ibook G3 boot up issues

Firstly, hello.
Im new to the world of Macs so Im not totally sure what Im searching for to solve my problem. If this is already covered please post the thread links but don't bite ;D

I purchased the iBook PowerPC G3 off of Ebay (bad move) and immediately have problems with it - the easiest way to solve it is send it back but the seller and ebay are having nothing to do with it - so a fix is the only option.

When I turn on the iBook, I get the chime, it thinks for a few seconds then loads up the grey screen with the apple logo and the disc thing going round. Thats it, doesn't go any further - it will sit there until I turn it off.

One thing that has been suggested is a OS reboot (I have been told that it runs off OSX - which I would need to buy a copy of).
Now at present I cannot open the disc drive for love nor money or can I seem to access any boot priority screen.

Can anyone here help me on how to fix this ?

Thanks

If the seller did not send you the original restore disks you will have to buy retail copies of OS X, make sure they are sold as retail copies, not regular grey restore disks

Panther OSX 10.3 and Tiger 10.4 will install on that mac, the latest OS X Leopard 10.5 will not

To open the disk drive attach a mouse (any usb mouse will do) and keep the left button pressed on start-up, the left trackpad buttonmay also force the tray to open on start-up

Also try keeping the alt key pressed on start up, that will show you any bootable systems on that mac, you may be able to run OS 9 on it and at least get access to disk utility

Otherwise its booting up into the terminal if you are happy to try that

thanks for that - i shall give that a go.
I am going to assume that I will need to get the OS from an Apple Store ? There don't seem to be many on their website that fit the bill.

You could always try eBay as well. It is a cheaper option.

hmm, following the last success from ebay - which has landed me this problem - I would prefer not

george7627 said:

hmm, following the last success from ebay - which has landed me this problem - I would prefer not

Click to expand...

You will have to get Panther 10.3 or Tiger 10.4 second hand, Apple no longer sells them and Leopard will not run on a G3

Again, just make sure they are retail copies, any grey disks are machine specific and most likely will not install

Ok, I booted up the naughtly little Mac to view the bootable drives it gave me the HD with a blue X on it ?

I tried running the repair troubleshoot as advised on the quick fix thread, no luck there - I get the message "Volume is journaled, No checking performed"

When I perform the forced check fsck -f it comes up with no errors, however an attempted boot from that screen just gets stuck in the loop.

Is there anyway I can work around this without having to go through the OS reboot ?

You could try booting up in safe mode, keep Shift pressed on start-up, worth a try at least

I have tried the safe mode setting - it still gets stuck on the apple and disc thingy

Jumped the gun a little - now currently have Mac OS X on me screen in a box with a blue background. HDD seems to be thinking about something - give it a whilt to sit in the corner and think about what it has done then see where it takes me .....

(this is after booting with the Safe Mode setting - SHIFT on bootup - nothing on the screen telling me that it is in safe mode however)

right then, having let it think about its behaviour, the ibook still didn't boot up. It stayed on the "splash screen" with a multi-coloured wheel and that was it.
I then attempted to boot up using the cmd & v at startup.
This worked all the way to the blue screen and a pointer icon but that was it.

A scan of the HDD shows no errors - any ideas ?

You are just going to have to bite the bullet and do a re-install on that one

*sniff*

Did you ever figure this out? Im having the same problem!