I bought a used G4 but when booted up the desktop was blank. Wallpaper and mouse cursor OK, but no icons/menus/toolbars etc.
First, I tried various start-up and re-boot suggestions mentioned on other forums, eg holding down ctrl/alt/P/R and various other combinations, to no apparent effect. Also tried restart holding down C key.
Then in desparation I tried Software Refresh disks 1 to 4. They did not auto-eject nor did I see a prompt to change disks, however while disk 2 was running I did spot the right edge of a window which appeared on the extreme left of the screen.
I realised that my cursor would stop once it reached the edge of the screen at the top, bottom and right of the screen. However it would disappear when moved to the far left of the screen.
It occurred to me that perhaps my desktop is not blank at all, its just that I can’t see the icons because they are all off-screen to my left.
So I went fishing, tried to click-and-drag blind when the cursor was off-screen and after several goes I dragged a couple of icons, which vanished in a cartoon puff of smoke when I released the mouse button.
However I also found the HD icon and was able to change the screen resolution, but this still didn’t bring the icons into view.
It’s like I’m viewing a widescreen picture, but can only see half of it.
Can anybody tell me how to get all of my desktop visible on a standard monitor screen ??? Or how can I switch the icons/toolbar etc to the right hand side?
Help desparately needed!!
muchos gracias !
First, I tried various start-up and re-boot suggestions mentioned on other forums, eg holding down ctrl/alt/P/R and various other combinations, to no apparent effect. Also tried restart holding down C key.
Then in desparation I tried Software Refresh disks 1 to 4. They did not auto-eject nor did I see a prompt to change disks, however while disk 2 was running I did spot the right edge of a window which appeared on the extreme left of the screen.
I realised that my cursor would stop once it reached the edge of the screen at the top, bottom and right of the screen. However it would disappear when moved to the far left of the screen.
It occurred to me that perhaps my desktop is not blank at all, its just that I can’t see the icons because they are all off-screen to my left.
So I went fishing, tried to click-and-drag blind when the cursor was off-screen and after several goes I dragged a couple of icons, which vanished in a cartoon puff of smoke when I released the mouse button.
However I also found the HD icon and was able to change the screen resolution, but this still didn’t bring the icons into view.
It’s like I’m viewing a widescreen picture, but can only see half of it.
Can anybody tell me how to get all of my desktop visible on a standard monitor screen ??? Or how can I switch the icons/toolbar etc to the right hand side?
Help desparately needed!!
muchos gracias !