I have a G3 with OS 9. the problem is that several days ago my
computer locked up so i had to restart. ever since then, it goes
through the startup procedure all the way through. however, when it
gets to the main home screen where you can begin actually using the
computer, none of the icons show up and none of the navigation bar
text or options appear. all that appears is the background color and a
blank gray navigation bar at the top. then soon the mouse freezes up
and i have to shutdown.
any thoughts? 

thanks in advance.

andrew

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Request for Question Clarification by markoft-ga on 15 Jun 2002 15:37 PDT

Do you have OSX installed as well?  Does OS9 or OSX start up by
default?  If you have OSX installed can you start OSX instead of OS9?

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Request for Question Clarification by remoran-ga on 18 Jun 2002 05:28 PDT

1. Have you successfully started the machine with the CD?
2. Do you have Symantic Utilities (Norton)? 

If so, you have the means to check for system cofiguration errors as
most Mac startup problems stem from system volume corruption errors or
startup inits. Norton retails for (I think) $99. It's been a life
savor for me countless numbers of time. If you have these tools, I
might be able to give you an answer.

HTH

Bob

this is not an answer, just a suggestion. sorry to offer you something
that you probably already tried, which is starting with extensions
off. Start up while holding the Shift key down. Keep it pressed until
you see "Welcome to
Macintosh, Extensions Off."

Here is a solution that has a high probability of working, although it
may not be the best way to do things.

1. Get the original OS 9 CD
2. Boot up off the CD (you may have to hold down the C key while you
are booting)
3. Run the OS 9 installer on the CD. This will reinstall the operating
system and repair any damage.

You may have to reset some of your settings after this finishes.

If the above doesn't work, choose the option for "Clean Install" in
the installer (it may be in a popup menu).  If you use this method you
will definitely have to reset all your settings.

Have you tried booting off of another disk (such as a system install
cd? If so, has the system booted successfully? If it has, try the
following, stopping if/whenthe problem goes away:
1. Once booted off the cd, run Disk First Aid on your hard drive
(probably won't do much, but it never hurts) until it reports no
errors.

- Restart your computer, ejecting the CD immeadiately after hitting
the on key. See if the problem persists. If it does, read on.

2. If that didn't work, try zapping the PRAM (also probably won't do
anything, but it does reset some nvram stuff that could've gotten
corrupted) by booting while holding the command(apple key), option, P,
and R keys, until you have heard 4 startup chimes.

-If the problem still persists, restart, and boot off the CD.

3. Okay, it's not something easy (that's still not bad, however). Try
moving the "Preferences" folder out of the system folder on your hard
drive and onto your desktop. Restart, ejecting the cd just after
hitting the on key. If this fixes the problem (realize that all your
settings are now back to defaults), gradually transfer settings from
the old Prefs folder to the new one, restarting each time, until
you've found the one responsible for the hang, which you can safely
delete.

-Restart, ejecting the CD just after turning it on, and see if the
problem persists. If it does, boot off the CD, and put the Preferences
folder on your Desktop back into the System Folder on your hard drive.
5. Run disk first aid again. It doesn't hurt.
6. If it still doesn't work, please respond to this comment, and I can
guide you further.

Good luck!

andrewj,
this is not an answer as well.
have you tried downgrading your OS back to 8.6 or 9.04?  It seems some
people have the same problem you have:
"From Fred S. Forney:


Re: your article on OS 9.04. Yes I noticed the same thing. I have a
B&W G3. It shipped with 8.6, which worked OK until I installed
Office98, then it was the crash parade. I reformatted and installed
9.0 followed by the upgrade to 9.0.4, same result, many crashes. I
reformatted again and put just plain OS9 and all is well. I left
everything standard OS9, Quicktime the Java machine everything! I
think some instability always comes from new components. Newer is not
always better!
Fred"
URL::http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/2k1128.html

It may sound silly... but does your G3 has a dual monitor output?
If so, check that you've connected on the right one.
Once, I spent long hours fixing a similar "ghost" problem.
Having it plugged on the second output makes icons disapear from
desktop, and mouse pointer vanishes way when moved.
Reality is that everything is sitting next to you, on the other
non-existent monitor and the system is in perfect health.

reformating fixes everything!!

When i turn extensions off or boot up off a cd, it works fine.
however, the next time i try to boot, it comes up with the same
problem, everything opens fine, but as soon as i reach the main
screen, it crashes on me. and ive tried trashing the preferences and
the pram to no avail. and i dont own the norton program.
i dont know if this makes sense, but logically it seems that one of
the extensions is corrupt. so is there a way to selectively turn off
some of the extensions to isolate which one is causing the problem?
thanks for all your help thus far.
andrew

I think your problem may be fonts.  At this stage of the boot the OS
is rendering fonts and the desktop file.  If you have rebooted with
extensions off, and rebuilt the desktop and this is still happening,
remove all your fonts and try and reboot.

That should do the trick!