Blue and white G3 blinking Question mark

Question

System 9.2.2 6 Gb 350gzh It was acting up so I ran Norton system Works. It said it "fixed" it. But couldn't restart with anything but the Norton Disk. Kept running and never finished. Finally checked the start up disk and only things listed was Norton CD and a "Network Disk".( I do have it networked with my G5) Finally ejected the Norton Disk and when starting up the blinking question mark was there. I assume I need to reinstall the system folder. So far I am unable to find original disks. I assume I cannot just install 9.2.2 even if I could find or download one.
Since I only use this for the internet, could I install OSX. I did post a question about ugrading to OSX before all this happened. Replies were skeptical as to whether I had enough memory to do this. I have 3GB free space.
Is it time to get another computer? This is my husbands. I have the iMac G5. I would probably get me a new one and let him have mine. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

At the outset, I'll let you know that I never had Norton SystemWorks damage any of the hard drives in my pre-OS X Macs running OS 8.6 -> 9.2.2. It's very possible that the original 6 GB hard drive in that B&W G3 has a hardware and/or electronic problem that caused NDD to hang while checking it. I had a few failing hard drives do that, while NDD was doing the media check. It's also possible that the hard drive has a very corrupted directory, which is best corrected by Alsoft's "DiskWarrior." A less expensive alternative is to reinstall OS 9.2.2, by booting from the installer disk and using Drive Setup to initialize the hard drive and write zeros to it. Following completion of that, you can select the newly-formatted drive as the destination for the OS installation. Typically, OS 9.2.2 isn't installed directly from a disk. Usually, one has the disk to install OS 9, 9.0.4, or 9.1. OS 9 and 9.0.4 must be updated to 9.1 (using the downloadable "Mac OS 9.1 Update"), prior to running the downloadable OS 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 Updates. These downloads are just updates to OS 9.x and aren't standalone, full-OS installers. As for using an OS 9.2.2 Mac for the internet, there is a lack of modern browsers to download/use. You'd be much better off installing OS 10.3.x (Panther) or 10.4.x (Tiger), but as you're aware, optimal performance of OS X on your B&W G3-350 depends on adequate hard drive capacity, total installed memory, and the graphics card. Your B&W G3-350 MHz may have the first revision logic board, which has an IDE controller that can't handle moderate-sized drives (approx. 40 GBs->). Given the expense involved in purchasing the OS X installer disks (Tiger is typically on a DVD, requiring a DVD-ROM or DVD±RW drive), upgrading the hard drive, and adding memory, you're at the crossroads for deciding whether to part with the B&W and buy something newer. Investing the $$ to modernize a 9 year-old G3 may not be the best course of action, because its 350 MHz processor and 100 MHz system bus speed are bottlenecks. Spending more $$ on a faster G4 processor upgrade would make a difference, but all of the money spent on the software and hardware upgrades could be applied toward the cost of a Mac Mini with warranty. Unless a sentimental attachment is a motivating factor for keeping/upgrading the B&W, your best bet would be to replace it.