AppleCare Tech Info Library -Mac OS 7.6: Blinking Question Mark After Install (5/97)

TITLE

Mac OS 7.6: Blinking Question Mark After Install (5/97)

Article ID:
Created:
Modified:

21087
3/7/97
5/27/97

TOPIC

I just finished running the Mac OS 7.6 Installer. Upon restart, the system displays a blinking question mark on the screen. It appears the hard drive will not mount. What's happening? What can I do?

DISCUSSION

This behavior occurs only with hard drives that were formatted with an older version of Apple HDSC Setup (7.1.2 or older). Although there is nothing physically wrong with the hard drive, and no information has been lost, there is currently no utility that would allow access to the data. A drive recovery service may be able to recover the information on the drive.

This behavior will not occur with volumes that have been formatted with newer versions of Apple HDSC Setup, Drive Setup or Internal HD Format. Apple is working on resolving this issue.

You can identify the version of the driver installed on your hard drive by selecting your hard drive in the Finder and choosing Get Info from the File menu.

To reclaim the use of the affected hard drive, reinitialize it with Apple HDSC Setup 7.3.5. Apple HDSC Setup 7.3.5 is located on the Mac OS 7.6 CD in the Utilities folder. Note that reinitializing will result in the loss of all data on the hard drive.

The proper utility (and version) to use for formatting hard drives is:

Drive Setup 1.2.2

all PowerPC-based computers
all computers with IDE drives

Apple HDSC Setup 7.3.5

all 68K-based computers with SCSI hard drives

Document Information
Product Area:	Mac OS System Software
Category:	Mac OS 7.6
Sub Category:	Troubleshooting