question mark and finder icon blinking at start up

you should boot to the install disk for the current operating system and repair the disk with disk utility. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214 you should run disk utility until hopefully it repairs all errors, and then try for a normal restart. let me know how that goes.

Pendragon:

A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac indicates that your computer cannot find a boot volume. Try Option Booting (Holding down the Option key after you hit the Power button). If this works you will see a screen come up almost immediately with one or more drives. Select the drive you want to boot from and click the right-pointing arrow. If no drives appear click the circular arrow to refresh. If you are able to start go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Startup Disk. Select your startup disk and click restart.

If Option booting does not work you have a more serious problem. Read the article linked and follow suggestions or post back with your report.

Good luck.

cornelius

Pendragon:

there no disk that i can choose

Not sure what you mean by that. You started up from the install disk holding down the "C" key. Once booted you went to the Installer menu and opened Disk Utility. When DU was opened are you saying that you did not see your HDD in the left panel?

Good luck.

cornelius

Message was edited by: cornelius

try booting to the install disk for the current operating system by holding the c key until you get the spinning gear under the apple. then under the installer menu choose "open disk utility", and then select the macintosh hd. click on "repair disk". repair it until hopefully it doesn't report any more errors, and then try a normal reboot.

sherry:

I am a bit confused here. My understanding is that the computer does not boot from the internal HDD, and when booted from the installer CD, DU does not see the internal HDD. Is that your understanding?

Thanks.

cornelius

It was my understanding (and my sincere hope before replacing my hard drive myself) that if you can boot from the OS cd, you can choose the startup disk from the menu. See if your normal hard drive shows up there.

If not, and disk repair doesn't see anything, try Disk Warrior. It runs about $99.00 new (I saw it today and when I have $$$ I will buy it). Sometimes, I have heard rumors that Disk Warrior will see hard drives that the regular disk utility on board OSX doesn't see.

PFMbyNight:

if you can boot from the OS cd, you can choose the startup disk from the menu

You can choose your startup drive if it is a bootable drive. That means your HDD must be properly formatted with an installed OS.


If not, and disk repair doesn't see anything, try Disk Warrior.

Disk Warrior does one thing and does it well: it repairs the Directory in OS X. You must have a formatted HD with an OS installed.


Good luck.

cornelius

Sherry means to boot from the Install CD for OS X 10.3.

Start up from the Mac OS X Install CD by inserting the disc in the optical drive and restarting your computer, holding down the C key as the startup chime is ending. Then choose Installer > Open Disk Utility and select the hard drive in the left column. Choose the First Aid tab. Click Repair Disk to test and repair the hard drive.

Once you have repaired the hard drive with the Install CD's Disk Utility, then start up normally and repair permissions from Disk Utility in the Utilities folder on the hard drive.

Have you started up from the CD?

Is OS X 10.2 what is installed on the hard drive? Earlier, you indicated in your specs that you were running OS X 10.3.9. You need to start up with the Install CD that matches the version of the OS which is installed on the iBook.

Usually, the hard drive will be called "Macintosh Hard Drive," unless you have renamed it.

Have you renamed your hard drive "Media"?

If you are running OS X 10.3.9, then you need the OS X 10.3 Install CD in order to repair the hard drive.