Exploring the Mac OS and hardware

[BattleStarJesus]

I am proud to refer to myself as a hella geek, yet I am humble enough to know when I don't know, and I know that I don't know a lot compared to what I do know. I can walk up and down all over Windows, yet I only know what Linux is and Mac is completely alien to me. I am embarking upon a new quest to explore the realms of Mac and Linux.

A friend of mine who is only on the using end of understanding computers aparently contracted a virus on his Mac. He was using OS 10 and was prompted to revert to OS 9. Doing so he had a catastrophic hdd failure. He wants his system reinstalled to OS 10, there is nothing he wants to salvage.

I found this as a great opportunity to explore the Mac! I offered to restore his system for him, realizing I could learn how the Mac OS is installed and explore a few other aspects of the OS and its hardware. It has been a few days and I am more baffaled and have even more questions than I had predicted. My friend is becoming anxious.

I am looking for some help to get started. It is a G3, I am not sure of what hardware specs are necessary to know inorder to troubleshoot this issue. When the system is turned on the screen is gray/white and the symbol of a floppy disk with a questionmark on it flashes in the center of the screen, and the mouse is able to be used but there is no response. Nothing else happens.

I do not understand any of this. I realize this is the first time I ever explored a Mac, let alone even turned one on. I was expecting to see the Mac equivilant to a BIOS. I do not know how to manipulate the hardware settings. I opend the unit and became amazed to see the simplicity and tidyness of the hardware arrangement. This is all foreign to me. If any fellow geeks have experience and are willing to share your knowledge with me I will be indebted to all who assist. I am facinated with the Mac, especialy after seeing how simple they are inside. I just don't know where to go from here and this is the only Mac hardware I have ever explored.

[noonebutme]

Hold command + s when booting up to see if you can get into single user mode. If you can, reboot and then do command + v to boot verbose and see where it freezes. then go back tos ingle user mode and fix the error if possible (after googling it on working computer) If you cant, reinstall OS X doing an 'update' from OS9, you'll keep data and everything else :)

[BattleStarJesus]

That didn't seem to work, I don't even know what button is the command button or the right time to press the button combination. I may not have executed the instructios correctly. I get the same results every time. The hdd sounds like it is not functioning as it shood but even when I disconect it the unit is still unrsponsive. What else can I try? My friend is starting to doubt that I have the capacity to restore his machine. My eago is being totaly blown apart. I like that though because I prefer to be humble. And the "n" button on the keyboard I am using is about to fall off.hhhh hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnn

[noonebutme]

1. plug a different USB keyboard in
2. the command key is the key that's not alt or ctrl or shift on the bottom left of the keyboard :) (in the general area where the windows key is)
3. Try booting to a USB hard disc - Mac's Openfirmware supports doing that. Then ya can install OS X to the USB Drive.
4. If the hdd's dead, it doesnt matter what OS or architecture your on, a dead hdd = a dead hdd.

[wastern]

throw the disc in a hold down C after pressing the power button. That tells it to look to the CD for a boot disk