IMac G3 Won't boot up to the OS

I have an older iMac G3 (400mHz/256 RAM/20gb HD) running Panther that all of a sudden will not boot up to the OS. I tried zapping the PRAM, to no avail. All I get is a grey screen, with a purple folder and a question mark in it. I tried letting it be to see if it would come up, but that didn't work either. I am guessing a system's folder is corrupt? It's weird because it worked fine yesterday and I started it up today to give it a spin before I gave it to a friend to save her from the Window's world. Any thoughts or advice? Thanks in advanced.

Hi Rachyl,
couple of ?s for you.
Do you have an install CD/DVD?
Is OS 9. installed on the machine.
Panther doesn't use a system folder, as such. Even if corrupted, it should still boot to some degree. The Folder with ? simply means the machine can't find a startup disk. Your hard drive may have failed. If you have an install/recovery CD/DVD, boot while holding down the "option" key. This will bring you to the option boot screen. Load the CD/DVD and click on the refresh icon. When the CD/DVD shows up, select it and hit the arrow icon to continue booting. Once the machine is running on the CD/DVD, try to repair the hard drive using Disk Utility.
If OS 9 is installed, it should show up as a boot-able drive in the option boot screen. If so, you can select it and try to boot into OS 9.
Let us know how you make out,
Rick

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<Re-Titled By Host>

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Message was edited by: Axel Foley

IMac G3 Won't boot up to the OS

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