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General discussion

Mac OS9 won't start up (flashing Qmark)

Nov 19, 2004 5:24AM PST

Computer Specs:
Powermac G4

Operating System:
Mac os 9.1

Problem:
Folder with flashing q mark with power up

I was using photoshop before this happened, photoshop froze while I was moving the mouse, I forced quit the application and immediately got a system error of type -10. Now on start up all I get is a flashing question mark in a folder.

I reset the PRAM by pressing command+option+P+R which didn't help.

I know I'll probably have to reload the system CD, but more curious as to why this is happening.
Posted by: canadahat Posted on: 11/19/2004

Discussion is locked

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Re: Mac OS9 won't start up (flashing Qmark)
Nov 19, 2004 8:23AM PST

The flashing question mark, in a folder, indicates that the Firmware cannot find a valid system folder. Resetting the PRAM or rebuilding the desktop will not help at all. If you have a copy of Disk Warrior, boot from the CD and rebuild the directories. This "almost" always works. DO NOT TRUST NORTON to do the same thing.
In the event that Disk Warrior is not available, then a CLEAN install may be your best option. Another trick to try. Boot from any bootable CD and explore the Hard Drive, if it is visible on the desktop. Open the HD and you should see the System Folder. It should have a Happy Mac icon on the folder. If it does not, open the folder and drag the finder out of the folder and then close the folder.
Drag the finder back into the System folder, without opening the folder, (or allowing it to open) and see if the Happy Mac icon reappears. If it does, try a reboot.
If the HD is NOT visible on the desktop when you boot from any bootable CD then you definitely have directory problems which will need to be addressed, preferably by Disk Warrior. Invest in a copy of it, if you do not have it. It works in 9 and X and will save you a great deal of time and worry.
Worst case scenario, the Hard Drive failed! This will give the same symptoms and the drive will NOT appear on the desktop when booted from a CD.
Another trick, if you have another hard drive, external or internal, is to copy the four core files to another drive. Finder, System, System Resources and panels, to the other drive. Then when something like this happens again, you just copy them back to the System Folder and get on with life.
As to what happened to cause this, Anyone's guess. The error code, Type -10, is "noColMatch from Color2Index/ITabMatch", whatever that means. What we do know is that during the process of trying to do something, Adobe messed something else up.

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Re: Mac OS9 won't start up (flashing Qmark)
Nov 20, 2004 6:35PM PST

I didn't post this cuestion but I have a doubt, what exactly a Warrior Disk is? and How can I get one copy?, If possible can you tell me wich one is the right way to boot from a cd in Mac OSX for reseting the passwords?.Thanks for all.

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Re: Mac OS9 won't start up (flashing Qmark)
Nov 20, 2004 10:52PM PST

DISK WARRIOR is a Utility produced by Alsoft that does one thing and one thing only. It rebuilds the Hard Disk directory structure. It is available direct from the Alsoft web site, http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/ or by mail order, and is by far the best piece of software I have found for correcting problems with directories.
As to your second question, which has nothing to do with Disk Warrior, I already told you how to reset your passwords in OS X. To recap,
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 CD and restart the computer.
2. When you hear the startup tone, hold down the C key until you see the spinning gear.
3. When the Installer appears, choose Installer > Reset Password.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to change the password.
5. Quit the Installer and restart your computer while holding down the mouse button to eject the CD.

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Re: Mac OS9 won't start up (flashing Qmark)
Nov 21, 2004 5:56PM PST

Thank you again mrmacfixit, overall for your disposition and patience with unexperts users like me.

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Thanks for the help sorry for the delayed response back.
Jul 6, 2005 11:08PM PDT

Thanks for the help, sorry for the delayed thank you.

It's been repaired. PCR replaced the drive with a new 100 gig and was able to extract everything all my old apps, docs that I hadn't yet and things sitting on my desktop.

When the box returned about a week later it had two system folders and old with all my stuff and a new which was empty, just the core 0s9 apps. It took me a month but I slowly reloaded all my apps again to the new folder from CD and eventually trashed everything from the old system. Could this have cause a conflict?

It's now 7 months later and nearly the same senario happened.

