Hi everyone, this is is my first topic. my problem is this, i have a G4 466 mhz, os 9.2, and since last night, when i startup the computer, instead of the smiling face in the monitor, the first thing that i see is the map of the world flashing, i don't know why, and after 5 minutes i see a folder flashing with the (?) for another 5 minutes, does anybody knows why? is this a internal battery problem? i hope so, i'm sorry about my english but it is not my natural language, i hope somebady can help me, thanks.

the typical "signals" for an empty internal battery are something like the system "forgets" settings. for example it switches to appletalk instead of ethernet; shows wrong date and time; and so on. your problem looks like your computer does not find the systemfolder. from here its quite hard to tell. try to boot with your original macOS system cd and check if some preferences (like date and time or networking - as mentioned above - have changed.) or clean up your hard-drive - reset your desktopfolder - zap your pram - stuff like that... HTH

A flashing question mark means your Mac cannot locate a viable system file or folder. In other words there is some corruption of your start-up disc. You need to start up from an external disc or system CD, and then try to run some repair tool on your HD. Disk First Aid, which comes with system 9.0.x can sometimes help, but not often. Probably you need to run Norton Utilities or some such repair programme. The problem itself can often be small but there's no way to know until you start up from the external disc and view the problem from there. Good luck!

The map of the world means your mac is trying to "NetBoot" , "?" Means it cannot find a System to boot from. You may be able to repair by booting from a Norton Utilities disk and repair your disk, if not you will need to re-install your OS.

TD