup disk.

[Jayems]

Yeah, I've tried that. Instead of the folder icon, I just get a mouse cursor and the grey/blue screen. Nothing happens.

Or am I supposed to hold Opt down for the whole time?

[Jayems]

wait... somthing happened. I got a CD icon that showed up... I'll try clicking it.

[silentsim]

hold it down the whole time, holding option makes the mac look for bootable drives. it is likely looking for the HD and cant find it. Make sure it is the right disc that came with the computer. (disc 1 I believe).

Before you try that, boot holding C down. This bypasses the "choice" and boots direct to CD.

[Jayems]

Ok, it restarted the computer and now it's back to the grey screen doing squat.

It now just keeps restarting the comp every 5 or so minutes.

[ma-skis.com]

had something similar happen to me, sounds like your hard drive is fried, do you hear clicking noises?

[Barnes]

Which 20 inch iMac? G5?

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by ma-skis.com

had something similar happen to me, sounds like your hard drive is fried, do you hear clicking noises?

No clicking noises.

Originally Posted by Barnes

Which 20 inch iMac? G5?

Not sure G5, but looks identical to this.

[Barnes]

Try booting up with an os x cd in and holding down c. If it won't boot the from CD, the problem is bigger than a bad hard drive.

If it does boot, run disk utility and see if the drive passes.

If it does, reinstall Os x and choose to archive and install.

If your lucky, it's just a fubar system folder.

[Jayems]

I think she's pooched.

Thanks for the help anyways.

[silentsim]

There's no reason it shouldn't boot from CD. Did you upgrade the operating system on it? If so, you need the Snow Leopard install disc and NOT the system recovery disc.

[Flash Walken]

My wife just had hers do this literally 2 days ago.

We were both stumped initially. She took it to the Mac store and they told her the harddrive was friedo'd.

[Jayems]

I don't think we installed snow leopard on it. I'm really not sure what OS it was, tbqh. The only discs I can find are OS X