Another iMac G3 that won't boot

Hello! I too, have an iMac G3 (slot loading) that won't boot. I press the power button and get the "happy mac" icon, but nothing else. If a CD in, you can hear the CD drive. I have tried various tricks, including command option P R, but nothing seems to work. I am now going to try my CD that came with the computer, but am wondering which I should try first, Apple Hardware Test, Apple Software Restore, or what?
Thanks, Beth

No, your remark is NOT dumb. Sometimes you need to quit the disk utility and than re activate it to see all of your options such as "verify permissions" and "repair permissions" which should be on the left side while the verify disk and repair disk is found on the right side.
You also might want to try booting from the install disk and than running the disk utility program or if that's what you are doing than open the utility program as soon as it shows up on the screen.

Similar Messages

Mac noob has an imac g3 that won't boot

i recently got a imac g3 from a friend to play with. i've never used a mac, so i was hoping to learn a bit.
at first, it seemed to work fine... nothing wrong
later, out of curiosity, i tried to boot from an ubuntu live cd and that's where everything went wrong.
it started to boot, then hung, so i ejected the CD and rebooted the computer... and ever since, the computer won't boot at all
it makes the chime, then sits at a grey screen for a long time (i usually walk away at this point) and eventually a folder with the mac logo pops up and nothing happens from there.
booting from CD also does nothing. the CD starts to spin up, then idles.
i don't have a firewire hard drive to test firewire boot either...
i've tried appleoption+pr and it made the chime twice, but i still get the same results.
any ideas?

Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open ourFirmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime. Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US
How to eject a cd from the internal cd drive:
eject cd
List of devices:
devalias
List of variables:
printenv
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
reset the PMU
http://mrjcd.com/junk/PMU.jpg
well, an external monitor did nothing
as for the firmware, it has 4.1.9f1...
That's a positive sign.
when i hold the option key on startup, i get two buttons, (a round arrow and a straight arrow) both of which i am unable to click. The firmware could not find a valid os. Should include icons for each partition or cd with a valid os. Why don't you try boot with the option key with a cd in the drive.
but is there a way i can use open firmware to redirect the boot partition?
I hadn't been able to fathom the syntax... until I listed a bunch of os's.
Used startup of system perferences to select disk/media then click on lock then
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
nvram boot-device
Now, we can guess meaning:
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:12,\\:tbxi
   | | Partition/location
   | on device
   |
   0 = master
   1 = slave
   for ata internal device
Why set nvram variable? I've had open-firmware based Pegasos PPC and it simply had boot command, so instead of:
setenv boot-device ud:3,\:tbxi
should be enough to write:
boot ud:3,\:tbxi
my setup,boot my internal harddrive Tiger partition:
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:12,\\:tbxi
my setup, boot my internal harddrive classic 9.2.2 partition
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:10,\\:tbxi
boot from Mac OS 9 cd???
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi
boot 10.2 install cd
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi
boot hardware test cd
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi
boot from external firewire hd with Tiger installed
boot-device fw/node@1d202009c115c/sbp-2@c000/@0:10,\\:tbxi
boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive Tiger DVD
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:3,\\:tbxi
boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive 9.2.2 install cd
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:9,\\:tbxi
boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive Hardware test
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:9,\\:tbxi
network startup
boot-device enet:bootp
mac $ sudo pdisk -l
Password:
Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/rdisk0'
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 64
3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 120
4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 176
5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 232
6: Apple_FWDriver Macintosh 512 @ 288
7: Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh 512 @ 800
8: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 1312
9: Apple_Free 262144 @ 1824 (128.0M)
10: Apple_HFS Apple_HFS_Untitled_1 2254440 @ 263968 ( 1.1G)
11: Apple_Free 262144 @ 2518408 (128.0M)
12: Apple_HFS Apple_HFS_Untitled_2 146538496 @ 2780552 ( 69.9G)
13: Apple_Free 6982440 @ 149319048 ( 3.3G)
Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=156301488 (74.5G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: 23 @ 64, type=0x1
2: 36 @ 120, type=0xffff
3: 21 @ 176, type=0x701
4: 34 @ 232, type=0xf8ff
pdisk: No valid block 1 on '/dev/rdisk2'
Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/rdisk3'
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI*Macintosh 8 @ 64
3: Apple_HFS Mac_OS_X 5531656 @ 72 ( 2.6G)
4: Apple_Free 10 @ 5531728
Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=5531738 (2.6G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: 4 @ 64, type=0x701
mac $
why am i now unable to boot from CD as well?
See Richard's second paragraph having to boot up from the original cd to get cd reader to work again.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5966197#5966197
i'd love to get this thing working again
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
Well, you could get an external firewire CD/DVD drive and use the option key to boot a cd/dvd in the drive.
thank you all for your help
-Randy
Message was edited by: rccharles

