Flashing Question Mark of Doom

Hi! I'm new to forums like these so I hope I am providing enough information.

About a week and a half ago my mac tower (approx. 2009) running Snow Leopard froze during the middle of a Final Cut Pro 7 session. The mouse moved, but the rest of the system was frozen.

I had to power down and restart. After the familiar chime, the white screen loaded a flashing "?" in a folder instead of the Apple logo.

Upon researching this I found that it means the system cannot find the Startup Disk. Being that the drive is old I figured that makes sense. But I did my due diligence and attempted to reset the PRAM and NVRAM. No luck. I attempted Safe Mode. Still a "?" loaded up. Recovery mode? No luck. I then booted with Disk Warrior, only to find that it didn't even read my Startup Disk. From this I presumed that my hard drive must have failed.

Luckily I had a clone drive. I can option-boot with the clone drive and it actually appears as a selectable icon. But when I select it the screen goes white and freezes.

Lastly I have created a bootable OSX flash drive. It had the same results as the clone drive.

I am not sure what options I have left! Any ideas?

Wow you have run through all the trouble shooting steps I would have tried. The fact it just froze is not a good thing (and being a video editor myself - I feel your pain!)

So far I would say the boot drive is toast. I am wondering if the video card has an issue too. Are you running Yosemite or an earlier version? Since it is a 2009 do you by chance have the original disks and have you tried to boot using them? I doubt it will matter but just a thought.

I found a copy of the repair manual that will have all the logic board information for the test lights on it. That might give you an idea as to what direction to go next.

This one does not require downloading it:
https://nobblynoel.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/-apple-technician-guide-mac-pro-2009/

This one will download as a pdf:
http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/macpro/macpro_early2009.pdf

I too edit with a 2009 Mac Pro - I have to head to work now so I will be sure to tell her what a good girl she is and keep thinking about what you can try. If you can check the diagnostic lights on the logic board that may give a clue.

Lisa

Boot from your OS X.6 Snow Leopard DVD, leave Installer and go to Utilities > Disk Utility > Repair Disk and see what is reported. Guessing you will get red warnings about the drive being unable to be repaired and you will need a new hard drive.

The clone drive and Flash Drive may not be the same as the Snow Leopard DVD. Did you try to boot from these two before the problem started to know 100% they will boot the machine? If you do not have the OS X.6 FBF Apple Online still sells them for $20 including postage.