Question mark file system problems

2016 macbook.. power to question mark… it can’t find an os. Boot to recovery mode, open disk Utility Finds only os core partition with is formatted in hfs. Apple file system partition is missing. Ok so we can probably rule out the cable with is a common problem. The hard drive is there it just can’t see the main apple file system partition. Apple documentation not helpful for this case. Google shows this is a fairly common problem Try to boot. Won’t accept password. I’m certain of the password. Apple keeps os core on read only hfs partition. Password isn’t read only and can be changed while running so this must be kept on apple file system partition. Any ideas. The storage device is there and in fact the machine is reading from it. How to make machine also read from apple file system partition. It’s time to upgrade but I was hoping to hope out for m1 large MacBooks.