Strange icons appearing as computer starts up? Prolonged startup!!

Hi. I'm having trouble with my startup on my PowerBook G4 12-inch. However, I haven't noticed problems with any other apps or programs on my computer except for startup!
When I start it up, it plays the sounds at the start as always... And then this little image of a colour globe on a small grey puzzle piece, starts flashing for a while. Then it changes to an even smaller image of one of Mac OS's symbols, and changes between this and a question mark in a box.
What's going on?? I don't get it!
Each time I start it up, this process of strange images and stuff goes for longer, before the progress bar comes up and it loads my accounts login page.
can anyone help?? Please do!!
Cheers,
koko_87

Wow. I've never seen THAT before! A puzzle piece icon? Seems that your Mac is confused as to which startup system to boot from. You don't have multiple versions installed on your PowerBook, do you? (This is possible if you have partitioned your hard drive and have Mac OS X--a different version from your primary boot volume--installed on it).
For starters, let's let Apple help you out first:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
Then, if that doesn't work, I'll try to find more. (As I mentioned, I don't recall seeing a puzzle piece icon with a globe whenever I've had the rare occasion of a startup problem on my Mac. If this was Windows... which I don't use...).

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