G3 iBook....HELP!!!! Please!

[macadoodledoo]

Hi! I bought a g3 ibook,800mhz,640mb,80gb and this unit worked great for a couple months. Out of nowhere I got kennel panic. I got unit to flash blinking folder icon, I have tried to do new install of os, gets thru one disk if lucky,then poof! Any help would be greatly taken. Any offers to buy or fix would be nice as well! Thank You Community!!! had the screen do that funky line thing a couple times as well

 

[iLucas]

Hi! I bought a g3 ibook,800mhz,640mb,80gb and this unit worked great for a couple months. Out of nowhere I got kennel panic. I got unit to flash blinking folder icon, I have tried to do new install of os, gets thru one disk if lucky,then poof! Any help would be greatly taken. Any offers to buy or fix would be nice as well! Thank You Community!!!

Sounds like it could be a hard drive issue.

 

[zen.state]

99% sure it's the hard drive. Not an expensive fix at all. More a time consuming pain to install than anything.

 

[macadoodledoo]

Sounds like it could be a hard drive issue.

had the screen do that funky line thing a couple times as well

 

[DrakkenWar]

ibook G3's

had the screen do that funky line thing a couple times as well

Well there could be a few things going in here. I have to agree with the posts. I have owned an G3/500, 2 G3/900's and currently have a spec'd out G3/800. The biggest issues I have found with these laptops; 1.) The well documented video chip issue. Killed both of my 900's. The second is the pathetic plastics that line the case. But I digress, first things first the hard drive is indeed a pretty easy fix. You will need to get your hands on an ide hd, which are cheap as all get out. Look to www.newegg.com, www.computergeeks.com or whatever place you buy from. Second you will need the take-apart guide. Being that if you take your iBook into any MacStore they will laugh at you and take pity on a perfectly good mac that is not on par with a very fickle community.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-iBook-G3-12-Inch-Hard-Drive/130/1

That is the guide for step-by-step. Not the easiest, but not all that hard, I would suggested using a digital camera to take pics along the way. And a handy tool is an egg carton to separate out the various screws.

Good luck, feel free to message me off list if you need any help.

~Drake

 

[macdatadrive]

I believe as well that it is a hard drive issue. When the screen shows a blinking folder with a question mark, it means the system cannot find a bootable OS. I would recommend that you restart the computer with the install disk and run Disk Utility.
Hope that helps.