How do I get rid of the blinking question mark?

Frank Cornew Mon, 29 Dec 2003 12:42:51 -0800

Think what happened was that you installed a system that is PowerMac 7300 specific, given that it was the CPU in control when you installed 8.5. The installer was under the impression that the Lombard was an external SCSI drive on the PM 7300. The Lombard therefore does not recognize the system folder as being valid? Also may cause the slave/target mode not to work as it may not have been supported on the 7300. Don't know if you can install 8.5 as a "universal" system configuration, either.

Furthermore, as far as 8.5 is concerned, Mactracker reports that OS 8.6 was the original OS shipped with the Lombard, so 8.5 may be nonfunctional on the Lombard. A 8.6 or higher CDROM should boot this computer.

Finally, I seem to recall a size limit on slave/target mode from my experience with Duos and 2400c platforms - drives over 2? 4? 6? 8? gigs would 'work', but would get munged after a while.

Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 08:20:55 -0600
From: Greenfield Bowie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: How do I get rid of the blinking question mark?

I'm hoping one of you Powerbook gurus might be able to help me get my
Powerbook to boot up.

I recently purchased a PowerBook G3 on eBay (Lombard/G3/333/OS9.0/192Mb/4Gb/)

It arrived on Christmas eve (perfect!)  The 9.0 system installed on
it booted ok, but was very     s - l - o - w !  Years ago I had a Mac
Powerbook 160, so I used a SCSI cable I still had (with the square
30-pin connector) and connected the Powerbook in "slave mode" to my
PowerMac 7300, and installed Mac OS 8.5 from a CD-ROM disc, using the
7300's CD-ROM drive.  Everything seemed to install successfully -- I
intended to then update the system to 8.6, using the PowerBook itself
to do the updating.  But unfortunately, ever since then, when I try
to re-boot, I get the blinking question mark; apparently, it cannot
find the 8.5 installed system.

I now regret that when I had it in slave mode, I didn't switch the
startup disk to the PowerBook itself and iron out any difficulties
from my PowerMac 7300, because I have also been unable to to connect
the PowerBook in slave mode again.  That SCSI cable I used the first
time is quite tricky to get its square end connected to the Powerbook
-- true enough, but something else now seems to prevent the slave
mode connecting, and I don't know what it is.  I've zapped the PRAM,
held down the "C" key to try to get it to start up with my 8.5 system
disc, but nothing seems to qork.

I wonder if perhaps the original CD that came with this Powerbook
might work -- but then again, the CD player doesn't boot the Mac OS
8.5 dis either, so would any other CD-ROM disk be any different?

I wonder if somewhere inside this Powerbook is a cuda button, similar
to the PowerMacs.

Despite being an experienced 20-year Mac user, I'm so far unable to
get my Christmas present to boot up.  Any helpful suggestions would
be greatly appreciated!  Thanks in advance.

Greenfield Bowie

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How do I get rid of the blinking question mark?

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