HELP! iBook won't boot!

try starting up with command-s pressed down.... that will bring you into single user mode... then type /sbin/fsck -y at the prompt...
let it do its thing and if it says "the volume has been modified" or something to that effect, run the command again

then after it completes w/o modifying anything type reboot

if you are still having troubles get your Apple Restore CD that came with your computer

put it in the iBook and hold the "C" key on start up

from one of the upper left hand corner menus look for "run disk utility" and repair permissions

if that doesnt fix things run the apple hardware test CD that came with your computer... if everything checks out then you may have a major problem....

1. is your mac still under warranty?
2. Do you have another F/W equipped mac?
3. what OS are you running on either of these computers?
4. try starting up the computer w/o the extra ram
5. go to an apple store
6. pray
7. post results here, both if they are bad or good....

Did your screen start doing funky things just before the iBook died? Try booting with the hardware diagnostic CD that came with the iBook. If that doesn't work, then you may have the dreaded Screen Goes Crazy Then iBook Dies disease. From what I've gathered from Apple's support boards, it usually strikes iBooks 4-6 months after purchase. The only cure is a logic board replacement, which Apple seems to do with hardly any questions asked. In my case, I had a working iBook back exactly a week after I called Apple support. The disease is probably caused by a flaw in Apple's logic board design - one can only hope they fixed the flaw, and aren't just giving me a new logic board with a similar 4-6 month life expectancy.

You can manually eject the CD tray by sticking a straightened paper clip into the little pin-hole in the upper-right corner of the cd face. Took me a while to figure that out, too.

If your logic board indeed died, then the HD should not be affected. In that sense, it's one of the better ways for a computer to go. Apple also offers a $50 service for which, if they end up having to replace the HD, they will recover as much data as possible and place it on your new HD. If they don't replace the HD, they don't charge you. I took the option when I had my iBook repaired, but they wound up not touching the HD anyway.

I'll tell you a bit about my experience. My iBook died on a Tuesday. At first the screen would get all pixelated and eventually go blank. A restart helped, but over a period of hours the time between restart and blank screen shortened progressively, until that evening my iBook would not boot at all, even from the hardware CD. I'd get a chime, the CD would spin up, then the CD would spin down and nothing (not even a gray screen) ever appeared on the LCD.

First thing Wednesday morning I called Apple. The tech guy was nice as can be, and seemed to recognize the problem immediately, since he didn't even pester me with a list of things to try. Apple overnighted an ABX box for me to ship the iBook back in. I got the box Thursday morning, packed the iBook (after taking some pictures in case anyone tried to argue I mistreated it - turns out I was just being paranoid), and shipped it back Thursday afternoon. Apple got it Friday, replaced the logic board and CD-ROM, and shipped it back on Tuesday. I got it Wednesday.

Total cost to me: zero. Time without my iBook: seven days, three of which were a holiday weekend, and two of which were spent "in transit". Pretty darn good service, I think. But I'm for sure going to be buying the extra two years of AppleCare. I hate to pay Apple a "poor design tax", but such is life. Beats buying a new iBook in another 6 months.

if you have a firewire cable try booting the iBook while holding down the "f" key and hook it up to your powermac

that will allow you to access the HD and save what you want from it before you send it into apple

It sounds like the logic board is no longer functional. If it was just the hard drive you should see a grey screen with some kind of icon with a question mark in it. It used to be a FD icon. I don't know what they use now.

If it was just the display gone bad you should hear all the normal startup sounds - disk clicking away and such. Also, after it boots up you should be able to press the volume up and volume down keys and hear a tone.

One thing to try is reset the power manager. I'm not sure how to do that on an iBook. I have an old WallStreet PB around that sometimes refuses to startup. In this case I get no chimes at all. If you search Apples Knowledge Base you should find an explanation of how to reset the power manager. There is either a button to push on the back or side with a paper clip or there is a multibutton keyboard salute.

I've got exactly the same problem with my ibook - was working fine - running 10.3.9 - now black screen and won't boot