Question Mark on Startup....Seen other posts

Sorry, prob somewhere on the net, just can't find it. MBP 15" Getting the questionmark on restart. Have reinstalled OS X 10.5.8 twice. Tried disk util and sees the HD, 320GB Hitachi stock drive. Done a repair disk and permissions. Says Macintosh HD is OK and everything is in green several times. Reformated, repartitioned, tried to backup from Time Machine. Went from 297.8 GB free to 136.6 GB free after Time Machine b/u. I think it's sees the drive, just not booting. Tried the Option key to select startup drive, tried it from reinstall also. Have reset the PRAM several times. Anyone, please help me. Note: have seen things about limewire which i do not use.

The question mark on startup indicates no boot device. With all the testing you did and reinstalling, but still no joy, it sure sounds like a bad hard drive.

I'm assuming you ran Disk Utility when booted from your Leopard DVD. How did you manage to do a Time Machine backup if you couldn't boot?

Anyway, it appears you need a new hard drive. Salvage what you can from the old one and press on.

Regards.

chscag, thx for a reply. I did run DU from dvd. Did a restore system from TM backup. Took 2 hrs. Thats why I said I went from 297 to 136 GB because it did a restore to "Macintosh HD 297.8 GB Available" and said it completed without error. Restart and .... no restart

Backing up from Time Machine right now and it says "Restoring Macintosh HD on volume Macintosh HD" 3.7% 3:19 Time remaining so it can find the drive and is writing to it I assume...

OK. Let me know what happens when the restore finishes. It sounds like the drive may be OK but the boot sector has somehow become damaged. If the same problem occurs, there's something else you can try. Post back.

Regards.

Did you be sure when you partitioned to make the partition GUID? If it's not GUID your Intel Mac will never boot.