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General discussion

macbook

by doralb Feb 15, 2011 1:42AM PST

I know nothing about mac books. My daughter has a apple macbook, Mac OS X TIGER MODEL A1181 which is approx 3years old. When swithced on it gives out a musical note followed by a blank grey screen. After about a minute the screen then displays in it's centre a flashing small grey folder with a white question mark in the centre. This stays on for about 2 minuted then the machine switches off. Nothing else can be done whilst this is happening. Can some out here try and asisst me with resolving this problem. I believe I may also require any discs that came with the machine to recover the system. At the moment my daughter can't find these. Do I need these to fix the problem, if I can't locate these discs can it be recovered another way or can I obtain new discs. Please help
Bill Bartlett

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2 Posts
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The folder with the question mark
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 15, 2011 10:23AM PST

indicates that the system was unable to find a valid boot drive.

Usually this is an indication that the internal Hard Drive has failed but occasionally it just means that the OS has become corrupted in some way.

Find the Restore disks that came with the computer and put the one marked Install/Installation/words to that effect, into the DVD drive. Start the computer and at the chime, hold down the "C" key.
Keep the key down until you see the spinning gear on the screen.
If the machine boots up correctly, move through the installation process. You will possibly get to a place where the installer cannot find a hard drive to install the system on. A sure sign of a dead hard drive.
If you do not reach that point, and there is a hard drive indicated by the installer, then choose the Options button and select Archive and Install as the install option.
This will preserve the data that is already on the machine.
Hard Drives for the MacBook are reasonably cheap and do not have to be purchased from Apple and are quite easy for the average user to replace.

Let us know how you get on

P

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As to your other question,
by sturner--2008 Feb 16, 2011 12:51PM PST

Yes, you will need a system installation disk at some point. If you can't find the system disks that came with the MacBook, perhaps you can find someone who has purchased the OSX system DVD. That disk can be used to check the hard drive as mrmacfixit suggested. If the original system disks cannot be found you most certainly should purchase a new OSX system disk.

Yes, it's an expensive fix, but it is also vital.

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