I was so pleased when i found a g4 quicksilver 2002 for sale. It would be the perfect x-mas gift for my 10 yr old son. I bought it used , of course, and it did not come with any cd's. When i looked at the machine it ran flawlessly. When i got it home,, again,, flawlessly. Morning after x mas he opened it, and i set it up for him and again,,, perfect. Thats when i ran the update 10.4. combo something. I thought it would be a good idea so i ran it. Unfortunately it was a bad idea. Now when i try to start it the only thing that happens is this lil folder pops up in the middle of the screen. on the folder is a question mark that flashes to this taunting smiley face. As if the machine was teasing me. It may as well be sticking out its tongue. What did i do? Is this an easy fix?
thank you!
ps. i bought this machine from craigslist from a very nice kid named eric. he is from st.claire shores in michigan. he was a good guy and gave me a great deal. i would def deal with him again
when you see the folder that means it cant find a bootable system on the HDD, which could mean a bad update, the HDD could have went south, or the OS needs to be reset as the OS to boot to (can usually be fixed by resetting open firmware)
to reset open firmware hold command ( Apple key)+ option+o+f when you hear the start sound
then you will see a command line
type the following
reset-nvram (press enter/return)
reset-all ( press enter/return) the system will reboot after this comand
and another way is to hold command ( apple key)+option+R+P at the start sound and keep holding it till you hear the start sound 3 - 4 times
if the above dont help hold option at the start sound ( which will give you a select screen to select the installed OS's that is installed on the Mac) one should come up and you select tiger (10.4.11 which was the latest one released) and continue. it should continue to boot. if it shown no OS to select then the HDD died or the OS is not able to be booted from. this is where a Tiger OS install CD would come in handy.
i wish you luck
Frank
thank you for the help frank! unfortunately,,i think the hdd went south on me. thank you again for your advice! i do appreciate it
well that is sort of good news, at least thats allot better then having the mobo go south on you, at least you can get a new one for cheap. but you still will have to buy a Tiger install DVD or CD.
but i am glad it wasn't the ide controller that went.
I wouldn't give up on the hard drive so readily. You haven't mentioned what resources you have--install CD's, utility CD's, other Macs, other HD's. The QS 2002 can also boot from OS 9, and can also easily be put into firewire target disk mode which offer options. Can you hear the hard drive spinning up at all? If not, you could try giving it a whack. I would not first suspect a bad hard drive if it did not show symptoms previously. Any funny sounds before the update? I don't think it would be a coincidence that the hard drive died at the same time. Perhaps, if the drive was bad beforehand, the stress during the optimization process killed it off, but you'd probably have gotten some clue of that happening.
Try holding down the option key at startup and see what comes up, just for the fun of it.
the hdd i think may be toast. i just tried holding the option key at startup nada.. and the hdd is not making any noise at all. i really only started it a couple of times before the update. you could hear it spinning before but now its silent. i gave it a lil whack,, figured it wouldnt hurt anything at this point lol i dont know the history of the comp really,, i dont know its quirks or noises well enough to know if it was making strange sounds. i really hope that its just the hdd. i will be taking it to a reputable comp repair guy tomorrow after work. i will post the results...
thanks again for all the help!
Comp repair guy? Unless he's a close buddy, he'll probably cost more than the machine is worth, or at least as much as a copy of any recent Mac OS installation disk and a new hard drive. If the machine is getting to the blinking question mark, then there's probably nothing wrong with the rest of the hardware.
There are three power connectors for hard drives in the machine. Try connecting the others. The one line you been using to the hard drive may be out.
he isnt my close personal friend.. but he is my very close friends lil brother...i may be ok.
check what I just added about the power connectors.
yea first check the power connectors (like Hawaii Cruiser said) and unplug it from the HDD and put it back on and try the other connectors, or put a known working HDD in it to test it out to see if it powers up.
i would just buy a new HDD, which will be faster and bigger then the stock one in that G4. it will give you a performance gain to boot.
when i switched out the stock 40gb HDD in my DA for a newer faster western digital SE 120gb i got a nice performance gain. i still kept the 40gb in the DA as a secondary HDD.
Actually, it sounds like a bad update to me and not necessarily bad hardware. 9 times out of 10, it is the software that goes bad. An OS reinstall is probably in order.
If you are good with the terminal, you might try a few other things first (like fsck, and check out the "bless" command while you are at it). This will require the Mac to be booted in FireWire target mode or from an OS X install disc.
Peace,
Drew
id like to thank everyone who gave me very usefull tips! i truely appreciate the help. i am certain as we become more familar with this machine i will have more questions.
thank you again!