Flashing folder with question mark...

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Hey everyone

Basically every time I start up my MacBook I have a flashing question mark appear, I have gone through various processes like resetting my PRAM hokidng command-option-P-R keys at start up etc... I have gone through the Mac OS X apple support steps found on their site. I have accessed Disk Utility, on the left it shows

5.1 GB MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857D
Mac OS X Install Disc 1
74.5 GB TOSHIBA MK8034GSX MEdia
disk4s1


When I was doing a bit of research on the matter I noticed many people didn't mention anything like 'disk4s1' appear in their disk utility. The Repair Disk, Verify Disk, Repair Disk Permissions are all grayed out. However for Mac OS X Install... and 5.1 GB... the Verify Disk Permissions is active and when clicked, I recieve the following message

Verify permissions for "Max OS X Install Disk 1"
Error: No valid packages


Permissions verification complete

Also when I highlight disk4s1 at the top the mount button becomes active (I don't know what this means), nevertheless I hope I have supplied enough information for some advice on what I need to do.

I aslo don't mind formating my HD, but at the same time I want to retrieve a few files first, anyway help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
 
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20" Intel iMac 2.4 Ghz/3G Ram/320HD, Snow Leopard. PBook G4, 1.5Ghz/1.5 Ram/250 HD, Leopard 10.5.6.
It seems that your HD is at fault, i.e: failed I'm afraid (but not dead)
When you say disk4s1 becomes active what does it do? I came across this once on a friends old iMac (can't remember the cause) and I had to do a clean install to get back to a normal OS.
I think that clean install is your only hope here, and you may have to kiss goodbye to the files.
 
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Basically when I highlight it, and click information, teverything says no apart from the following

Mount Point: Not mounted
Connection Nus: Serial ATA 2
Device Tree: (various characters)
Writable: Yes
Capacity: 74.5 GB
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Not Supported
Disk Number: 4
Partition Number: 1
 
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Right ok. Then yes, that is your HD. Does it give you the option to mount it? If so what happens when you try?
For some reason the HD has been renamed. As I said I came across this before and a completely clean install was the only solution.
 
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A friend of mine is having the same problem. When trying to repair via disk utility we get "invalid b-tree node size" error.
 
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Well I have the option to mount it, but I have not tried in fear of what my happen, because I'm not exactly sure what the mount button will actually do...

So there is absolutely no hope in retreiving any of my files?
 
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Sadly it will be difficult, especially if it's something specific.
Now, with my friends iMac (which I fixed btw) I ran Norton Disc Doctor after I had made the clean install, and retrieved all sorts of stuff, but not the things he wanted in particular. It really depends.
What version OS are you running.

Laytonx: Same question what OS version? Did you run disc utility from the install disc? If not, you should, because generally it will fix node errors. If you can't because you don't have discs, you could run fsck in single user mode. If that fails Norton/Diskwarrior will probably fix it, because that's a directory fault. That said, a clean install is the best way to solve this ultimately.
 
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Version 10.4.11.

On start-up we are getting the folder with the blinking question mark and the mac will not but up but stays on this. Reset the PRAM but that did not fix the issue. I then used the install disk to run disk utility and tried to repair the disk. That is when I got the error. I now notice the disk is not mounted, I have tried to mount it but nothing happens.
 
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Ok, bummer.
I can't remember the cause of this on my friends, but I know I spent a day trying to fix it before resorting to the clean install (good job he pays me £20 an hour :D)
I think you could both try fsck first though to see if it can find anything and fix it, especially as disc utility won't boot. So... scary looking but not really.

Reboot holding down the Apple and "S" key and keep them held down until some text loads (white text on black background)
When it's loaded type the following command (with the spaces as shown)

fsck -fy

now press the return button.
It will run through loads of checks, and in your case Laytonx, I would expect it to show the node error. Keep typing the command until you get the message "the macintosh HD appears to be ok". Once you get that type "reboot" and see what happens.
Now it may be that you don't get that message ever, you may get "the macintosh HD could not be repaired", in which case it's clean install time.
Please let me know what errors you get though.

Hope it works for you both, if not we'll get there!
 
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When trying to repair disk I get this error.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Invalid b-tree node size
Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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Ok, I assume that was using fsck.
Do you have access to Norton Disc Doctor or Diskwarrior? If so either may well be able to fix it, BUT, they may well not too, and a clean install really will be the only option.
Failure on exit and node errors all point to a breakdown of the file directory for the OS on the HD.
 
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I'd give diskwarrior a try first.. it has helped me on more on one occassion where I was totally lost.
 
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Kevriano you are absolutely the best it works, thanks a million your an absolute life saver!!
 
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Kevriano you are absolutely the best it works, thanks a million your an absolute life saver!!

Awesome. Glad it worked out for you my friend.
The causes of these things are odd at times, the only one constant I found that was Limewire had a tendency to cause this problem A LOT!
It may have been changed now, and I'm not saying you were using it either of course.
Anyway, as said, glad it worked out.
 
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that error that i got was in disk utility.

fsck is what?

oh, and thank for all the help
 
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that error that i got was in disk utility.

fsck is what?

oh, and thank for all the help

Read back up 4 posts or so for instructions on how to do fsck. As it worked for the OP it may work for you too.
 

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fsck - file system check
 
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i have the same problem and tried everything and nothing seem to fix it. I have tried Disk Utility, Disk warrior, and my HD appears to is ok, and when idid the APPLE+S, it said error loading mach-kernel. when try to reinstall the OSX, it will not let me install it. please help. thanks
these are the error codes:
Loading 'mach_kernel'...
Could not open file 'mach_kernel'
Error loading kernel 'mach_kernel'
UniAce is offline Reply With Quote
 
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I have found that if you leave Limewire running all the time it does stuff to your harddrive on both Windows and OSX. I recommend that you get the file your after then close it down. Of course ensure you aren't downloading copyrighted material as this is against the law.
 

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