I bought three Power Mac 4400/200 systems for a dollar each from a secondhand store recently. They all had Sonnet G3 L2 cards in them as well as 10/100 Ethernet boards. Good deal but I can't get any of them to boot.

When I power them on, I get the disk icon with the flashing ? mark and the hard disk spindle shuts down. Once stopped, it starts up again, shuts down, and on and on.

I don't have any of the software disks for these systems.

I'm a PC guy and these are my second experience with Macs on a technical level. The last one was an old 680x0 system five years ago.

If I need to have the software, where the heck do I get it? Will Apple let me get it cheap or do I need to recruit the Penguin for this task?

Also, how do I get bigger hard drives? The 2GB disks are pitiful by PC standards but a Western Digital 3.2GB I had kept the system from even lighting my flat panel.

Thanks

There are two versions of your MAC:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112401

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112412

You can download Version 7.5.3 for FREE:

International Version 20 floppies:

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-International/Macintosh/System/Full_Installs/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/

British Version 19 floppies;

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-British/Macintosh/System/Full_Installs/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/

These Disks are in .BIN format and require a MAC system or Stuffit, also see for more info:

http://www.jagshouse.com/Macs_and_PCs.html

Last but not least I have a spare O/S7.5.3 CD but I am in the UK........

Interesting..........

http://www.jagshouse.com/bootdisc.html

Well, I'm familiar with 4400/200 machines,
but i suspect that your problem may be that
the sonnet card may also need some
additional software, as well as you're
definitely going to want a MacOS cd to boot
with..
Although the 4400 did ship with system
7.5.3, i tried it out and it was pretty much
not so usefull - 7.5.3 is pretty much still
all 68k code, (which means that the powermac
is running in emulation mode 90% of the
time...), except that the cd was good for
booting it.
It ran well with 8.6 though..which is what
mine has still now..
The power supply in them sometimes goes
too-(more often than other macs of that era)
your harddrive problem could be related to
that--if you have two machines, then maybe
only one would have a bad Powersupply-if it
is that at all in the first place..but
they're relatively easy to remove and
replace,so try switching them if all else
fails.
Although it uses the standard PC type IDE
drives, i did notice it a bit finicky as to
which ones it would start up with ( i
eventually installed a 60 gig drive, from my
PC, in it with no problems..).
Re: the L2 G3 cards..i'd try getting it
running without them first..if they just
plug into your L2, then the mac will run
just fine without them (they never shipped
with an L2 cache anyways- it was always
optional) Also check Sonnet's website as to
whether you need to add software for those
cards..but i think it's possibly simply a
matter that you need a system folder on the
harddrive..
You want to find a bootable OS 8x to 9.1
disk for it, tho , (RU a hotline Member?).
It's the sonnet that complicates matters..i
have no idea how that would affect booting
off of a system CD...
Also the ethernet cards in the 4400 are a
special case, whereas you have to
specifically use the extension from OS 8 or
the OS 8.1 update (Extract it out of the
OS8.1 update with 'tomeviewer'- a free
utility available lots of places...) ,
called 'Apple 10/100 Fast Ethernet'..for
some bizarre reason it was never included in
earlier versions of the mac os, or later
(8.5 and up) versions...without this
extension your net card will not
function..even on the OEM 4400 system CD's
only a few have this extension as the
majority of 4400s shipped with internal
modems, rather than ethernet..!
HTH...