by Tom Nelson
Question: When I turn my Mac on, it displays a flashing question mark for several seconds before booting. Is this anything I should worry about?
Screen shot © Coyote Moon, Inc.
Answer: The flashing question mark is your Mac’s way of telling you that it’s having trouble finding a bootable operating system.
While the question mark is flashing, your Mac is checking all available disks for an operating system it can use. If it finds one, your Mac will finish booting.
You can shorten this search process by selecting a startup disk in System Preferences.
