Apple ibook G4 ( Start Up problem )

JMW77

We were given this laptop a couple of years ago ,it has been fantastic and totally changed us from PC to apple .

Anyway , today pressed button to start and it trys to start up but can't ,there is an icon circling constantly but nothing more.
This is think is quite an old laptop does anyone know what is wrong as i am not looking forward to paying £700 + for a new one?

Any ideas welcome!
Thanks

asininity

Maybe an Acer?

Marty_J

On an old computer, the most likely component to experience issues is the HDD, so I think it could be a file system problem.

Hold down cmd-s (that's apple-s) when starting up to boot into single user mode.

Once it has loaded, type:

/sbin/fsck -fy

and press enter (there's a space betweem "fsck" and "-fy"). Let it run, and once it finishes, it'll either tell you that the disk is OK, or it was modified. If it says it was modified, keep entering the above command and running it until it's fixed.

Then type "reboot" (without the quotes), and see if it starts up.

JMW77

At the moment the laptop lights up but won't do anything at all,just the icon circling so unable to try anything ,thanks anyway!

As for the acer ,its got to be an apple ! I know the acers are good value right now though thanks!

Marty_J

So if you hold those buttons down before the startup chime, and then keep them held down, it doesn't do anything?