Another iBook G4 that won't boot

A couple of months ago I started having problems with my airport. Then I started having kernel panics because of said airport. I'm out of warranty with this iBook G4 so I just turned the card off and kernel panics disappeared. However, recently I started having problems starting up - primarily because it didn't appear to be powering down properly. To get it to start I'd have to hold down the power button until it hard shut down (even though it in no way appeared to be running) for several seconds then push it again.
Tonight it crashed while sleeping. I hard shut it down as it was completely unresponsive. It wouldn't start back up (sometimes you'd hear that click and whir and then nothing, other times nothing at all, and sometimes it would click and whir and the hard drive would start but no chime and no screen.)
I have reset the PMU/PRAM, and I can get it to the apple screen sometimes by holding down beside the trackpad - but it still kernel panics there.
I figure I have to replace my logic board - but I find this quite unacceptable for a computer that's 1.5 yrs old and am looking for other solutions/registering a complaint the only way I know how.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
It does sound like you might be having logic board problems. If pressure to the left of the track pad seems to help, you might be a candidate for the logic board shim which has been extensively discussed on this forum. It is a homemade shim which presses on the logic board and causes better contact.
You might run the Apple Hardware Test and see if it shows up anything. You could also use Disk Utility to verify and repair if necessary both permissions and the disk. These are just maintenance things that might help. Please post back if anything shows up.
If the logic shim would work for you, it at least won't cost you anything.
Good luck!

I have an iMac that won't boot up. I've read all posts on this subject to no avail. When power is switched on, it chimes, Apple logo appears, spinning wheel, then loading bar starts to fill. It gets to about 25% then switches off! Help please!

iMac that won't boot up! When power is switched on it chimes, Apple logo appears, then loading bar, then spinning wheel. Bar seems to load up and gets to around 25%, then reverts to the start again, gets to about 20% on the bar and then switches itself off leaving a black screen. Tried all the remedies on internet with no avail so would welcome some advice other than binning what is a relatively new computer. Earliest appointment Apple could offer was Thursday 17th, really useful for a business user _ not impressed,

You've probably tried this, but will it Safe Boot? Restart holding down the Shift key until you see the grey progress bar. You'll need to input your admin password during bootup. If it will boot you can then try to eject the disk using the various suggestions here that you haven't tried already:
http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/28/eject-a-stuck-disk-from-your-mac-dvd-super-drive/
Or this (not tried this myself, but if things are desperate): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7NYW9Dr448

I have an iMac that won't boot up. Chimes, Gray screen w/ apple icon, spinning gear and progress bar at bottom, about 20 sec then shuts off.

I have an iMac that won't boot up. Chimes, Gray screen w/ apple icon, spinning gear and progress bar at bottom, about 20 sec then shuts off.
Please Help

The internal drive is malfunctioning. What backups do you have?

I have a HP Pavilion DV5 1251nr that won't boot up.

I have a HP Pavilion DV5 1251nr that won't boot up. The light at the power connector comes on nothing happen

First thing to try is a hard reset. Remove the battery and power supply. Hold down the power button for 30 seconds. Wait another 30 seconds. Now plug in the power supply. Then try to start the computer. Let us know if that works. If not, we need to start thinking about hardware issues.

