[myersm1]

Completely out of the blue, I cannot startup my lombard powerbook. At the end of the day at work, I switched my ConflictCatcher set and TCP/IP settings then shut down.

Upon startup at home, I get the flashing folder icon that alternates between a question mark and the MacOS janus logo.

I haven't had a problem like this in ages, so I'm a little unsure what the best plan of attack is. If there are some simple things to try first, I'd rather not re-install the entire sytem.

1) MacOS 9
2) up to date Conflict Catcher
3) the powerbook will successfully boot from the CD-ROM supplied with the unit (MacOS 8.6). The hard drive is recognized and the contents appear to be intact.
4) I do have the MacOS 9 installer CD.

Thanks!

-- mpm

[wlonh]

the flashing question mark is an indication that your Mac is not recognising the startup disk, see if you can get Disk First Aid (startup from your MacOS CD, and run DFA from that) to recognise your HD. if it does, then run DFA in repair mode on your HD.

do you have DiskWarrior? this util fixes HD's in many many instances. see www.alsoft.com

or do you have Norton Util's?

if you have any third-party utils you should use them to fix your HD...

if no third-party util's are in your possession you should just run DFA to fix your HD and if that does not help, try zapping the PRAM as the Startup Disk control panel stores its info in PRAM.

then startup with extensions off and reset the Startup Disk control panel.

you should have some third-party repair util's if you do not have them now...

[myersm1]

Originally posted by wlonh:
[B]the flashing question mark is an indication that your Mac is not recognising the startup disk, see if you can get Disk First Aid (startup from your MacOS CD, and run DFA from that) to recognise your HD. if it does, then run DFA in repair mode on your HD.

do you have DiskWarrior? this util fixes HD's in many many instances. see www.alsoft.com

I ran DFA and it could not find any problems with the drive.

I have DiskWarrior, but I can't get the powerbook to boot from it. I have in the past. Not sure what is going on here.

I don't think that I could boot from the PowerBook G3 install disk, then switch to the DiskWarrior CD and run it.

I tried zapping the PRAM to no avail.

So, while the internal disk drive seems to be intact, it just doesn't register during startup. Is the next step a clean install of OS 9?

[wlonh]

ok try this... (i hope you are fully backed-up, not that the following suggestion is all that deadly) startup from your MacOS CD and use Drive Setup to (re)update your HD driver.

and if this works you should make certain you have all your important/sensitive/volatile data backed up, then try again to run DiskWarrior, see if it will boot from that CD... if you can run DiskWarrior (and it will fit on a floppy) and it finds nothing wrong with your HD then you are likely ok.

still, keep in mind that usually the surest thing is to reinitialise your HD and reinstall MacOS.

[myersm1]

Originally posted by wlonh:
ok try this... (i hope you are fully backed-up, not that the following suggestion is all that deadly) startup from your MacOS CD and use Drive Setup to (re)update your HD driver.

and if this works you should make certain you have all your important/sensitive/volatile data backed up, then try again to run DiskWarrior, see if it will boot from that CD... if you can run DiskWarrior (and it will fit on a floppy) and it finds nothing wrong with your HD then you are likely ok.

still, keep in mind that usually the surest thing is to reinitialise your HD and reinstall MacOS.

Just a couple complications:
<ol>[*]no floppy drive on the lombard powerbook[*]I have a jaz drive but I probably can't access it after booting up from the minimal system on CD-ROM. I doubt the iomega driver is part of that minimal system. Hence, I can't back up the drive![/list=a]

I think I'll try reinstalling the system first.

Thanks for the help.

[wlonh]

iomega driver is certainly on MacOS CD, in System Folder: Extensions folder.

but did you try to reupdate the HD driver using Drive Setup? and could you boot form HD then?

i did not remember that lombards = no floppy

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 02-01-2000).]

[George Orville]

For the last few weeks on other posts, I have noticed that the problem was fixed by making sure that the HD is selected in the Start Up control panel.....

------------------
George

[wlonh]

already been suggested, George
(if not directly suggested, it was certainly strongly inferred)