after i rebooted a few days ago. my mac now won't work. I think the video card is messed up because i tried a known working monitor to test it. What should i do in a situation like this? i don't really care about the computer but there are a few files that i need to retrieve from the harddrive... should i take the HD out and put it in a new machine? i'm more familiar w/ WINTEL repairs but i don't know what to do w/ macs. please help. thanks.

I'd check the clock battery first. It holds a lot of settings in memory besides the time and date. Perhaps try booting with the shift key held down to see if that makes it come up. You'd then have to restart to load your extensions. You'll probably have to do that each time you first turn it on until you get a new battery installed. If that doesn't do it, post back here and let one of the "gurus" help you furth

Thank for the help. Holding down shift doesn't do anything, i can hear the HD spinning so i think the OS and everything loads but no screen, it's an older Powermac G3 w/ onboard video. I have an older mac (also SCSI) drive... can i just swap the HD? will it automatically detect the hardware changes? It's running OS 8.6 i believe. Thanks.

Try zapping the PRAM, or booting with cmd-opt-O-F held down, and see if that has any effect. p

hi, zapping pram, using various combinations of startup commands didn't work. I swapped the HD and booted it on another mac.... and still no screen..... my monitors are working... is booting up somehow dependent on the HD then? thanks for the help.

Have you tried a bootable CD such as one that came with the computer? Put it in and power on holding down the C key on the keyboard.

thanks for the quick response. But booting from CD didn't work either. Should I get a new battery? I don't understand why the CMOS battery dying would affect the ability to even see the bootup screen.....thanks.