Jaguar Startup issue

[Crisp David R DLVA]

Hello,

This is my first post to the Mac OS X groups.  I've been watching a few
others, but not the OS X.  So, if this has been discussed, I apologize in
advance.

I installed Mac OS X (10.2 Jaguar) about a month ago now on a G4 Cube.  I
upgraded the firmware first and I also performed the 10.2.2 upgrade right
after.  I haven't worked it through its paces so far...at least not until
lately.  I have one user, me.  And I have it startup with a password window
for security (I share an office with a few others).  For the first few weeks
I have had no problems, and it has been great.

Today, however started off strangely.  I turned on my Mac and it came up
with the network icon in a box (appeared to be looking for a network startup
volume).  I could not gain access.  After a minute or so, I hit the reset
button.  It started up the same way.  So, I unplugged the ethernet
connection, and it appeared to startup properly into Jaguar.  I logged in
and set the startup disk to my Jaguar volume (for good measure I locked the
selection).  Then I shutdown completely waited a few minutes and started it
up again with the ethernet connected again.  The same network icon appeared!
I was at a loss, so I did the same disconnect and startup, then connected
the ethernet back while it was up and running.  I then reperformed the setup
procedure for the internet connection.  I also tried to remove (although I
did not see any way to do it) the network search icon in the Startup Disk
system Preferences.  After all of that, I shutdown and restarted the system
again.

!@#%!@#

It did the same thing.  This time I did nothing...just let it blink while I
went out on the web using my PC (yes, and don't ask) to search for answers.
While I was surfing, my Mac stopped flashing the network "world" icon and
started flashing the smiling folder icon.  Shortly after that it started up
into Jaguar like normal.  I looked around, then shut it down.  After
restart, I watched it (and timed it).  It took 5 minutes 40 seconds to
switch to the folder with the alternating smile and '?' icon.  It began the
normal Jaguar startup at just over 11 minutes from powerup.  From then on
it's fine.

Some of the changes I made recently include adding XDarwin 1.1 and Emacs
21.1 to the system.  I also had a problem yesterday when I put a CD-R disk I
had received from a contract into my CD/DVD-ROM drive.  It loaded it, but
the disk icon did not come up on my Finder.  I could not gain any access to
it to eject it.  It was a PC formated CD, but I have not had problems in the
past with any disks of that kind.  Thinking hardware and not software at
first, I shut down and took out the innards of the Cube.  I was looking for
a manual eject switch, but could not find one.  After a thorough look, I
reinstalled the hardware, reconnected the connections and restarted the Mac.
I then switched the startup volume to the Mac OS 9 and upon startup the
system said it could not read the disk and asked if I wanted to launch
Toast, Format the disk or Eject the disk.  Success,  I ejected the disk,
then worked on other things the rest of the day before I shutdown.  Today's
first startup with the problems is the first startup since that shutdown.

Sorry, so long...anyone with any ideas, I'd appreciate it.

David Crisp
<CrispDR at nswc.navy.mil>