Flashing Question Mark

F

FredDimond

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I have the following Equipment purchased late Oct 2002. Dual 867 Mhz G4 with bus speed of 133 Mhz L2 cache size 256K (times 2) L3 cache size 1Mb (times 2)
Power Mac G4 (version =2.1) 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Have found that if I select OS 9.2 as the startup OS and it subsequently freezes for whatever reason, I am unable to restart without getting a flashing questioon mark, unless I use the OS X install disk and then I still cant get to the operating system. The on;ly way I have found to return to normal is to re-install OSX. Is this normal ? or is there a better way ?
Fred Dimond
 
I've had a similar problem once. I'm fairly certain that the flashing question mark means that the boot loader cannot find a system folder on your computer.

There might be a problem with either your hard disk (as was my case) or a problem with your OS 9 folder (although I don't know why it wouldn't find OSX and boot into that).

If you start up off the OS 9 or OS X CD can you select the OS X startup disk and boot into X?
If you can, then I'd reinstall OS 9. If not, then you might have problems with your HD - You can fix it if you have the CD that came with AppleCare.

Hope that helps.
 
Unfortunately I cannot select anything but install options or Disk Utility once I start with the #1 of two OSX install disks. I have run Disk First Aid several times but I still get the problem described should i get a freeze when OS9 is the startup OS.
Fred Dimond
 
Try and erase your HD before you install everything again. Run all the updates asap and make sure you have the latest firmware available.

If you still have problems then, have an AASP take a look (at the hardware like Gnomo said).
 
I finally obtained a extra internal Hard Disk and was able to erase and
Fred Dimondreinstall the OS. I then reinstalled the the X83 Lexmark printer driver software that I had the original trouble with, and everything worked as it should. So it would appear that the real trouble was caused by a glitch in the OS or the Hard disk.
 
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