[WinMac] Re: Flashing Question Mark On Startup

Alex Dearden(pata[at]tampabay.rr.com)
Sat, 20 Mar 1999 00:03:06 -0500

>Alex,
>
>Most likely, the internal battery of your Mac is dead, it costs about
>$10 and you can get it from MacResQ online.
>
>In case you were wondering, the battery allows the computer to
>"remember" the date, your video preferences and your startup disk, among
>other things.

Thanks Omar, but I didn't ask this, it was a qupte from another message.

Incidentally, a flashing question mark does not necessarilly mean a dead
battery, it is more likely a problem with the system software on the Mac,
essentially, the Mac cannot find the Finder.

And yes, those settings you mentioned ARE stored on the PRAM but if the
Mac cannot find the startup disk it will do a search through all of its
SCSI chain to see if there is a device with system software on it. The
exception to this rule is for machines that have 2 SCSI controllers, one
internal and one external. In that case you MIGHT have to press
shift-command-option-delete to force the Mac to look at both conrtrollers.

Alex Dearden
pata@doglover.com

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