Mac Hanging - picture of disk on screeen

[Richmond Clelland]

Please can anyone help me by telling me what is wrong with my old Mac and by keeping the answer in computer baby talk. I am a bit slow in computer terms.
I have a very old Mac running system 9. something and have become reliant on the reliability of the Mac and thought it would go on for ever, Mug.
My machine hung the other day, did not think a lot about that as this happens fairly regularly without any problem. The usual fix is to pull the power and power up again and reboot the machine and start working again without any loss of data.
This time the only thing displaid is a blank screen with an icon of a 31/2" disc with a ? mark in the centre. While pressing buttons while franticly trying to get it to do something I noticed it did sometimes change from a ? to a X but other than that nothing happend. Dose this mean my floppy drive is broken and if so why am I not able to use the machine without the floppy drive. How easy is this to have fixed ?
HELP !!!
I have years of stuff stuck on this machine I would not want to lose.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi and welcome,

The ? or X that you are seeing means that no operating system could be found, this would possibly point to hard drive failure. Fear not your data is safe you just can't get to it.

Feel the only way forward as you have years of data you do not want to loose, is to buy new hard drive reinstall the operating system.
Then you would need to buy an external caddy put the old drive into this connect to the Mac and get your data back.

Also would be good to know your Mac model and year, this could help regarding its operating system.

 

[Richmond Clelland]

Hi and welcome,

The ? or X that you are seeing means that no operating system could be found, this would possibly point to hard drive failure. Fear not your data is safe you just can't get to it.

Feel the only way forward as you have years of data you do not want to loose, is to buy new hard drive reinstall the operating system.
Then you would need to buy an external caddy put the old drive into this connect to the Mac and get your data back.

Also would be good to know your Mac model and year, this could help regarding its operating system.

Hi Oldscribe
Thank you for your prompt reply. I think I follow your instructions but am not confident enough to attempt it myself but I am mainly glad to hear you don't think my info is at risk.
Thanks once again for your help
Cheers Richmond

 

[oldscribe]

H Richmond,

Your welcome, please keep us posted as to how things go.