my mac osx g4 stopped working how can i fix it?

Question

so for no reason my laptop one day stopped working it turns on but doesnt start up it has the little appe hourglass thingy but wont start up why did this happen and how can i fix it
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Answer 1

When you say "hourglass", I assume you mean the picture of an apple with a bite missing. (hourglass is only for Windows computers). When you say "G4", I assume you mean a PowerBook? The first line of PowerBook G4s used OS 9. What system version are you using? We'll have to assume OS X for now.

First, disconnect everything from the computer except the power cord. Restart holding shift and keep your finger on shift for at least two minutes. If it starts up from that, you may have some funky software installed that affects the loading of the OS X system. You will need an expert consultant to weed out the bad stuff.

If that method of starting up doesn't get past the apple logo, either the hard drive has serious corruption or you need to install a fresh system. Put the OS X CD (or DVD) in the drive drawer, restart and hold "C" for the time it takes to go past the apple logo. If that gets the computer fully started to the installer window, open Disk Utility (under "Installer" menu or "Utilities" menu) and have it repair the hard drive. If it finds problems but cannot fix them, you'll need to erase and install the OS X system. If it finds problems and fixes them, restart.

If that still leaves it sticking at the apple logo, you should boot to the OS X disk again and do an archive install, saving users and network.