What's this Global icon during startup?

[desciple]

Stats: G4 / OSX Panther 10.3.8

The machine was working fine, however, it started booting up all of a sudden with a square icon with a picture of the earth in it. It stays that way for 5min before going into a small mac folder icon, then finally after 7min, OSX kicks in. What is it, and how can I get rid of it to boot up fast like it used to?
Help me Mr. Wizard!
~DESCIPLE~

Recent hardware installs: Midiman 8x8(USB) / Echo Gina24 soundcard(PCI)

 

[LeeTom]

I believe your computer is setup to look for a Network boot volume first, thus the globe icon. To fix it, go into the Startup Disk pane of the System Preferences, and select the correct system to start up with. Most likely "Mac OS X, 10.3.8 on Macintosh HD".

Lee Tom

 

[MacsRgr8]

Exactly.

Resetting PRAM also helps. This will set the boot volume to the first bootable partition on the internal HD.
Just reboot, press & hold the following keys: <COMMAND> <OPTION> <P> <R>, and hold until you hear the startup chime for the second time.