Help my Mac is broken and won't boot up!

[onedizzydevil]

Hello:

First let me say I am not a Mac person, I am a IBM compatible person so if I get things wrong or it does not make since let me know I will get the correct information.

My client has an Appple G3, yesterday she said she was using it and all of a sudden in the top right hand corner of the screen it said something to effect "Hard drive corrupt possible data lose, please check data and backup files." That is what she told me any way. She also said the weird thing is that is was a small box in the top right corner as opposed to the normal larger box in the middle of the screen.

Any way, she turned the machine off and back on again and the only thing that happened was the little blueish looking file folder showed up alternating between a question mark and the Apple face logo thingy.

I told it that is sounded like the hard drive went bad and that it may need to be replace or something trashed the booting part of the system to make it not boot any more. Well I attempt to put the OS CD in the drive and see if it would take it and possible fix any problems that was going on. Well when I did that the system looked at the CD (after it initiallized it spun up the CD again) and then it turned itself completely off and will not ever power on any more.

Wayne Sellars

"Programming, today is a race between software developers, striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe, trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, Universe 1 - Programmers 0."

 

[kagran]

It should have started from the CD.
If you can get power on start from the CD by holding down the C key on start-up.
If it won't even power up (assuming it's not just a blown fuse in the plug) you'll need to get it to a repairman.

 

[Ecaboodle]

Boot from the OS boot cd as kagran says, you should find a program called 'Disk First Aid' on the cd run this.

If not use a copy of Norton Disk Doctor. If you can't fix it in 20 minutes call someone who can.

 

[onedizzydevil]

It will not even boot, therefore booting from the CD is out of the question. I found a Mac person for my client.

Thanks Wayne Sellars

"Programming, today is a race between software developers, striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe, trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, Universe 1 - Programmers 0."