Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Need Help

J

jettastud

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 3, 2004
9
0
I have an old Powerbook 5300. I haven't used it in some time now and when I tried to start it up all I get is a question mark. What should I try to do? I have tried to restart and reset the pram. What else can I do? Any help would be great. thanks.
edit: This computer is from the 90's and doesn't have a cd drive or osx. It is black and white.
 
Dunno what to tell you. Might want to try to boot from an OS CD (hold down the "C" key while booting and the CD is already in of course).

Another thing... you'll probably get more help if you change your topic from the generic "please help" which means almost nothing to anybody.
 
The question mark means that the comp found no system on the boot drive (HD).

If you're lucky, it just means you need to reinstall Mac OS. If you're unluck it may mean your HD or something else is dead.

As SilentPanda said, boot from your CD's to see if it boots. If it does, check the HD etc, and reinstall sofware. Also as SilentPanda said, an explicit thread title would be good (read the "Rules" Thread 😉 ). A better title would be "[PBook 5300] Won't Boot - Stuck on ? icon" for eg, and would get you more help.
 
question mark appears because ur system is not able to find the startup software..no big deal hopefully..at the max , a reinstall wd do..

There are two things which i can think you can try..
1. startup manager..restart holding down 'x key..u would get a gray screen, and it would start again, release the key when it starts again. you would get the startup manager..select the volume..
2. resetting the power manager
press restart, as soon as you hear the sound, hold down cmd+option+o+f, hold it down until you hear a second chime..release it, it should start then,..
if not..and you have already tried repair permissions from the disk, as others said..then i guess you wd need a reinstall,,,and after that make sure you download the latest firmware updates from apple..
 
Is there data on this PowerBook that you want to save if it's still there? If not, reformatting the disk and reinstalling Mac O.S. is a fine choice to get a fresh clean start. If you have data to save, however, you want to try booting from a CD and looking for data on the PowerBook drive before you do anything else. And you wouldn't want to reformat the disk in that case.
 
If it's been sitting for a while, it probably needs a new battery. My old Performa would claim to not find any system software even though the drive was full. The battery solved it each time.
 
Not sure about the battery hint. I don't have much experience with PowerBooks that old but my G3 PB works fine without a battery as long as it's plugged in correctly. If it's a dead battery, it wouldn't start up in the first place. And since when do Performa's have batteries, anyways? I thought they were desktops. Unless you're talking about a PRAM battery.

My suggestion is that you don't spend that much money trying to fix it. My understanding is that you can get another PB5300 for about $50.

If it doesn't have a CD drive, then does that mean that the system would be installed from a floppy?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back