# Solved: Mac Laptop - Flashing Folder on Boot



## AlMujtahid (Aug 13, 2001)

My boss has a Mac laptop. I connectd a Lacie external USB drive to it and started copying files onto the drive. No problems, everything was going smoothly. Then t computer just froze up. I could move the mouse around, but could not do anything. It was just a colorful, spinning wheel.

I shut down the laptop by pressing the power button. I know it is a No-No, but I got no response. Now when I boot up the laptop it just freezes on a grey screen with a flashing folder with a ? in the middle.


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## nvr.bck.from.mac (Aug 15, 2008)

sorry to say it, but your hard drive died in the middle of copying to your external lacie drive.

not much you can do about a dead hard drive unfortunately. i refer to that as the "question mark folder of death." it is pretty much telling you that the computer doesn't have any software to boot from. meaning it can't read off the hard drive properly enough to get the info it needs to start up.
if just restarting the computer doesn't do anything different, you'll need to get the hard drive replaced and see what you can salvage off the lacie external drive.

it cost over 1500 dollars to do it, but if there was anything worth it you can get the data off the hard drive professionally.


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## AlMujtahid (Aug 13, 2001)

We have it at the computer store now. I just cant believe it is a bad drive. It is about 1 year old.

Thank you.


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## nvr.bck.from.mac (Aug 15, 2008)

yeah... unfortunately hard drives don't really have a set lifespan. some only last a couple months even. it just depends.

if you don't already, you should get the newest operating system (mac os 10.5) and use the time machine program to back up all your files. that way if that happens again you can just replace the drive and transfer everything back using the migration assistant in the setup when you install the OS on the new drive.


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