Hi

My G3 will not start up.

When I turn it on it strikes the chord then I just get the grey screen with
an apple on it and the pinwheel rotating. I have been able to attach my
Powerbook to it with a firewire lead and start it in target mode to back-up
the hard disk, so I guess its not the disk that is the problem.

Anyone got any ideas?

Running 10.4.8

TIA

m

On 2007-03-15 11:48:58 -0400, "Malcolm Wooden" <mwooden@dtptypes.com> said:

> Hi
>
> My G3 will not start up.
>
> When I turn it on it strikes the chord then I just get the grey screen
> with an apple on it and the pinwheel rotating. I have been able to
> attach my Powerbook to it with a firewire lead and start it in target
> mode to back-up the hard disk, so I guess its not the disk that is the
> problem.
>
> Anyone got any ideas?
>
> Running 10.4.8
>
> TIA
>
> m

I would try to replace the PRAM battery first. It's located on the
mother board and usually costs about $10 US.

--
John Gentile MS, M(ASCP)
Laboratory Information Mgr.
VA Medical Center
Providence, RI
yjgent@cox.net

In article <2007031522215316807-yjgent@coxnet>,
John Gentile <yjgent@cox.net> wrote:

> On 2007-03-15 11:48:58 -0400, "Malcolm Wooden" <mwooden@dtptypes.com> said:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > My G3 will not start up.
> >
> > When I turn it on it strikes the chord then I just get the grey screen
> > with an apple on it and the pinwheel rotating. I have been able to
> > attach my Powerbook to it with a firewire lead and start it in target
> > mode to back-up the hard disk, so I guess its not the disk that is the
> > problem.
> >
> > Anyone got any ideas?
> >
> > Running 10.4.8
> >
> > TIA
> >
> > m
>
> I would try to replace the PRAM battery first. It's located on the
> mother board and usually costs about $10 US.

Also (you might want to try this first, since it could save you
a trip to the store):

You can manually reset the PRAM by holding down
apple-option-P-R while the system boots. You must
press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
(on G3's this works). You will hear the happy Mac chord,
and then after a moment you'll hear it again. This means that
the PRAM has been reset. Don't use a wireless keyboard, because it
won't be recognized until well along in the boot process.

If that doesn't work, a new PRAM battery is a good idea.

You could also have a problem with some of the files on your disk.

Hold down S while booting (same procedure as above except just S)
to boot into single-user mode. You'll get to a command line interface.
You'll get lines that look something like this:

Singleuser boot -- fsck not done
Root device is mounted read-only
If you want to make modifications to files,
run '/sbin/fsck -y' first and then '/sbin/mount -uw /'

and then the prompt,

localhost#

You're going to be making modifications, so run the '/sbin/fsck -y'
command repeatedly until you get the message that your file system
appears to be clean; you will see a lot of messages scrolling by during
the run, and you may get a message saying that the file system was
repaired, but if you do just run it again.

At this point, you may have fixed the problem. To find out, you
just exit from the command shell by typing (use the exit command).

If you still are having trouble, you may have a corrupt netinfo
database. In that case, you can fix it by rebooting into single
user mode as above. This time, at the prompt, run the
"/sbin/mount -uw /" command. You shouldn't see any output at all from
this command if you have entered it correctly; your prompt should just
return. Once you have run the '/sbin/mount -uw /' command, enter the
following commands, hitting return after each:

cd /private/var/db
rm .AppleSetupDone
cd netinfo
rm -rf local.nidb
reboot

When the system reboots, you'll be prompted for all of your user
information. (because your computer doesn't see the .AppleSetupDone
file) Be careful to use the same short name that you used before. Once
that's finished and the system comes up, you'll be operating with a
clean netinfo db and any changes that you previously made will have to
be remade.

Hugh Gibbons wrote:
> In article <2007031522215316807-yjgent@coxnet>,
> John Gentile <yjgent@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2007-03-15 11:48:58 -0400, "Malcolm Wooden" <mwooden@dtptypes.com> said:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> My G3 will not start up.
>>>
>>> When I turn it on it strikes the chord then I just get the grey screen
>>> with an apple on it and the pinwheel rotating. I have been able to
>>> attach my Powerbook to it with a firewire lead and start it in target
>>> mode to back-up the hard disk, so I guess its not the disk that is the
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> Anyone got any ideas?
>>>
>>> Running 10.4.8
>>>
>>> TIA
>>>
>>> m
>> I would try to replace the PRAM battery first. It's located on the
>> mother board and usually costs about $10 US.
>
> Also (you might want to try this first, since it could save you
> a trip to the store):
>
> You can manually reset the PRAM by holding down
> apple-option-P-R while the system boots. You must
> press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
> (on G3's this works). You will hear the happy Mac chord,
> and then after a moment you'll hear it again. This means that
> the PRAM has been reset.

I might be wrong, but, Don't you have to hold for three gongs?
THAT is what we do in our shop, to do the reset of PRAM

> Don't use a wireless keyboard, because it
> won't be recognized until well along in the boot process.
>
> If that doesn't work, a new PRAM battery is a good idea.
>
> You could also have a problem with some of the files on your disk.
>
> Hold down S while booting (same procedure as above except just S)
> to boot into single-user mode. You'll get to a command line interface.
> You'll get lines that look something like this:
>
> Singleuser boot -- fsck not done
> Root device is mounted read-only
> If you want to make modifications to files,
> run '/sbin/fsck -y' first and then '/sbin/mount -uw /'
>
> and then the prompt,
>
> localhost#
>
> You're going to be making modifications, so run the '/sbin/fsck -y'
> command repeatedly until you get the message that your file system
> appears to be clean; you will see a lot of messages scrolling by during
> the run, and you may get a message saying that the file system was
> repaired, but if you do just run it again.
>
> At this point, you may have fixed the problem. To find out, you
> just exit from the command shell by typing (use the exit command).
>
> If you still are having trouble, you may have a corrupt netinfo
> database. In that case, you can fix it by rebooting into single
> user mode as above. This time, at the prompt, run the
> "/sbin/mount -uw /" command. You shouldn't see any output at all from
> this command if you have entered it correctly; your prompt should just
> return. Once you have run the '/sbin/mount -uw /' command, enter the
> following commands, hitting return after each:
>
> cd /private/var/db
> rm .AppleSetupDone
> cd netinfo
> rm -rf local.nidb
> reboot
>
> When the system reboots, you'll be prompted for all of your user
> information. (because your computer doesn't see the .AppleSetupDone
> file) Be careful to use the same short name that you used before. Once
> that's finished and the system comes up, you'll be operating with a
> clean netinfo db and any changes that you previously made will have to
> be remade.

And, after all that, if it doesn't work, there is still the little grey
circling arrow, we boot from the Alsoft "Disk Wizard" CDrom, and let it
reform the directory.

Then, we go to bombich.com and get the delocalizer, and eliminate all
language files we'll never use, to free up some hard drive space,
typically 300Mb to about 1Gb.