[grafeks]

It goes all the way through the boot process (spinning bars) then blue screen with startup progress bar. That completes and then blue screen with cursor and that is all she wrote. The cursor will move.
Another problem is the "C" key won't force a CD startup. Even fsck doesn't work.
It runs and repeats the same problems over and over, never repairing them. Firmware startup won't see an external firewire disk.
I'm stuck.
Can anyone offer any ideas.
Is the CD broken?
Thanks

[blackguitars]

Try this:

1. Press and hold the Shift key as the computer starts up, until "Safe Boot" appears. If this does not permit the computer to start up, a different issue exists.

2. Try removing everything from these folders:
/Library/StartupItems/
/System/Library/Extensions/

3. 1. Mac OS X reviews fonts in the Mac OS 9 System Folder during startup. A damaged Mac OS 9 font file may contribute to this issue. Note: Update to Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later to reduce potenial issues from damaged Mac OS 9 font files.