# Mac startup problem



## caitlingel (Jun 13, 2003)

Help! My daughter's having problems with her iMac. OS 9. When she turns it on, instead of the startup screen, she sees a poicture of a folder. Superimposed on the folder are two images which alternate: a flashing black question mark and the Mac startup smiley. Anybody have any idea what to try? Thanks in advance!


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## mbechard (Nov 11, 2003)

Couple things to try.

1. Turn on computer, hold down option key. This will allow you to choose your startup disk.

2. Boot from Boot cd, run disk first aid. Then go to control panels and re select the startup disk. If you boot from CD, and you don't see your HD, Chances are you disk disk is bad, or needs to be reformatted.

3. You could try and run norton utilities or disk warrior.


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## caitlingel (Jun 13, 2003)

Thanks for the suggestions. She's aready tried it all; looks like a reformat is in order.


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## AvengerNYC (Dec 9, 2003)

wait a second!!!!

you do not need to reformat.

what the blinking Icon means is that the computer can not find the system folder.

did she boot up from a CD just previous to the incident? my computer takes up to 4 minutes to scan and start up from the main HD system folder after loading from a CD if I didn't change the startup drive from the control panel.

If all is lost, all you need to do is reinstall the system software!!


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## caitlingel (Jun 13, 2003)

OK, all is well! A friend of hers had Disk Warrior and that solved the problem. No info lost! :up: Thanks to all!


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