This morning, our Power Mac 7300 started flashing the "?" alternating with a mac face on a folder. Can't get it to start up from the hard disk *or* the CD. I put in the CD, restart, hold down the "C" key, and it just goes back to the flashing folder. Doesn't sound like it's making any attempt to read the CD. Anything else I can try or is it done for? Thanks

try zapping the PRAM ("Option","apple","P" and "R")that shoud give you a chance to strtup from the HD or the CD Try starting from CD first and run Disk First Aid on the HD. Hope that helps

Nope...no luck with that.

Try this: 1) unplug ALL devices from the mac except for k/b & mouse & ONE monitor. Yes, that means ethernet, scsi, microphone, ANYTHING else. 1a) make sure the bottom of your OS startup CD is clean and scratch free. Put it in the CD drive. 2) reboot, & hold down the C key UNTIL IT BOOTS. 3) if not (2), then reboot, & hold down "delete, option, command, & shift" keys UNTIL IT BOOTS. 4) Try a different OS startup CD

This didn't work - but it did look like it was actually trying to startup. It showed the desktop for 1 second then went back to the flashing folder/?

Next thing to try would be to put in another CD drive. If the drive is bad it can't read the CD, and if it can't read it - it can't boot from it. If you don't happen to have another one lying around I would rather you buy a whole mac (better model than 7300) on Ebay or at a garage sale than spend on a replacement bootable CD drive.

This is similar to my problem. I have a powermac7300 I got from work, it has OS8.1. I want to reformat the HD to wipe it clean and install 9.0, only problem is, it refuses to boot from CDROM drive. I can read the OS9 disk in the drive and perform a clean install of 9.0 but its not "clean" enough, I want to completely reformat the HD. Could it still be the CD drive even though it reads the disk fine with the Finder? Could it still be the disk itself (its the only install disk I have)even though it can perform an install (with errors mind you)? Tried above suggestions, no luck... Any other suggestions?