Imac 7 1 won't boot

My imac 7 1 won't boot up without a cd. When I try to boot it up without a cd it just pops up with a blinking grey folder and a question mark inside the folder. When I boot it up with any cd (mac os x 10.4.10 or mac os x 10.5.4) it boots up and I have to select a language then a message pops up and says "THIS SOFTWARE CANNOT BE INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER."... THIS IS THE WEIRDEST THING TO ME: When I hold the power button and option key, I no longer sees MACINTOSH HD, it just shows the blinking grey folder. I said I no longer see Macintosh HD, is because there was a time when it was actually there. Macintosh HD also isn't in my startup disk as it suppose to be. When I use the disk utility on either cd, i actually see Macintosh HD....SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME, I'M NOT A MAC USER BUT A WINDOWS....I JUST WANTED TO TRY MAC OUT AND SO FAR ITS SO BAD.....

The 7,1 iMac is a mid-2007, 24 inch (can you confirm that's correct?), which came with OS 10.4.10 originally, so you seem to have the correct disks. It also sounds like you are able to boot from a CD successfully, and the fact that you can then see the HD icon is a good sign. It may be that Disk Utility can repair it, I would try that and report what DI tells you.
However, do you have a back up of files from this disk? Before doing anything else you should try to rescue any critical files from it. An external drive would be very useful for this if you don't have one already.
This machine is also user-repairable (I've replaced an internal hard-drive on this machine myself, tricky but not impossible!), or you could have a repair shop do it for several hundred $. Its also the case that you could just buy an external drive, load a new system on it and never replace the internal drive. This would be much cheaper and easier, cost depends on how much space you want and the quality of the drive, but for $100 you could have a much larger drive than what you have currently (probably a 320 or 500MB).

IMac (early 2008) won't boot past grey screen and has lines going vertical.

I have an early 2008 iMac that won't boot up past the grey apple screen. I've tried booting from the install CD to no avail and it also will not load my windows partition (boot camp). I've reset all the things I think I can reset and also tried starting in safe mode with no luck. Has anyone experienced this before and if so, how did you fix it?? I suppose I should note as well that the ram has been upgraded to 4gb (myself). It worked great for quite a while then I periodically got the lines along with a frozen screen but usually a restart fixed it. I'm up against a wall with it now and short of taking it in to the genius bar (closest one is almost 3 hours away) I don't know what else to do.
Any thoughts?
P.S. I've attached a picture of the lines. It gets to here and then freezes.

I suppose I should note too that when I try to boot from the CD, the screen dims and tells me to restart after a minute or so.

IMac G4 800 won't boot

Hi,
My old G4 iMac flat panel won't boot (Spec and OS below). When you turn it on it gets stuck on the grey screen and nothing happens. I've tried holding down shift to get a safe boot but that doesn't work. I've then tried using the OS install disk to access disk utility but that doesn't work. Just the same grey screen. Now you can't use the power button to force it to turn off, you have to switch it off at the mains.
Any help please!
Spec
iMac G4 800 MHZ 767 gigs Ram
OS 10.2.8
Thanks

Hello Again Reelsick Productions!
As I Previously Replied, in your Other Topic;
What size is the Hard Drive, and how much space is available?
How much RAM is installed, and is it original or added?
What peripherals do you have connected? A keyboard, mouse, printer, external drive or modem, router, etc?
What happened between the last time the iMac started successfully, and when it didn't?
Have you made any changes, like upgrading the system, updated or installed any applications or programs, etc?
Have there been any unusual occurences, like freezes, crashes, power outages, etc?
Are you able to startup from the system install disc using John Huber's Startup Manager suggestion to run Repair Disk?
Is the iMac shutdown overnight, or does it run 24/7?
Have you ever run any routine Maintenance procedures?
ali b

