not booting osx appears a folder

I was having the same issue with my new old macbook. I just bought a new internal hard drive. i installed it, and started it up with the disc that came with it and nothing. the new hard drive doesn't appear on the installation screen nor in disk utility. i'm absolutely clueless as to what to do. i've googled for hours to no avail. anyone mind giving some guidance?

Have someone call Apple Care and they will walk you through it. Or take your computer to Apple Store's Genius Bar and they may fix the problem for free or, in some cases, they may charge a modest fee from several dollars up to about $50. Otherwise, endless googling will become longer and consume your valuable time to no avail.

I'm having the same issue. Macbook Pro mid 2009 13" hard drive failed. Bought a 750 GB 7200 rpm hybrid drive, followed the directions here, boot up from disc, system won't recognize it. No Apple store anywhere near here, so I've been reading other guides on ifixit.com. From what I've seen, either the drive is bad or the connecting cable is bad. Bought another drive, Caviar Blue 500 GB 5400 rpm HDD thinking maybe the computer is too old to handle the 7200 (but I freely admit I know nothing other than what I read here), same deal. Could be 2 bad drives, but my next step is trying to replace the cable. I'll let you know if that solves the problem.

Good luck!

Carrie

I had the same issue. I performed all steps recommended here, as well as on Apple's Support page "A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac," many of which is repeated on "Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup," but, like the rest of the postings here, to no avail. However, I removed the hard drive and it showed up fine connected via a SATA to USB cable. Bought a new drive, installed it and still had the same issue. Removed this drive, and it also ran fine externally. According to dozens and dozens of people in similar situations, it's NOT the hard drive, but turned out to be a faulty Hard Drive Cable (Apple Part #922-9062).

For the evidence, check out the user stories at the bottom of iFixit's Hard Drive Cable page, as well as this iFixit forum — in addition to this forum on Apple Discussions, as well as this one.

I would love to order this part from iFixit (where I first discovered this issue), but the item is listed as "Used" on iFixit — and my understanding is that this cable is a known faulty item. So its "Used" status is currently scaring the heck out of me. I wonder if iFixit can't source a new version of this item?