My Pismo Stalls at Startup

I have a Powerbook G3/400 Pismo with 512MB RAM running OS X 10.3.9. When I turn on the Powerbook, I get the familiar Apple logo, then the spinning circle, then the screen turns blue, then grey and then the Powerbook just stalls.
But when I boot in safe mode, the Powerbook starts up normally.
Could someone tell me what could be the problem?
Thanks,
Ken

Ken:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
When you boot into Safe Mode next time, log in, empty that Trash if there is any, then Restart normally.
You can try resetting the PRAM:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
Your computer's PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.
Run Repair Disk:
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel, and report back if it says anything but Verified)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
If DU reports errors it cannot repair you will need to use a utility like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior
If you don't already do so, run regular maintenance procedures. Here are a few links that have ideas and links to resources:
Gullivers's Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance
Dr. Smoke's FAQs:
Maintaining OS X
Tuning Mac OS X Performance
Please do post back with further questions, comments, or an update on your situation.
Good luck.
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

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[NOTE - This message originally posted in Older Hardware discussion group. One response appears at end of original message.]
PB G3 firewire (Pismo)
OS 10.4.2
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Western Digital 60 MB HD (replacing Toshiba 40 mb HD that I thought was problem)
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On 12:04pm Sep 15, 2005 CDT, jpl wrote:
Subject: RE: PB G3 Pismo-Stalls, Hard Disk Disappears
Ken,
Welcome to the discussions!
A very good description of the problem! You obviously have covered a lot of territory troubleshooting this issue and it certainly appears to be a hardware-related.
I think you have fairly well isolated the problem as I see it:
- stall (spinning beach ball) that eventually occurs in all apps;
- a restart that produces the flashing '?';
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I would suggest you have a bad HD ribbon cable or a bad HD IDE bridge on the logic board (or some other issue on the logic board) that develops with heat.
Since you have a FireWire HD with a known-good HD, why don't you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HD on the FW HD, then boot to the FW HD and run from it and see if the same issue develops.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
On 12:41pm Sep 15, 2005 CDT, Ken H wrote:
Subject: RE: PB G3 Pismo-Stalls, Hard Disk Disappears
Thanks for the quick response. I will try what you suggested.
I also was thinking that this may be a heat-related problem, and wonder if maybe I did not put enough - or too much - heat sink compound between the heat exchanger and the processor board. Could it be that simple?
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Rebuilt the directory using Diskwarrior, but on the last step received the following error message:
A disk malfunction occurred while writing the replacement directory to the disk. Rebuild this disk again."
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