My iBook g3 powers up but does not let me go past password screen. After I type in my password the screen remains on background but the desktop does not show up. The arrow moves around fine and the iBook stays on. Please help

Hello and welcome to the support community

It looks to me like finder is not launching correctly. I would boot into safe mode and then shut down and restart. See if that has any effect. Else you may need to repair permissions of the disk drive when your in safe mode.

You can access safe mode by doing the following:

• Be sure your Mac is shut down.
• Press the power button.
• Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
• Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).

During startup in Mac OS X v10.4 through Mac OS X v10.6.8, you will see "Safe Boot" on the login window, which appears even if you normally log in automatically. During startup in Mac OS X v10.2 through v10.3.9, you will see "Safe Boot" on the Mac OS X startup screen.

To leave Safe Mode, restart the computer normally, without holding any keys during startup.

Best of luck

The advice I have always read is to repair permissions after starting up normally after the Safe Boot has been accomplished. Of course, in this instance, if booting into Safe Mode is accomplished, but it does not change the ability to start up normally, then repairing permissions while in Safe Mode may be the only way to do it.

Are you able to start up from the Mac OS X 10.4 Install disc by inserting the disc and holding down the c key as the startup chime is ending?

I was afraid that you didn't have the disc.

They can be expensive.

Did you buy the iBook used or have you had it since it was new?

If you bought it used, has it ever worked for you, and were any software discs included in your purchase?

Do you know for sure which exact model iBook it is? The iBook 500 MHz came with every type of optical drive you can think of (except a SuperDrive which allows you to write DVDs).

Does this one have a CD-ROM drive (reads CDs), a CD-RW drive (reads and writes CDs), a DVD drive (reads both CDs and DVDs), or a Combo drive (reads and writes CDs and reads DVDs)?

It came with either 64 MB of RAM or 128 MB of RAM soldered to the logic board. If it has never worked properly, the seller may have installed Mac OS X 10.4 (which requires 256 MB of RAM) while the iBook was equipped with enough RAM, and then removed the extra RAM from the one user-accessible RAM slot, leaving it in a non-working state. If you bought it on eBay, some sellers buy a bunch of them from school auctions and load them with Mac OS X 10.4 this way. A Mac should never be sold without the original software discs that came with it when it was new and any upgrade disc(s) for a newer version of the software to which it has been upgraded. That said, it happens quite a lot, and people are left very disappointed. It often costs more to buy the system software and/or RAM to get it working than what it cost to begin with.

If you can let us know a little more about which model you have, we can maybe figure something out.

I would put the 256 RAM stick back in it and see if it works. Most RAM is covered by a lifetime warranty. If it works again with the 256 module, I'd ask the vendor of the 512 MB RAM chip to replace the module.

That's GREAT!