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cwkmacuser · Apr 29, 2009, 08:25 PM

My friend Alexander (see the Life, Sockpuppets, and Everything Else thread in the lounge) has an iBook G4. Last night, it suddenly crashed. When he tried to reboot, his computer made the BONG sound. Then it showed an icon that looks like a hard drive and has a flashing question mark on it. What's going on here?

AKcrab · Apr 29, 2009, 08:54 PM

Hard drive failure. (more than likely.)
Hold down option when booting and see if it lets you choose the hard drive.

SpaceMonkey · Apr 29, 2009, 09:01 PM

Clinical depression.

P · Apr 30, 2009, 09:34 AM

Boot from a hardware test disc, if you have one, and run the full test. Most likely the HD is dead or dying.

ghporter · Apr 30, 2009, 11:49 AM

At the very least, the "?" icon says that the computer can't "find" the boot drive. As P recommends, the hardware test disc will tell you whether there's a problem with the hard drive. If the drive is OK, there's probably just something goofy with the boot setup.