[X4U] G3 in endless loop of inaction

[Linda]

On 6/30/07 6:18 AM, Jonnythan wrote:

> There was definitely a Classic OS 9 folder on the G3 because my friend used
> Classic quite a lot, but I'm not sure if this can be used as a start-up OS 9
> system - I assumed this was the source of the problem.

The blue-and-white G3s could indeed boot into OS 9.

Did your friend remove all the fonts from the Fonts folder in the OS 9
System Folder when s/he was running OS X on the Mac? Many people do that to
avoid font conflicts with OS X fonts, since the OS 9 fonts folder is "read"
and those fonts are active in OS X (but NOT vice versa -- no OS X .dfonts
are available to OS 9).

If the fonts were removed from that location, the Mac cannot start up from
that system folder.

Do you have an external FW disk that you can boot from? And another computer
from which you can install a bootable copy of the OS? Then, even if you
can't choose a new startup disk, the computer should methodically test all
the attached disks looking for a bootable System folder until it finds one
-- it only throws up the ? icon when it can't find a bootable System
anywhere.