Thanks, everybody, for all advice - it's much appreciated! I tried resetting the NVRAM. The machine still dumps into Open Firmware, but now I get a message saying "Default catch, Code = 300" - does anyone know what this means? Tomorrow I will order a new battery, but I'd like to see if there is some way I can get this box up and running in the meantime. Sooner or later the battery will need replacing anyway, but there are files on one of the disks that I really, really need _right_now_, and I don't have another Mac with an IDE controller :-/ Petter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/pipermail/g4/attachments/20070830/c4dc7241/attachment.html