iBook G3 won't boot

[Sky Blue]

A rather gorgous collegue of mine has asked me to look at her iBook for her. It wasn't booting, and just came up with a blank grey screen, kinda like the initial startup screen with the apple logo in the centre. It would just sit at this screen until it was turned off.
I managed to get all the data off through FW mode, but still couldn't get it boot. I tired everything, and finally managed to get it to boot using Open Firmware and typing 'boot'.
It booted up fine and i reinstalled Tiger, installed all the updates and restarted a couple of times, everything was fine.
I moved all her files back through FW and restarted her iBook to make sure everything was set up properly.... but it starts up with that same grey screen again.
Could it be a hardware problem or maybe a corrupt file of hers? I only copied over music/photos, though i noticed she had a lot of P2P apps on there...any ideas?

 

[slooksterPSV]

GO back into OpenFirmware mode, type in these 2 commands:
reset-nvram
reset-all

If that doesn't work, reset your PRAM. CMD+OPT+P+R I think. But the nvram and all should work.

 

[proverbs]

p2p apps combined with computer illiterate people = death to computer

 

[katie ta achoo]

p2p apps combined with computer illiterate people = death to computer

Yeah, but 99.9999% of the threats from P2P are aimed at windows, and the .0001% (or however much I have remaining) were just proof-of-concept.

Since it's a G3, it could be a logic board issue. I'd call apple (not mention the P2P apps) and see what's goin' on.

 

[csubear]

Its not showing the usually effects of a fried logic board. From my own personal experience you know its defective board if

a) you get rainbow color on all or part the the screen and then the system will randomly freeze.

or

b) there is no longer a video signal at all.

I find that playing movies in quicktime seems to bring out the rainbow colors if the logic board is bad.

 

[yenko]

A rather gorgous collegue of mine has asked me to look at her iBook for her. It wasn't booting, and just came up with a blank grey screen, kinda like the initial startup screen with the apple logo in the centre. It would just sit at this screen until it was turned off.
I managed to get all the data off through FW mode, but still couldn't get it boot. I tired everything, and finally managed to get it to boot using Open Firmware and typing 'boot'.
It booted up fine and i reinstalled Tiger, installed all the updates and restarted a couple of times, everything was fine.
I moved all her files back through FW and restarted her iBook to make sure everything was set up properly.... but it starts up with that same grey screen again.
Could it be a hardware problem or maybe a corrupt file of hers? I only copied over music/photos, though i noticed she had a lot of P2P apps on there...any ideas?

You probably imported a corrupt file back into newly installed OS. The clue is; it worked OK until you imported the files. Since I have no idea what it is you're trying to import, there's not much I can help you with except to suggest that you import the files incrementally, restart the machine and import another batch. Keep doing that until you run into a problem. If the imports were small enough, you'll be able to nail the culprit at the point of failure and delete it. If you suspect a file is causing a problem, avoid importing it into the machine. Remember to restart after each batch.

Note: You may try to avoid importing the P2P apps until last. One at a time. Or not at all is even better.

 

[slooksterPSV]

I'm wondering if it isn't something to do with the MBR on the partition. I say redo the install, repartition, erase, redo the whole drive. Drop everything, don't just do a reinstall - go into disk utility, partition the drive, erase it, and reinstall. Sounds like you have a partial corrupt MBR. Like its not on the correct hard drive segment. That's my other idea you could try.