# Grey Floppy with Blinking Question Mark



## adg045 (Jul 14, 2003)

Hi....this morning I changed the memory settings on our home Mac. It's a grey Power Macintosh G3 Power PC that came as part of the lay-off package from a former employer.

It was having some trouble with managing applications so I thought it was a memory issue.

I turned the RAM disk on and set it to the secondary drive. I also turned Virtual Memory "On."

When I restarted I got the blinking question mark.

I don't have any software CDs - no system software and no application software.

The OS is 9.x - I'm pretty sure it's before 9.1. I downloaded a 9.1 update from Apple on my PC and burned it to a CD.


I haven't done anything on the Mac yet. Does anyone have any suggestions? Needless to say I don't want to lose any data on my secondary drive and I don't want to lose applications on my startup drive.

Please help. Thanks!


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## JustMe2 (May 31, 2001)

It's looking for the System Folder.
Have you tried zapping the Pram???
JustMe2


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## adg045 (Jul 14, 2003)

I'm afraid I don't know how to zap the Pram. Could you run me through it?


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## JustMe2 (May 31, 2001)

Very easy. Here's the directions from the Apple web site. This was the very first thing that they had us try many years ago with our ancient Mac!  (which by the way still runs...at a blazing 33Mhz!)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
JustMe2


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## oldphart (Jul 8, 2003)

I doubt it's your p-ram, sounds like a job for norton, your data's safe as long as you do not reformat your drive. it's not a biggie


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## JustMe2 (May 31, 2001)

If you have Norton, you can try booting off of the Norton CD. And running Norton from there.
You can also try booting with extensions off by holding the shift key(Ibelieve it is) as you turn the machine on.
Have you checked the Apple support articles? Lots of info there.
JustMe2


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## JustMe2 (May 31, 2001)

Try here...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
Is a trouble shooting document for your problem. There are several different things to try, including the pram.
Good luck
JustMe2


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## Dr. Beaver (Jul 30, 2003)

Any Mac owner/user should get a copy of Norton SystemWorks and TechTool, you'll use it frequently.

Good Luck,


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