IMac 400 DV won't boot

My trusty iMac 400 DV won't boot, and it is currently our main email machine. It has 19 GB HD and 3+ GB available, according to Finder. I'm using 10.3.9 with 768 MB RAM. Please send any suggestions ...
Symptoms:
It had been bogging down lately, and making a few clicking sounds plus the usual whirring.
I did Repair Permissions, Onyx clean up recently. Did not help much.
Today I wanted to check hard drive, so I put in G4 install/recover DVD 1 of 2 for 10.3 & restarted with Control key.
It took forever, but only got the bong, then the apple icon, a small colored square, then a blue screen.
Unplugged everything & retried. Could not get DVD out, even with paper clip.
Tried to zap PRAM on startup, but kept Restart message now after a long time.
Have not tried resetting PMU yet. Looks like its a square button by the RAM slot.
Suspect I have an immediate problem due to jammed DVD, then possible HD and PRAM. Do Radio Shack or other local computer stores usually sell the 3.5 V battery?
THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

Hey tom and welcome to Apple discussions,
It had been bogging down lately, and making a few clicking sounds plus the usual whirring.
Sounds like the hard drive going bad.
Today I wanted to check hard drive, so I put in G4 install/recover DVD 1 of 2 for 10.3 & restarted with Control key.
Yah usually it's not going to like that since it's a machine specific disk.
Unplugged everything & retried. Could not get DVD out, even with paper clip.
This way?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2285
Suspect I have an immediate problem due to jammed DVD, then possible HD and PRAM. Do Radio Shack or other local computer stores usually sell the 3.5 V battery?
Yes but it's $16 vs $5 at OWC. Most likely you'll need a new HD and the proper installer.
Richard

I have a 2012 Mini with a fusion drive that won't boot from a usb cloned drive. It came with 10.8.2 pre installed. I have zapped the PRAM and reset the SMC. Any thoughts?

I have a 2012 Mini with a fusion drive that won't boot from a usb cloned drive. It came with 10.8.2 pre installed. I have zapped the PRAM and reset the SMC. Any thoughts?

When I tried using a recently downloaded (from the App store) version of MtLion 10.8.2 (12C60) I could NOT get the new MacMini to install or boot from a USB I had previously made. I was however able to use the Recovery Mode of the MacMini to create a bootable SSD which I had installed. The problem arose when I went back into Recovery DU as it saw the seperate drives (SSD & HD) as a broken Fusion Drive. Interestingly DU from the boot volume had NO issues and reported NO faults. It was the Recovery DU that identified the faulty Fusion Drive configuration. At this point I am definately out of my depth but my speculation is that the Recovery Volume is being used in some fashion to form the method or pattern that DU assigns files to the drives, System Report sees the drives as seperate volumes with all their individual characteristics.
Disk Utility did not make a bootable USB, I don't have or use CCC or Super Duper.
Here is the longer version I've been compiling:
Having bought a late 2012 Mac Mini(6,2) i7 2.66GHZ with the standard 1TB 5400 HD and 4GB of RAM (base model) I immediately decided to install a Mercury Elite 6g 240GB SSD and up the RAM to 16GB. I received both shipments on the same day and had all my new toys in front of me. After following the video advice on OWC’s website for the installation of the second drive I started the mini and formatted the SSD to accept the OS from Recovery on the original HD. This MacMini shipped with 10.8.2 (12C2034) as the OS, the normal build of 10.8.2 is (12C60). Having used Recovery Disk Utility to format the SSD it came back with an error that DU could’t Repair. I went ahead and installed the OS on the SSD and the Mini booted normally from both drives. The issue I encountered with this setup was that iMovie encountered an “unexpected error” and would not save a completed project. I therefore decided to figure the drive issue out because I suspect the new Fusion File Management software didn’t like my configuration with drives that Recovery DU saw as needing to be “fixed”. After spending some time on the phone with both OWC and Apple Support I took the plunge and used Internet Recovery Disk Utility and allowed both drives to be “fixed” after which DU created a Fusion Drive (Logical Drive) that I then ran Repair Disk on and it showed up as a single drive in DU. It works perfectly as described by Apple’s site:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446
Having checked the Link Speed and Negotiated Speed they both show as 6g so I’m pleased not to have lost performance due to it being fuzed to a 3g 5400 drive. The biggest drawback is that Apple’s Fusion Management only allows for 1 additional partition and I would have preferred more than that.
I have sourced some additional information here:
http://blog.macsales.com/15619-special-note-for-adding-an-ssd-to-a-2012-mac-mini ?
http://blog.macsales.com/15619-special-note-for-adding-an-ssd-to-a-2012-mac-mini ?
http://blog.macsales.com/15619-special-note-for-adding-an-ssd-to-a-2012-mac-mini ?
http://blog.fosketts.net/2011/08/05/undocumented-corestorage-commands/
If anyone has a factory Fusion Drive could you please post the Link and Negotiated Speeds of both drives? This information can be found in Apple > About This Mac > More Info… > System Report > Serial ATA and the drives should show up as discrete drives with their info listed separately.

