cannot open on start error

[sumairam]

Im posting this for my brother, who upon coming home this weekend, found that his mac was no longer booting. It shows a gray screen with the error of cannot open across the top.

He said that there was a floppy inserted in his drive that he didnt put there, and that its possible one of our nephews may have put it in. That shouldnt matter though because his floppy drive hasnt worked in over a year.

We've tried booting it from the OS 10 cd, but that just goes right into install options. And he cant install it because non of the hardrives are showing up. The floppy is now the only drive showing and it says its locked.

His old OS cd does allow him to run from it, but he cant see the hardrives, or anything other than the floppy.

Any suggestions on what to do next? ANY help would be really appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[dodge20]

What type of machine is it? A lot of floppy drives have a little hole where you can insert a paperclip to remove the disk. If that doesn't work try rebooting with the mouse button down. I don't know if that still works on OS X, but it used to on the older systems.

Dodge20