G4 turns on but nothing happens...HELP

Question

Help, i am a new mac user, i bought a used Power Mac G4 (FW800) from a someone. I have been using it for about 5 months now with no problems untill yesterday. I was surfing the net and it froze on me, i managed to restart it but thats when the problem started. It restarted but it froze on me again 10mins later. On the second restart the tower turned on(all lights came on) and i could open the disk drive but the monitor would not read, and the mouse/keyboad would not turn on. I seems like the hard drive isn't kicking in so the operating system wont start up
The specs of the computer is :
2MB DDR SRAM per processor167MHz512MB PC2700 (333MHz)DDR SDRAM120GB Ultra ATA/100; 7200 rpm5SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with64MB of DDR SDRAM
I dont know what else to say, I hope this is enough info.
G4 power mac   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Hi-
Getting a folder with a flashing question mark means that the computer can't find the startup system folder. It also means that you didn't boot to the install CD. When you startup (to boot from the CD) you need to hold the c key immediately, and continue to hold until the OS Install program begins to load.
this should all occur in uner a minute.
So, to find your system folder for the computer, the first step is to repair the startup drive with Disk Utility while booted from the install disk:
-Insert the Mac OS X Install or Restore disc.
-Restart the computer, then hold the C key during startup.
-From the Apple menu, choose Disk Utility. Do this in the first screen of the Installer. Don't click Continue. If you click Continue in a Mac OS X Installer version earlier than 10.2, you must restart from CD again.
-Click the First Aid tab.
-Click Repair Disk.
-After repairing the disk, try to start from the Mac OS X hard disk (startup drive).
You can also try and find the startup drive by using the Startup manager:
-Turn on, or restart, the computer.
-Immediately hold the Option key. After a few seconds, the Startup Manger should appear. The Startup Manager scans for available volumes.
-Optional: Clicking the circular arrow rescans for other volumes, including NetBoot Server volumes. You can eject any disc in the drive or open an empty tray-loading drive by holding down the Eject key (F12 or key with eject symbol) or, on models that do not have an eject key, holding down Command (Apple) and Period (.) keys. The eject key or Command-Period combination (on models with no eject key) will also close the tray. After inserting a CD capable of starting up your computer, you could rescan for volumes.
-Click the startup volume you want to use. In the example above, two startup volumes are available: a hard disk, and a CD-ROM disc. The volume's name does not appear.
-Click the right arrow button to start up the computer from the volume you selected.
If these steps fail, then try a NVRAM/PRAM reset:
Resetting PRAM and NVRAM
-Shut down the computer.
-Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
-Turn on the computer.
-Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
-Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
-Release the keys.
If you still are not able to startup, try and repair your hard drive through Open Firmware, running fsck. the following explains:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
G4AGP(450)Sawtooth, 2ghz PowerLogix, 2gbRAM, 300gbSATA+160gbATA, ATI Radeon 9800   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   Pioneer DVR-109, ExtHD 160gb x2, 23"Cinema Display, Ratoc USB2.0, Nikon Coolscan