Odd start up problem

Hey Folks. If anyone can help with this it would be much appreciated.

I've got a Dual Processor G4 Power Mac, and having got round to
unpacking after moving recently tried to start it up. It did all the usual
stuff - chime, whirring etc and got so far as changing background
to my desktop colours, but it won't actually bring up the log-in screen
for me to log-in, it just hangs there.

I thought I'd give the restore CD a go, but when I held down 'C' as it
restarted it didn't do anything after the chime, the monitor went back
on to standby and it just hung.

Of course, now I can't eject the cd any more, and I'm not sure what
to do. Someone suggested starting up holding the 'shift' and apple keys
but that's not doing anything either.

It's just really odd that it gets past initial start up but after changing
background colours it doesn't go any further.

Anyone got some suggestions ?

Cheers.

 

thanks

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Thanks for that I'll give that a try. As a matter of interest what will that
actually do i.e. what is PRAM and will resetting it affect how it runs ?

Many thanks.

 

Yeah, if I just do a normal start up the I can hear the drive spinning
and everything appears normal (chime and light) but when it gets
through to log in the panel just isn't there.
(I've tried the CD a couple of times. It starts up normally with chime
and light, but after a couple of seconds it just goes to standby as I'm
holding down the 'c' key. The damn thing won't eject now though).

 

Thanks, will give that a try.