Beige G3 Death knell? noooooooooo Please noooo

[george]

On powering all I get on a grey screen is a floppy disk picture with a big question mark in the middle of it. I do hear the usual chime and the HDD spinning away but nothing more.
I have tried powering up with an OS 9 disk in the cd drive and pressing the c key to no avail. have I just attended a  funeral and was unaware of it.
Tell me no!
Help please.

George.
Not so

[kelly]

Question Mark means it can't find a valid System Folder to Boot from.  

Did you already replace the PRAM Battery on this machine?

Try resetting the PRAM.

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Press the power button to turn the computer on. You will hear the computer's startup sound.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

[kbeartx]

George -

you should be able to boot this machine with any OS seedie from 8.1 on up.

I recommend that you try using a disk utility  seedie (Norton, Disk Warrior, TechToolPro) so that if there is software damage to the HD, you will have a shot at reparing it once booted.

Follow Kelly's advice about zapping the PRAM, then try again booting to a known-good seedie with a valid OS on it.

One other possibility - not long ago I encountered a malfunctioning Kensington trackball that completely prevented a beige G3 from finding a valid system folder anywhere (on the HD or seedie).  Once it was disconnected, the Mac booted perfectly to the HD or seedie, just as it did before the start of the troubles.

 - kbeartx

[george]

I  have zapped the pram and the only disk that it will respond only to is a new disk ( OS 9.1)supplied with my G4 and even then a message ( time bomb )is superimposed over the welcome to Mac 9.1 OS  "sorry a system error occurred, the system map inconsistent, to temporarily turn off extentions, restart and hold down the shift key.
When I follow this instruction up comes exactly the same messages.
What next?
George

[Gary S]

Shut down the computer. Disconnect all your peripherals except the keyboard and mouse and try to boot while holding down the Shift key to disable all your extensions.

Do you have a USB card in the Beige unit? Sometimes that gets screwy too.

Keep trying booting from various CDs that have a valid System folder on it . Sometimes one will work and others won't.
After you here the chimes keep saying, out loud...."Come on you sucker......Boot"!  
 
 [ 02-09-2003, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Gary S ]

[george]

Gary S,thanks for the advice, I'll try what you say in that I have recently installed a two port usb card which I will remove and then at  the appropriate moment utter your suggested prompting words of encouragement plus a few well chosen Anglo Saxon words of my own.
Alas it will have to wait till morning as I feel the need of a pint of ale, so it's off to the local pub.
Be of good cheer until I return.
George.
9.15 pm GMT

[Bernie]

GaryS's advice is right on the money.

[LR827]

Uh-oh... I am suddenly feeling a sense of impending doom.  I am sitting at my beige G3 tower, in which I recently RE-installed OS 8.6, because OS 9 made my Apple Video Player disappear.

But I am staring down at the Macally PCI-to-USB card that awaits my installing it, so that I can then install XLR8's InterView 2.0.  As soon as I get another vacation.

Now, are you telling me that I am going to start having this kind of trouble once I install the USB card?  Please say Nooooooooooo!

[kelly]

Nooooooooooo!

[Gary S]

Lorraine,

I've had a USB card in my Beige G3 that works fine. It's just that if you get the problems Thomas is talking about, it may be a peripheral problem, in which case it's a good idea to disconnect the USB peripherals and see if that helps.

The USB card should work fine.

[LR827]

FUNNEEEE, kelly!  And thanks, Gary, for your reassurance!

Now, for that vacation... Where's a 2006 calendar...?

[kelly]

I was serious Lorraine.  

You should have none or just minor problems with that card.

Do you have QuickTime Pro activated yet?

[george]

Things have moved on in that I installed the IDE drive from my Mac 6400200 with OS9 on it and it works. The problem then was that it could see the 2 GB SCSI HDD on the desktop but when I tried to activate it up pops the message that it could not do this in that there was no system folder.
I then managed to wipe the contents of  the SCSI HDD (which I intended)using OS9 on the IDE HDD but I am unable to install  an OS on it simply because I do not know how to!I have since replaced the the 2GB SCSI with a 9GB SCSI HDD and now it cannot see it on the desktop but in the profiler it gives the size and make but states 'no volume mounted'. The question now is what should be my next step and HOW?
George.

[LR827]

Sorry, kelly, I didn't see your last question until now.  No, I don't have QuickTime Pro activated.  What is that?  I have not put Interview in yet.  Still waiting until I get a vacation!

[kelly]

Lorraine. With QuickTime Pro you can create and edit movies.  

Also a wide choice of compression codecs.

I know you were supposed to have gotten it with the Interview deal.

Worth checking out. You'll need it activated for the Interview stuff.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/faq.html#2

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/faq.html

You probably have the license for QT 4. Maybe 5. Worth looking at.

George. Try using Drive Setup to Initialize that hard drive.