Powerbook G3 not booting up

mezerik,

""it chimes and then goes to a blank screen with a folder in the centre and on the folder it alternates from the mac face logo to a question mark.

It is not seeing the system folder. If you know that connections are good and that the hard drive works and has a good system folder, then do a warm boot and give it time to search for the right folder. Start the computer, listen for the chime, give it a few seconds, then press 'command' and 'control' and the power button and see if it will reset and load the second time.

This is not the article I was looking for but it will take you to the search engine that will help you read up on troubleshooting the PowerBook:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24608

I will keep looking for the other article.

Ji˜m

You may have an issue similar to this but not exactly because you do see the flashing folder:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25018

"it seems strange both hard drives do the same thing unless of course both are damaged. "

I agree. That is why I think it is a reset problem. Have you pulled the battery and power plug a tried a total power reset? The CPU may be stuck on some instruction that it does not want to get past. I need to keep looking for the article in question.

mezerik,

There are two models with a bronze keyboard, the 400MHz Bronze Keyboard (Lombard) and the 400MHz FireWire (Pismo). If the HD you swapped in with OS9 did not have OS 9.0.4 or newer, the Lombard would start (minimum OS 8.6) but not the Pismo. The Lombard will also boot any compatible MacOS X CD/DVD up to 10.3.9.

Note: The Pismo will actually start to 9.0.2 but this was only available on the original disks shipped with the Pismo.

Knowing exactly which model you have will help in troubleshooting.

This illustrated article will help:

24604- PowerBook G3 Computers: How to Identify Different Models

The usual drill is:

Problem: with A) hard drive and/or contents or B) something else
Solution: Boot from System/Install CD
OK?
--Yes, problem followed Hard Drive and/or contents
--No, main problem is with something else (not Hard drive or contents)

You have switched this around a bit, but initial indications are that this is not a Hard Drive problem. I suggest you boot from a CD and find out if the symptoms change.

For your additional anguish, I have an iBook that seems to have a blown IDE controller -- it won't recognize or boot from Hard Drive or CD, and has no FireWire. Great picture of a folder with a flashing question mark though.

mezerik,

You have the Powerbook G3 Series Bronze Keyboard (Lombard) if it has USB but no FireWire. Assuming no hardware problems, the OS 9.x on the swapped HD from the Pismo should have started the Lombard.

A few questions and comments...

- You mention this being a second-hand powerbook. Is this the way the Lombard behaved when you got it?

- Listen carefully when you power on the 'book...do you hear the HD spin up?

- There may be several reasons why the burned disk image of 9.x does not boot the Lombard...the System Folder may not be blessed or the disk image did not create the proper boot blocks on the CD or the MacBook Pro may not be able to create a bootable Classic CD. I did test burning a disk image of my installed OS 9.2.2 on another partition on my iBook's HD running 10.4.9. Result was I could not boot my iBook to the CD...it would not even show up in the Startup Manager when booting with the 'option' key.

- Since both HDs behave the same (and the Pismo's HD does in fact run properly in the Pismo), you probably have a bad HD ribbon cable and/or logic board.

- I would try to find any compatible, bootable Classic or X CD to see if the Lombard will boot. You want a retail MacOS 8.6 or newer (up to 10.3.9) or a compatible utility like Norton Utilities for Mac or TechTool or DiskWarrior, etc.

In the US:

http://www.applerescue.com/

in the UK:

eBay.co.uk

Mac OS 9.2.1 "Full Retail" Installer for any Mac

The photo on the above auction shows what any worthwhile Mac OS 9 CD should look like. Gray or orange ones may or may not boot, but will not install properly on your Mac.

mezerik,

Grant gave you the appropriate links for OSes, but make sure you want to run either 9.x or 10.x...no need to buy 9.x if you want to run 10.x. However, with only 64MB of RAM, you are limited to 9.x.

jpl-

Point taken. I have a strong bias.

That bias is -- I still think of an OS 9 CD as essential for troubleshooting, since its CD can run a limited version of OS 9 that allows you to test disks, move files, run the installer, run all sorts of well-behaved third party diagnostics, run XPostFacto, and so much more.

With only a Mac OS X CD you can ... Install. Oh, and run Disk Utility, and reset the Owner password. But run a third party program? Forget it. Maybe you can debug with Unix stuff, but I am not familiar enough with those tools to use them on a machine that may still have problems.

Grant,

I agree; it's amazing what you can still do with 9.x when troubleshooting. The Unix guys probably call Classic a toy but it works for me...