<div>Thanks Bill, I'll check out the power cable first.</div>
<div><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/16/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Skygram</b> <<a href="mailto:skygram@gmail.com">skygram@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Wilfred,<br><br>It still sounds like one of your problems is a dodgy power cable. Check that<br>out. Bring it to another iBook and remove that iBook's battery and hook up
<br>your power cable to it. Actually it might be safer to borrow someone else's<br>power cable in the event that yours might damage another iBook.<br><br>The question mark issue is another matter.<br><br>I have cut and pasted this from a web page that I saved a few months back
<br>for someone else. It is from the Ohio State University support page.<br><br>Bill<br><br><br>Mac Won't Start Up: Flashing Folder with Question Mark<br><br>There is a condition that may occur on some Macintoshes where the system
<br>will not start up after the power has been turned on. The machine will give<br>its normal system chime indicating that the system has passed some<br>preliminary tests, but then the screen will show a folder with a question
<br>mark in it and the computer will not start up. There can be several reasons<br>for why this may be happening.<br>The directory database, which keeps track of where files are stored on the<br>hard drive, may have become corrupted. The corruption can often be repaired
<br>by utilities such as Disk First Aid for Mac OS 7-9 and Disk Utility for Mac<br>OS X, which can be found on most system software install CDs. To initiate a<br>repair, insert the system software CD into the CD drive of the affected
<br>computer and turn the system off. When the machine has shut down, turn it on<br>again and hold down the 'C' key on the keyboard. The computer will<br>automatically boot up from the CD, allowing you run the disk repair utility
<br>from the Utilities folder on the CD. On a Mac OS X system software<br>installation disk, you will need to select Disk Utility from the Installer<br>menu. Occasionally, it may be necessary to use a third-party disk repair
<br>utility such as Norton Disk Doctor, which is part of Norton Utilities, or<br>Diskwarrior from Alsoft.<br>Another problem that can occur is the driver on the disk itself can become<br>corrupted. If this is the case, the hard disk (HD) will not appear in any
<br>disk repair utility. This is a problem because you will need to reinitialize<br>the HD, which will cause all the data on the HD to be lost. If the computer<br>has a built-in Firewire port, it may be possible to boot it in Firewire
<br>Target Disk Mode on another Firewire-equipped Macintosh and copy the<br>important files before reformatting the disabled HD.<br>The last sort of problem is the most severe: The hard drive's mechanical<br>parts may have failed, which means the data on the drive is completely
<br>inaccessible. There are companies that will (for several hundred dollars)<br>attempt to recover the data of such drives, but for most people the cost is<br>prohibitively expensive. The best solution in this case is to have and
<br>maintain a current backup of important files.<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>iBook mailing list<br><a href="mailto:iBook@listserver.themacintoshguy.com">iBook@listserver.themacintoshguy.com
</a><br><a href="http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/ibook">http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/ibook</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Wilf