Hi,
I have been keeping a spare G3 'Dalmatian' iMac around for parts or to replace my indigo G3 iMac if needed. I've now got a G4 QS and want to get rid of the Dalmation.
I turned it on to check it didn't have any data that should be removed before selling and got the screen with alternating question mark and macOS icon. The HDD was busy chirping away so I thought I'd leave it for a while. It didn't move past this screen but in the end the question mark went away and it just stayed on the MacOS face icon.
Tried booting it to target disk mode and accessing the HDD from my Indigo machine - nothing mounted and Drive Setup didn't show any disks except the Indigo's internal HDD and CD drive.
Tried target disk mode the other way (indigo on Target mode) to see if I could boot the Dalmatian off the indigo drive. Got the flashing question mark again which seemed odd. Tried restarting with option key down (why not) but no drives came up on the system selection screen (just the restart and continue buttons) - but the internal HDD was still chirping away so I left it. I'd given up but then my 4 year old piped up 'Daddy it's doing something' and the internal HDD showed up with the correct name! The cursor had disappeared so I tried hitting enter. After ages it progressed to a grey screen, and eventually the floppy disc with a question mark. *sigh* Another restart and it managed to find it's way to the question mark over the floppy.
I can probably just sell this as 'for parts/not working' (probably not worried enough about 'sensitive' data to open it up and pull out the HDD), but I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions.
Will probably try the above options a few more times - seems to be blowing out some cobwebs as it goes!
It's curious to me that it didn't even see the indigo HDD in target mode.