This icon is displayed when the system is trying to decide whether there is a valid system folder available or not and, if there is more than one, which one to use.
Obviously in your case there is one, the system eventually finds it and boots up.
The ability to search for a valid system on ANY connected device and the ability to choose which device to boot from is unlike anything in the Windows world.
I note you mention the "little Macintosh face". This would indicate that you are still running OS 9 or below or that you have a very early version of OS X installed.
In OS 9 and below, go to the Control Panels/Startup Disk and choose your hard drive from the resulting display.
In OS X, go to System Preferences/Startup Disk and do the same thing.
Now that you have told the system exactly which drive to use, it will go there first, find the system and start the boot. No more looking around, hopefully.
P
Whenever I restart my iBook G4, when it restarts, instead of going tom the "loading" sceeen automatically, it displays a little folder in the middle of the screen that flashes between a "?" and the little macintosh face. Then, that goes away, and my computer restarts as normal (but really slowly, for some reason) and everything seems normal.
What's going on?
Thanks.

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