Power Macintosh G3 that won't boot...

[inspiredDavid]

Ok, so in a moment of madness, I rescued the above machine from a car boot sale (I don't know if these exist in the States, its like a whole field of yard sales) for £10 (about $15). The seller said it was working, but for the money I wasn't too worried. Just wanted to play about with it for a while

So - plug it into a display, USB keyboard and mouse borrowed from a PC (sorry).

Chimes. Good start. About half a second of Apple logo on grey, and then the broken folder of death. Oh dear.

A couple of hours on google hasn't solved this, so I'm asking for help. I have no boot disks, and the keyboard is a PC one so (as i'm new to apple) if there's keys to hold during startup - if you know then please translate these to this keyboard!

These are the specs as I know them:
PowerMac G3
OS X Panther (what the guy told me)
3 sticks of unlabelled ram (so not sure how much but the apple label says 64mb)
6gb HDD

The case is pretty enough that if this thing won't run, it may be turned into an aquarium or some other piece of furniture, but it would be great to have it running!

Any help is appreciated.

 

[chrismacguy]

Sounds to me like a corrupt Mac OS X Install. You probably need to get a hold of some Panther (or really any Mac OS X 10.0-10.4 discs) and restore it using those. (Hold down C at startup to boot from CD)

 

[In-Correct]

Um:

If U.S.A. has them, they would probably be called tailgate sales...or flea markets...or something like that. I have never heard of people gathering and selling things out of their cars...but based on your description... I think I can guess what you are talking about lol.

PC Keyboards won't make a difference. the keys are usually the shift key... c key... and t key... etc.

c = boot from cd
t = target disk mode
and
shift = extensions off

(btw...atm none of these would help your situation...because you say you have no disks...and I don't think that model of computer will support target disk mode)

to translate your function keys... Command Key (next to space bar) is in the same spot as other function keys depending on brand... Commodore Amiga would have C= or "A" keys. PC Keyboards would have the Windows Key next to the space bar.

alt option would be alt on PC keyboard.

control would be ctrl.

what is a "broken folder of death"?

a folder that switches back and forth between a question mark and finder logo (purple happy face thing)

or a diskette with a flashing question mark on it?
or a sad mac? (drawing of a computer with a sad face on it)



EDIT: I reread and spotted that you said that there is an apple logo on a grey screen...and then followed by a "broken folder of death". This is even more confusing. logo would be followed by a circle slash thing.

If you can do this...try to take the hard drive out, and connect it to an adapter and connect it to another mac. It will tell you what is or isn't on it. You can install Mac OS 9.2.2 by copying and pasting...(you may need to reformat it first and install "OS 9 Drivers")
to install OS X or reinstall OS X you would need to get a disk.

It might have bad ram, but I don't think so...because I doubt any screens would come up at all. It might have a bad clock battery...

It might need a firmware update. I don't know how to do this.

OR it might be as simple as a disconnected hard drive cable that needs to be reconnected...or a bad hard drive cable that needs to be replaced.

 

[inspiredDavid]

Thanks for the info - Its the Circle slashy thing as you guessed!

I'm trying to locate the panther disks as we speak, a few messages have been sent to kind friends :roll eyes:

Looking forward to getting this little beast back to life!

Thanks again!