My iMac (OS X) won't boot up. All I get is a blank screen with a blinking question mark (?). I've tried resetting the PRAM, but that doesn't help. What do I do?

My iMac won't boot up. I get only a blank screen w/question mark (?). I tried resetting he pram, but that didn't help. What do I do?

Thanks. Did a safe boot, repaired disk permissions, and took your advice on the combo update.
Running perfectly fine now, if not slightly faster.
For the benefit of others this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 will get you to the Apple Support article that covers safe boot and parameter reset in OS 10.4, 10.5, 10.6.
Thanks for all your help and advice.

27" iMac Mountain Lion won't boot (Black screen) after switching to bootcamp

Hi,
I've been running Windows 7 in Boot Camp on Mountain Lion on my 1 month old 27" iMac without any problems. Tonight after I switched the startup partition to be boot camp the machine won't boot. I get the startup sound and the disks spin up, but the system just sits there with a Black Screen. There is no disk activity other than them spinning up.
I've tried starting the machine while holding the option key and also command-r, but nothing is happening. I have the feeling that the bluetooth keyboard has not had the chance to connect to the system before it is hanging.
I tried inserting a Lion OS DVD, thinking that it would at least complain and give me an option to boot back in to Mountain Lion. You can hear the DVD spin up and then go idle.
Any suggestions on how I can recover the situation?
Thanks in advance
Mick

The RAM mismatch might be the problem fix that.
Also backup/data recover naturally, assume TimeMacine or bootable clone is corrupted and backup only files to a storage drive
Most commonly used backup methods
Install OS X on a external drive and boot from it.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Use Disk Utility on the booted clone to Erase with middle selection (Zero) the ENTIRE internal hard drive
Use Carbon Copy Cloner to reverse clone the clone onto the internal, copies the Recovery HD too.
That should fix it, or else the drive or another hardware issue
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's

