I just recently acquired a PowerBook G4 17" from a family friend. It was working just fine while I was at her house but when got it home it froze after a while. I shut it off and tried turning it back on and all that happened was the start-up chime, what sounded like the disc drive running for a few seconds, and the caps lock and num lock keys will light up when I press those. Any help as to what may have caused this and what I could do to fix it would be great!
Try resetting the PRAM: at startup, hold down Command-Option-P-R all at once until the computer chimes and reboots.
Also, make sure there is no CD in the drive. Hold down the mouse/trackpad button at startup until the drive ejects.
Sadly, you may have a bad hard drive. If you have the Install CD, you can try to boot from that. When booting, insert the CD and hold down the C key. This will boot off CD.
Check the Disc Utility from the Utilities Menu at the top to see if the drive is damaged.
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