I was hoping someone with a little more experience with Macs could help me with my dilema. I was given an iBook a couple of years back and had passed it down to my daughter. It has worked fine until today. This afternoon my daughter came to me quite upset because upon turning on the iBook the only response we can get is a file folder with a flashing question mark. I have tried the following all with no change at all:
1. rebooting the system numerous times
2. removing and replacing the battery
3. holding the option key down while rebooting as per a technical page I read
Hopefully someone out there has a little more knowledge than I do and can help me with this pressing problem.
Thank you
The flashing icon is telling you that the computer couldn't find the software to boot from on the harddrive. Do you have a CD that you can boot the iBook from? If so try putting the CD in the drive, then reboot and hold down the 'c' key until it starts up. if that doesn't work, you may have bigger issues. Ask you daughter what *exactly* she was doing the last time she was using it. Has it been dropped, kicked, smacked, etc? And, which iBook is it? That coan help a little on diagnosing problems.
unfortunately I have no bootable disks...it was aiBook test model
information on the back tells me it's a medimac?
CPU 600 Mhz
replaced with a 700 Mhz
256 MB
it's fairly basic and doesn't have much in the way of software downloaded on it in the first place
According to my daughter, she put a music cd in the cd/ rom and turned it on and it did not boot up.....she states she did not drop it or kick it or in any other way abuse it
does this help?
Is the disc still in the drive? If so try getting it out and seeing if that helps. If the normal F12/Eject button doesn't work, turn it off, then while holding down the trackpad button turn it on and wait until it ejects the disc. It should do it about when the icon starts blinking. What was runnign on it, OS 9 or X?
no the disk was out when she gave me the laptop to troubleshoot. I had tried putting the disk back in to see if it was in the middle of reading it when she ejected it and if that was the problem, but that seemed to have no effect.
It was running OS 9
It's completely possible to boot manually into OS 9 via Open Firmware, but to do so would require a lot of looking around just to see address of the hard drive and what OF calls the system folder. Search google for 'open firmware mac boot' for a quick primer. If anything, try typing mac-boot or a varient to kickstart it.
Medimac sticker is common on Apple prototypes, is that what this iBook is? Just curious . . .
dan k
yes that is exactly what it was....unfortunately, my hubby tried to remove the hard drive and in the process cracked the cover as well as did a bit more damage to some of the inside components....it will now be donated to a friend to be used for spare parts and we are in the process of reconfiguring a spare linux machine for my daughter to use for now. Thanks for everyone's suggestions.