G3 Powerbook Help

[raster]

I have an old G3 Powerbook and this morning when I started it, I only get the black apple on a grey field, and the spinning thing underneath it forever.
I can shut it down my holding down the on button.
I can also connect with firewire to my iMac and download files from the hard drive, but the computer part seems dead.
Anyone know what the problem is? Could it be that the chip is dead but the hard drive still works?
is it now garbage?
any guesses...
Thanks

 

[Mernak]

Some stuff to try

Boot from the install disk (press mouse button while turning on to insert the disk, then boot up pressing apple+C [might take a few minutes]. Use disk utilty to verify / repair disk.

try booting in safe mode (press and hold Shift after startup beep). not sure what to do next besides using disk utility and trying to restart the computer.

try reseting PRAM (hold down apple + option + P + R) then restarting again.

try booting in single user mode (apple + S while starting up). and look for what error it says it has encountered.

note: these are in no particular order, just what i thought of first. but first enter verbose mode(start-up using apple + V) to display error messages.

if nothing seems to be working reinstall OS X from CD and in the options on the CD check Archive and install. If all else fails uncheck archive and install to erase your entire HD(not recommended)

post any information you have from these before erasing your HD, my friend has a similer problem with his laptop but I haven't talked to him in a couple days (i believe his said error 88, but might not be).

P.S. does your hard drive sound like it was starting up?

 

[Mernak]

some things to try

sorry my comp gave me an error 1st time i posted it