Yellow Flashing Light - AppleTVs that won't boot

Strictly that should be amber I guess
Well, I've finally dismantled my 40GB AppleTv that died last year.
It basically won't boot - no startup Apple logo on screen, and constant flashing amber LED.
Amber blinking indicates "Starting Up":
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24576
So clearly it's failing to start up for some reason as it never exits this phase.
There is no response to remote, no white flash of LED in response to remote.
Consequently, unable to use Menu and down arrow (6 sec) to reboot to diagnostics menu.
I have always suspected a logic board failure or some other catastrophic failure, as there have been posts suggesting hard drive failure or loose drive connections give a flashing '?', as well as this suggesting possible failure to boot from the drive:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24604?viewlocale=en_US
I guess there could be any number of faults preventing it starting, from dodgy power supply to logic board, intrinsic logic board failure, CPU failure etc etc, but having had a failed logic board in a 2006 white iMac and a 2007 Mac Mini that would be my top bet!
Anyhow I remembered I had an old 60GB portable USB drive, which fortunately had an enclosure with screws!
Removed the AppleTVs 40GB 2.5" PATA drive, hooked it up to the USB PATA enclosure, plugged it in and nearly fell off my chair when a message flashed up saying 'A USB device is drawing too much current so the hub will be deactivated".
Thought bingo, the drive must be faulty.
Using the PATA from the portable drive I verified this USB port still worked, thankfully it did.
Tried again with the AppleTV drive in the enclosure, and for some reason this time it worked and I could access it. Reinstalled into AppleTV just in case it had been kicked into life, but no go.
The AppleTv has a small CR2032 battery which I removed after unplugging, left it for a few mins, and replaced with a new one, restarted but no joy.
It will not start with a flashing ? if I disconnect the drive, nor will it start with a flashing ? with a different (effectively) unformatted PATA drive.
Unplugged the wireless card in case that was faulty, no joy.
The small fan is spinning so that hasn't failed.
So, I must conclude that it's not the hard drive at all, and most likely logic board, CPU or GPU. Could also be power supply to logic board not giving enough juice to startup properly, or some other component but not something simple to repair.
Am disinclined to open another AppleTV at this stage to swap components about to try to narrow it down, but when another unit fails, I may just try that, keeping this one for spares - at least I know I have a spare working 40GB PATA drive.

I'm having a similar problem. The other night, while i had the powerbook plugged in, it suddenly switched over to battery. I didn't really think too much of it and put it sleep. Well, it drained almost completely while sleeping and when I plugged the power back in, the green light wouldn't come on. Nothing. No booting, nothing.
I'd been in a very dusty environment, so I blew into the power socket. Well, now I get the green light on the power cable, but it's constant, and I can't tell if it's charging or not. I don't think it is, as the battery lights still flash the single LED very quickly.
I've reset the PMU and have been told to go into the open firmware, but I have to be able to boot to do that -- and obviously I can't do that.
I'm in Baghdad and can't just drop by an Apple store, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd be really, really grateful.

How to access old G5 Beige Tower that won't boot?

I own a couple of computers, a G5 Beige Tower and some early iMac I believe (come to think of it, now I can't picture what it looks like).
The G5 won't boot up—I haven't given it a try in years, but I refused to throw it away. I think it shows a flashing question mark inside of a macintosh icon.
I lugged that thing into an Apple store long ago and they managed to retrieve SOME files (they sure didn't try very hard, imo), so that tells me that I may still be able to access the hard drive, is this correct? Do I only need a boot drive somehow? I'm not sure if I even have one, floppy or CD.
The second computer was fried in an EMP. Lightning must've struck somewhere nearby (there was a huge storm at the time) and the craziest pulse of energy went through my body, I'll never forget it. It was like exploding in slow-motion, every particle in my body pushing outward, and when it was over, I was fine (shaken), but my computer was dead along with other electronic gizmos. Any opinions on if I should give up on this?
Would an Apple genius even know what to do if I took that computer in?
Both are old but may have some files from college that I'd love to recover.

Hi,
You mentioned a "G5 Beige Tower". The last beige Macintosh tower computer was a G3 model (http://support.apple.com/kb/sp406). Could it be this one instead?
If it is the G3 model in the technical specifications above, minimum Mac OS 8.0 would be needed for startup. This could be an appropriate/supported system CD. It could also be the Disk Tools PPC floppy that has been made available for download from Apple (you would then need a working older Mac with a built-in floppy drive and Disk Copy 6.3.3 in order to create a bootable floppy from the disk image):
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/System/Mac_OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPC.img.bin
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/Disk_Copy_6.3.3.smi.bin
A bad logic board battery can sometimes cause startup problems. You may also want to try a PRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Another possibility would be to remove the internal hard drive (the same could be tried with the iMac). An IDE/ATA drive can be connected to an external USB adapter (such as the example below) and then read on a more modern Mac (or even a PC with the correct software).
http://www.newertech.com/products/usb3_universaldriveadap.php
If necessary, disassembly guides can be found, for example, at ifixit.com.
Jan

Another iMac G3 that won't boot

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