I Mac M5521,,, My Granddaughter got for free Has a couple of issues... Help???

First of all, Apple has an excellent support website at http://www.apple.com/support . You may be able to find more information there; if you have an Apple Store nearby, that's also a place to go for help. (By the way, while M5521 is probably Apple's part number, no one refers to the computer that way. It looks like you have an old iMac G3.)

There's a limit to what I can diagnose without seeing the computer, but here's what's going on.

The folder with the question mark means that it's looking for a disk to boot from. The screen with the buttons that you describe is the Startup Manager, and is used for switching boot disks. If that came up, either you were holding down the Option key, or it didn't find a system disk. The circular arrow refreshes the list of disks, while the right arrow boots from the selected disk. See http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106... .

My first question, then: when the Startup Manager appeared, were there any disk icons above the buttons? If so, try selecting one and pressing the right-arrow button.

If the computer did not boot when a system CD was inserted and the C key held down, there may be bigger problems, and a visit to the Apple Store or other Mac technician is in order. To get the CD out, look next to the CD-ROM drive. If there is a pinhole next to it, you should be able to eject the disk by sticking a straightened paper clip in there. If there is no pinhole, try holding down the mouse button while you turn the power on. Keep it held down until the disk ejects (could be as long as 15 seconds).

By the way, what version of Mac OS is on that CD? If it's a very new version, that computer may no longer be supported (although I'm not certain).

Once you get the computer recognizing the CD-ROM drive, you should be able to reinstall Mac OS from the CD.

If you need any further help, feel free to e-mail me at marnen AT marnen DOT org. I've got 20 years of Mac experience...that has to be good for *something*. :)

you want a PRAM battery. The battery will be accessed by technique of eliminating the RAM conceal on the bottom of the case and searching in the route of the rear left. come out the RAM and also you may in many cases get the battery out with a paper clip, it takes somewhat finesse. the different reply doesn't recognize MACs ok if in any respect. The battery is a lithium a million/2 AA. The iMac holds it truly is bios in ROM (examine in effortless words memory), it truly is on a chip and also you boot to it each and every time you commence the gadget. All you want to do is replace the battery and reset the time and date typically by skill of the administration panel. OS9 is out of date for internet as there are not any supported browsers, that gadget receives a sparkling lifestyles with some thing as a lot as OS X 10.3.9, Tiger is too a lot for the gadget elements. penning this from Flower potential 500Mhz, 512 Mb, 40 GB, OS X 10.2.

Reboot in Safe Mode