is this imac dead?

Well, it's like this.
I have an imac G3 333, and it was good. One day a flashing questionmark turned up. Shutdown/restart. It had gone, only to return and after 3 or 4 further shutdown/startups. I consulted the oracles.
"zap your PRAM" they said. Yes
"reset your CUDA" they chimed. Yes
"hold down as many buttons as you can on startup" yeah, OK
"reload your OS" they chorused. Well, it was running 9.2.2 when it arrived via a warehouse sale, and those disks didn't come with the machine. So I tried 9.1.
"No, it must be the ORIGINAL disks that came with the computer" they laughed. And those would be? 8.5 for yours. So after 3 weeks and a bidding war on Ebay I tried again.
"well obviously your harddrive is fried" they surmised. The man from CompUSA didn't seem to think so, having tested it on a p.c. (the mac man was ill that day)
"tweaked, wobbled and generally poked around with HD connections" Yes
"norton utilities?" Wouldn't get near it.
Generally the proceedure is with every OS: Switch on/flashing questionmark immediately/disk in/disk reading noises/smiley face/startup background/error 41 "finder"
Beginning to suspect CompUSA man of conspiracy, I plugged the HD into an old p.c. that was lying around. Yes, the disk worked, but it was also full, it said. Ah! with 6GB gone, it was unable to accept any more commands or even go through the reinstall process, I thought. So, I erased all the data and reformatted in Dos, hoping that the imac would reformat the disk later...was this stupid? the p.c. was capable of it....having first seen that there was space to play with.
So now I've erased all the data I had and it still does the same, it never even gets near the HD it seems. Motherboard?
I am beginning to hate that imac, which is a shame, because my son loves it.

I am lost. Help?

you need to connect the hd or imac with hd installed to another mac via firewire and startup in target disk mode, then use diskutility to reformat as mac os extended journaled. do you have another mac, or a friend with a mac? o wait os 9, mac os extended, not journaled.

I don't think an iMac/333 has FireWire

technologist said:

I don't think an iMac/333 has FireWire

Click to expand...

Correct - it doesn't.

I'm runninc a 600SE with Firewire, but yes, the 333 doesn't. Forgive my stupidity, but if I were to buy a new harddrive for the 333, plug it in, I imagine I would get the same errors because the drive is unformatted? I'm assuming a new drive comes with nothing on it?

I read somewhere that the logic board is probably the culprit.....is there any way of confirming this and if it is, is it worth replacing?

feels like there's water in the engine room....

How do you start up in target disc mode?

Lasha said:

How do you start up in target disc mode?

Click to expand...

The system that you are going mount as a disk on the other system turn it off. Connect the firewiare cable. Press t on the system that you turn off. Then restart the system (boot). The system will come up with the firewire icon on the screen. If the other system is not on, power it up. In a short time you should see the other system mounted on your disk top as a firewire disk.

Since you spoke to the oracles did they mention that a low battery can cause startup problems? Since the 333 models are now 6 years old the battery is beyond its reasonable lifespan (unless it has been replaced before.)

yes, I'm afraid that was one attempt I should have added. That was my first port of call upon opening it up for the first time. You've all been terribly helpful so far, it's just that I feel the water is coming up the lift shafts as we speak...I'm not being much help am I?

same problem with g3 400

Ok Im having the same prob with my g3 400 9.2.2---the only way I can get it going is to put in OS disc to install a operating system...Now that I got it going Im affraid to shut it down--because I know when I start it back up I will get the same flashing question mark and folder---so whats everybody think bad or corrupted drive or dead battery--or logic board( i dont even know what that is --sounds expensive--) does anybody know???thanks
stix