Problems with PowerBook 170... help

murbotmurbot
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I just bought a PowerBook 170 that was supposed to be mint, and in working order. Unfortunately it's neither.



I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to get this thing running. I'm getting a floppy icon with a flashing question mark, which means no system folder can be found, right?



I left it at that icon last night for a half hour, came back, and it was at the desktop. Fooled around for 10 minutes, it hung on opening a folder, and when I restarted I was greeted by the question mark once again.



Any ideas? The photo in the ad does show a desktop identical to the one that I, albeit briefly, did see... but I was only able to get it to boot once. The thing was packed like a piece of china with air bags, bubble wrap, foam chips, a box inside a box, so I don't think it would have been jostled to screw the hard drive... well, I don't think anyway...



Anything I can do here? I don't even know where I'd start if I had to reformat the drive... can I download 7.5 for free? I'd have to get it to a floppy... *sigh*



Thanks in advance for all the GREAT replies!



Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    You can download 7.5 for free from Apple's public FTP servers... problem would be finding a floppy drive and disks to save it to
  • Reply 2 of 5
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    actually, leave it again for a half hour and it should boot fine.



    then go to control panels, startup drive and select the startup drive.



    that should take care of the flashing ? problem.



    it's searching the HD for the system folder that whole time.



    you might also want to look into "blessing" the system folder. that's supposed to fix stuff, although 'im not sure why exactly.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    If I can get it going, I'll try that...



    It's been flashing for about 12 hours now.



  • Reply 4 of 5
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    How do you bless a system folder?
  • Reply 5 of 5
    citamzakcitamzak Posts: 4member
    <a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=18611&amp;SaveKCWindowURL=http:% 2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePa ge&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&s howButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=true&se ssionID=anonymous|139927339" target="_blank">http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=18611&amp;SaveKCWindowURL=http:% 2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePa ge&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com& showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=true&s essionID=anonymous|139927339</a>



    This explains why you should bless a system folder, what it means and also how to do it...on OS 8 and 9, not so sure about 7.x



    Hope this helps ;p



    EDIT: Actually just took one quick gander and it does apply for 7.x, so enjoy.



    [ 08-04-2002: Message edited by: citamzak ]</p>
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