This time I was in Illustrator, went to interent explorer briefly, then returned to Illustrator. Without any warnings/error messages the window, mouse froze and it would not respond to force quitting. So I reset the machine. It came back up with the same flashing Q-mark folder. Prior to this the machine was running decently, I did have one pretty hard crash but it came back up just fine.

I don't have disk warrior, I put in the 0s9 restore cd, it said it could not read the drive and it must be initialized (I canceled out) and shut down. I loaded norton and got basically the same message. I put in a new request with PCR, they're picking up the machine today to take a look and hopefully extract off of it what was on the drive.

Is this really possible that a brand new hard drive would go after 7 months? Could this be some sort of virus activity or is it possible that there is some sort of electrical glitch (these machines are going on 6 years old now!)

Thanks again for your help.

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5 year design life.
Jul 6, 2005 11:32PM PDT

What many are never told is that most consumer products have about a 5 year design life. As we get "out there" glitches and failures will occur.

What also is happening is that we are finding most consumers never had a backup or backup plan. They lose it all, too often.

Bob

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5year shelf life...
Jul 7, 2005 12:08AM PDT

These are work machines - they're all old all over 6 years old, the file server here is a G3 tower!

The plan is my boss had just purchased new g5's for the department, the g4 that was just repaired with the 100gig hard drive was to be turned into the new file server.

Delivery on the G5's is not planned until August, as we're currently in the middle of a catalog production cycle which ends next month, then we get up-graded, then we start up design on another catalog that runs through until December. I'm a little leary about using this G4 as the file server which will be our back up for images / quark files if this event recurrs during production we'll all be packing up our desks.

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Still a 5 year design.
Jul 7, 2005 12:15AM PDT

The parts inside (such as the hard disks) are of that 5 year category. It's one of those things that is rarely discussed.

The backup discussion is another one that people only discuss after a loss. The final discussion is the DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN. That is the plan you have in place to keep a small disaster small, and to not have it be a business ending event.

The lack of written backup and disaster plans is the first sign a discussion must begin.

Bob

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They just don't make HD's like they used to
Jul 7, 2005 5:46AM PDT

Although the modern HD is a wonderful piece of precsion engineering, they do not seem to be built with any sort of lengthy life expectancy.
In contrast, I have a 1987 Macinitosh S/E 30 with the original 20MB (yes, that is MB) which continues to function correctly.
Dell recently had a bad batch of HD's which had to be replaced after shipment.
It happens. Be prepared. As Bob said, you gotta have a plan

P

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So it's more likely just a bad drive
Jul 7, 2005 7:03AM PDT

So it's more likely it's just a bad hard drive than system conflicts huh?

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IMHO
Jul 7, 2005 8:07AM PDT

That is probably correct. Two utilities that are must haves for the Mac owner are Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro.
DW does one thing but does it extremely well. It rebuilds directories. Corrupt directories can give the same symptom, flashing ?, as you have.
TTP takes care of the hardware side of the machine.
There are also a number of good utilities, free ones, for OS X when you guys go that way.

P

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Mac OS9 Won't Start Up
Feb 14, 2005 2:03PM PST

This is a reply to an old post, but what the heck.

Type 10 Error message usually means that your Adobe Photoshop or any other app is out of memory and you crash or freeze-up. Open the app folder for Photoshop. Click on the app icon. Hold down the Apple key along with the i key (get info). Click on the memory arrow. Increase the preffered size usually over the suggested size. Not the minimum size by a formula of times four. For instance, if your suggested size is 32,762. Min. is 12,288. Set the preferred size over 32,762 by an 4 factor. (Similar to ram memory). 4x3=12K Minimum, 8x4=32K (Suggested Size) 8x5=40k the new Preferred size. This may help you out with photoshop. Try not to have other apps running at the same time. Pretty basic suggestion.
With my Adobe Illustrator, I have the preferred size set to 11x4=44,000. I quit Illustrator before going to Photoshop, otherwise I would probably freeze up while in Photoshop which is set to 32,762.

The question mark flashing in system 9 can be fixed most of the time by rebuilding your desk top. Restart your computer holding down the Apple/Option key. Than always do another restart as normal. This has worked for me for years. And, it will work for me tomorrow, as always. Make sure after rebuilding your desktop you always do another restart!
Hope this helped.
Kevin