iBook G3 Clamshell; not starting up after chime

Thank you so much for your replies, I am extremely grateful!

I am in the UK, however have looked for the same disc in the UK and have managed to find one and will be coming soon.

Whilst waiting for it to come, I decided to take the clam apart to check for any dust or dirt or damage causing the issue. I took it all apart even removing the logic board, went over it all with a fine tooth comb (softly!) and it is all back together cleanly. The hard drive is now not making any noises, and when I turn it on it goes straight to the ? smile file screen rather than having to wait several seconds to get there.

I will see what happens when the discs arrive and hope it works.

Hi, just wanted to update this as it has been a little while.

I decided that if replacing the hard drive cable didn’t fix the job, I would get rid. Think it heard me, magically fixed! Lots of hairs have been tore from my head but my clam is working again!

The battery is as dead as a dodo but it’s running off mains absolutely fine.

Thank you for your advice!

Thank you for replying.

I’ve tried holding T upon startup after the chime, the hard drive continues clicking for a few seconds with white screen and then it resorts back to the ? and smiley face file.

Does this sound like a complete hard disk failure? Is there any way of using an external hard disk or USB? Just seems a shame!

I am happy to pull it apart to replace the drive however I don’t have any OS discs so may be quite a costly process these days.

It comes up with a refresh arrow, and an arrow indicating next so I assume this could be a viable option?

I'm lost when it comes to this, so I apologise for sounding stupid. I have a USB external HD available but fear it’s too large (1TB), I have a USB stick which is 16GB, could this work?!

Where can I get the suitable OS for the clamshell? I don’t even know which OS would be the correct one for it anymore!

Hi, just posting with an update!

I got a hard drive which was pre-loaded with OS X Panther 10.3.7; it was tested and working in a PowerBook. It is a 160GB drive but I figured it would lower it to what it could take.

Spent over two hours meticulously taking apart the iBook and putting it back together with the new hard drive…. For it to do the exact same thing. ? and smile file.

The disc is still on its way, but I don’t know now if there may be a fault with something else given what has happened?