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Released in October 2003, the iBook G4 replaced the iBook G3 as Apple's portable consumer computer. The iBook G4 was sold in 12" and 14" models and updated for the last time in 2005.

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need to restart twice

I have an iBook G4 12" 1.2 GHz

512 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive.

I just wiped the hard drive and did a system install of 10.5 from a retail disk.

Quite often, upon restarting the machine I will get the flashing question mark.

This is always cured by forcing the computer to shut down by holding down the power key and then restarting the machine.

What are some reasons that this laptop sometimes needs to be restarted twice to get it to boot?

Thanks

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Try formatting the drive using the "Write zeros" option. This will map out any bad blocks so that they will not be written to. Then do your system installation, and updates to 10.5.8. Next go to system preferences and set your hard drive as the startup disk.

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Hi Mayer-

I've done all that.

But I am in the process of doing it all over.

I'll report back.

I should add I have "refurbed" this machine.

In other words it has been completely apart- along with about 10 others which are not showing the same symptom

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I replaced the hard drive with another one and same problem.

I moved the hard drive outside and connected via firewire and no flashing question mark.

Gotta suspect it's a flakey logic board, no?

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last comment.

switched both the hard drive cable and DC-In board (one at a time) and no difference.

So I'm calling it a night thinking logic board

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If you have the parts I would try one more hard drive cable before deep-sixing the logic board. But sometimes they do go.

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mosesk will be eternally grateful.
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