flashing file folder on startup

My MacBook is 45 days old. My wife started it up today and after the chord/Apple icon screen, saw a flashing orange question mark folder. Searching the forums, I have the sense that this is a very bad thing to see, but I don't know what to do.

That means it can't find a bootable OS. Sounds like the Hard Drive but 45 Days old? Anything can happen. I have had hard drives messed up in the box brand new. Put in the Install DVD and hold down C after the chime. See if you can boot that way. When the installer comes up, look up top and find Disk Utility and run it. See if it sees the hard drive and do a repair.

It sees a disk (Hitachi ####)and a volume (computer name) on that disk.
I did a disk verify on Hitachi ####. It checked the volume and returned: "1 HFS volume checked. Volume passed verification."
I then verified the volume and it returned "Invalid node structure. Volume needs repair."
I clicked Repair Disk and again found an invalid node structure, then began "Rebuilding Catalog B-tree."

Here's my questions now:
What is the node structure? How might have the node structure been invalidated?

What is a Catalog B-tree? What does it mean to rebuild it?

How long might the rebuilding take? The progress bar hasn't moved in fifteen minutes.

What's the prognosis? Is this recoverable? How serious is this? Can anyone put it in Windows terms for me?

update: two hours went by with no progress. I stopped repair on the volume and it threw another error. I started repair on the disk, and so far shows the same promise (none). In fact, it might be worse now, because every so often there's a burst of clicking from the computer.

If you're hearing clicking from the computer, the hard drive is dead. The clicking noise is the hard drive ripping itself apart; I'd pull the plug immediately if you have any important data on the drive.

Sounds like you got a dud... At least it's still covered under warranty, though.

You could try this as well. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Also under Disk Utility verify your S.M.A.R.T Status is verified.

If he has any important data on the hard drive, I wouldn't recommend attempting to turn on the computer or running any further disc utilities. That could cause further damage to the hard drive, which will make it harder to recover any data if he decides to take the offending hard drive in to a data recovery service. (Sadly, I speak from experience here.)

If he doesn't have any important data on the drive or if the data is backed up elsewhere, then there wouldn't be any harm in trying additional measures to boot up the computer... The worst that could happen is that the HD totally craps out, but it sounds like it's almost there anyway.

If he's near an Apple Store, it would be a good idea to bring it in.

Wifes macbook had same issue a while ago. Worked fine one day, went to boot up the next and just got a folder with a ?. End result, dead hard drive. I even took it to a certified mac repair shop to see if they could mount it and transfer any files and they couldnt.

There are certain outfits that specialize in data recovery, including recovering data from damaged hard drives. They're expensive, though.

DSCole312 said:

There are certain outfits that specialize in data recovery, including recovering data from damaged hard drives. They're expensive, though.

Click to expand...

Yes, there are other companies that can recover the data but its ridiculouly expensive. The place I took our macbook was just trying to go into target disc mode or whatever its called, to transfer the user folder but they couldnt get it to mount. They still charged me, but I figured it was worth $75 to see if they could at least do that. If they were able to access the drive and transfer the files the total cost was only going to be $75.

I called a data recovery place and was quoted a minimum of a cpl hundred bucks depending on how damaged the drive was to over a thousand potentially.

If it's only 45 days old, I'd take it in to Apple Store (hopefully you got AppleCare), and see if you can get it replaced (I don't know the specifics of the return/exchange policies), or at least get a new HD put in.

Hi! I also faced the similar problem being faced by you and tried several tools to access my disk but to no awail. At last, one of my friend suggested me Stellar mac data recovery software and luckily i was able to pull out all my data through it. Why don't u give it a try.

http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/