G-3 won't start!   

Remember the MacIntosh PowerPC G3 Laptop that, with your help, I got
working about 6 weeks ago, with wireless and all that?

Everything was great for a while, but now it won't start!

When the On button is pressed, the screen lights up and then an image
of a floppy disk appears in the center, with a flashing question mark.

I think this means it can't find the hard disk and wants a floppy disk
with startup files????

(After a while the screen goes dark, and then pressing the On/off
button plays a little music and then I think it turns off.  Pressing
the button when the screen is still lit up doesn't do anything.)

Is there a way out of this?     On a PC I'd start with a floppy disk
and then try to repair the harddrive, with Scandisk or something.

What should I do in this case?  He's running OS 8.6.

Thanks

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM  :-)

date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:56:49 -0400   author:   mm

Re: G-3 won't start!   

On 2008-06-05 19:56:49 -0400, mm  said:

> Remember the MacIntosh PowerPC G3 Laptop that, with your help, I got
> working about 6 weeks ago, with wireless and all that?
> 
> Everything was great for a while, but now it won't start!
> 
> When the On button is pressed, the screen lights up and then an image
> of a floppy disk appears in the center, with a flashing question mark.
> 
> I think this means it can't find the hard disk and wants a floppy disk
> with startup files????
> 
> (After a while the screen goes dark, and then pressing the On/off
> button plays a little music and then I think it turns off.  Pressing
> the button when the screen is still lit up doesn't do anything.)
> 
> Is there a way out of this?     On a PC I'd start with a floppy disk
> and then try to repair the harddrive, with Scandisk or something.
> 
> What should I do in this case?  He's running OS 8.6.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM  :-)

Sounds like it could be a dead hard drive or a dead battery. Has he 
tried to start with the power plugged in? If it is the HD then he 
should be able to start with a system CD. Place the CD in the drive, 
restart while holding down the C key. Once it starts you can find the 
Utilities folder and run the Disk Utilities. If the HD is dead, it 
might be possible to hook up an external USB HD that has the system on 
it.
-- 
John Gentile MS, M(ASCP)
Laboratory Information Mgr.
VA Medical Center
Providence, RI 
yjgent@cox.net

date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:09:46 -0400   author:   John Gentile