PowerBook G3 won't boot into OS X. Just a question mark with a floppy icon as the computer starts up.

Hello,

I have a PowerBook G3 PDQ with Mac OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar installed. The system refuses to boot up, displaying a question mark with a floppy icon. At the time, the power indicator turned to "blue", trying to access the hard drive to start up the computer. However, I could only hear that the hard drive spinning irregularly: I could hear the disk engine starts spinning the disk, then stop. It will do this continuously.

This happened after setting up Mac OS X Jaguar with all updates, including graphics card driver, security updates, system software like iTunes, QuickTime, etc installed, pending to restart.

I clicked "Restart" in the Software Update dialogue, and all the applications (Finder, Software Update, etc) quit. Now it only remained the original Jaguar "Aqua" desktop background with a spinning circle at the bottom of the screen.

I waited there, but it was longer than usual. After leaving it there for an hour, I decided to execute force shut down command by pressing key combinations: Function + Control + Shift + Power Button.

After that, I waited for a minute and restart the computer. Then, this is how it begins... until now...

1) System booted up, but not loading into the operating system. On the screen, there was only a question mark with a floppy disk icon.

2) This hard drive was not spinning accordingly, as mentioned above.

3) The computer could boot up from System Software Restore CD with Mac OS 8.1 (its original OS) presented. Also the Mac OS 9 Retail CD and Mac OS X Jaguar Installer.

4) However, after successfully booting into any of the CDs as described in Step. 3, the hard drive spun normally.

5) Actually, this system would not spin the hard drive as it should if the valid (for this computer) operating system could not be found.

=> The hard drive has been checked and it was okay. Also, I replaced the hard drive to test if the same thing would happen after failing to boot. Well... yes it was...

6) Entering into the Open Firmware (Old version, a lot of new commands are not supported, like the "mac-boot". It only supports these (BYE, BOOT, DEVALIAS, etc) universal commands), typing "BYE" to boot to Mac OS and "BOOT" to start up from the default boot device didn't work.

7) Technically, it is really hard to install Mac OS X on this machine because it will not boot into it at first. I have to do the following to allow the OS X booting instead of starting only from Classic (may be the Old ROM issue?):

7-1) While rebooting, press "C" key to force system boots from CD as the computer starts.

7-2) I will now see the "gray" screen, and the the optical drive is trying to read the disc. Then, the screen will turn black and restart. Do the step 7-1) again.

7-3) After the screen goes off again, reset PRAM.

7-4) Then, do step 7-1) again, the machine will behave as same as it is. However, here comes to the important part: this time, when the computer restarts as the screen become black, press the key combinations to enter Open Firmware (actually it won't boot into Open Firmware).

7-5) I can now see the gray logo of "Apple" to install Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar.

8) I have re-blessed the "System" folder and use "Disk Utility" of the Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar Install CD to repair the disk permissions and verify the disk. Everything is in good shape.

9) The Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar Install CD comes with no "Startup disk" utility. Therefore, I used Mac OS 9 Install CD to make my hard drive, "Macintosh HD" as the default boot drive.

Can anyone help me fix this? Is there any problem with the ROM or the BootX (I tried to use Open Firmware to show the files inside CoreServices directory, then I could execute BootX. However, due to its old version issue, it is not possible. System replied, "Command not found".) file? Is there any way to rebuild (or re-generate) the BootX? Any suggestions here are appreciated.

Regards,

Andy