AppleMac can't boot - OS problem???

[SK79]

I've got a friend with an IBook running MacOs 9. When he switched on the notebook this morning, nothing happened:

When the machine attempts to boot, a flashing icon appears with a question mark & a folder. Doesn't look to be a hardware problem - is there anything we can do to get access to the OS?

No new programs have been installed and nothing has changed since last night as far as we can tell.

Knowing nothing about Macs, I haven't a clue how to troubleshoot this. Is there any way we can bypass the normal mode into something like Windows' "Safe Mode"?

Any ideas?

 

[jimbopalmer]

the iBook has some difficulty with it's HD.

If you put in the MacOS CD, it SHOULD boot from it, it will contain a utiliy called Disk First Aid which should attempt to repair the HD.

if it fails, and you can see the data on the HD, just not boot, you can reinstall the OS without reformatting. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[macgeneral]

Flashing Question marks on boot mean your OS can't be accessed, for one reason or another. Of course this COULD be a hardware issue witht he drive itself but I doubt it. We've got 50 iBooks here aand I haven't replaced one drive in three years.

Booting from the cd (by inserting the disk and holding the "C" key down during boot) is the primary troubleshoot technique here. You can do this CD boot from Norton Disk Doctor, Tech Tool Pro or a variety of the MAC os CD-ROM's. Once you boot from the cd you'll have limited function but should have full access to your files.

I believe the OS 9 install comes with three options.. completely reinstall, reinstall in Place and I can't recal the third and am too lazy to boot from aa cd

Do your restore keeping your old stuff in place, replacing only system folder and associated files. On reboot (without the cd) you should have everything in tact, save for a few settings.

macGeneral