Maybe somebody can help. I have an iMac (G3 500 128/20/CD-RW it says on the invoice) running 9.2 and still under warranty with printer, scanner and zip drive as periherals from a hub. Last week I got the question mark icon at start up, tried reinstalling the system and doing the hardward diagnostic from the disk which came from the machine, ended up calling Apple care, and was told to take it in. I did, but when the technician got to it, the thing ran fine. (The shop charged me for labor, which Apple Canada has said they will reimburse.)

This morning the same thing happened. In the past it has seemed to run slow when it got hot, and last night it was very slow, but speeded up when I restarted after resetting the PRAM.

I have jostled the thing around (thinking that when I took it in last week, some connection was reconnected) but nothing happens except the flashing question icon. The shop says to bring it in but they can't get to it until Tuesday (it's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada). Any suggestions of what I might try in the meant time?

Thanks

Mary

It won't boot from the CD now?

p

It will boot from the 9.2 install CD, but it doesn't recognize the hard disc. It won't book from the Norton Utilities disk at all, and the CD hardware disagnostic disk that came with machine shows no problem.

In additon I have disconnected all my peripherals, so only the mouse and key board are plugged in.

M

Try booting from the CD and running Drive Setup or Apple System Profiler to see if either of those sees the hard drive.

p

I already did: they don't see the hard drive.

Any more suggestions?

M

This is just an update for anybody who has a similar problem.

Very strange thing: on Saturday afternoon, I switched the machine on and it worked fine. This is the same thing that happened a week or so ago. At that time I took it in to the dealer because the machine was on warranty, but by the time they got around to it the next day, it also worked all right.

Since Saturday I have reinstalled the system, rebuilt the Desktop, run Norton Disk Doctor and Disk First aid (which found nothing but a couple of minor problems), checked the hardware with the disk that came with the iMac (found no problems) and defragmented the disk with Speed Disk. It seems to be running all right now. But we shall see. I hope that if it really bombs it does it before November 20 which is when the warranty ends.

Two things I learned:

1. Norton utilities 6.0 and Norton Antivirus 7.0 will not boot MacOS 9 or higher from the CD. At the Symantec site, they give instructions on how to make a bootable disk, but I haven't got there yet.

2. Rebuilding the desktop is supposed to help start up problems because sometimes the hidden files get messed up. You can rebuild from Disk Doctor.

hi i used to havethe same problem usualy when this happens u will have to get a battery inside the mac replaced because the system is askind for a bootable floppy disk but replacing this battery usualy fixes the problem