Flashing Globe: Don't freak out

[caloysam]

I've been hooked up to the internet for an extended period of time and after a couple of hours, i noticed that my browser became slower... so I decided to restart my computer. When I did this there was a FLASHING GLOBE (that lasted for several minutes) THAT DIDN'T GO AWAY NO MATTER WHAT I PRESSED. this was followed by an ALTERNATING FLASH BETWEEN A QUESTION MARK AND THE OLD OS LOGO.
When this happened, I started to get uneasy. I restart again and still it happened. I tried rebooting on safe mode and hooke up to the internet in order to search for a solution to this problem. Of course, the first place I looked was in PhilMug, but there wasn't any. Then I tried google... no luck. Finally, I tried apple support and there it was...

I thought of posting this so people who encounter the same problem can easily find it here... since I'm sure this is where most mac people frequent when problems occur. Well, here it is... courtesy of apple support.

Discussion
Symptom

The following startup sequence is observed:

1. The computer begins to start up.

2. A flashing or blinking globe appears on the screen. (This can last several minutes.)

3. A folder that has an alternating flashing question mark and the Mac OS logo inside appears on the screen. (This can last several minutes.)

4. The computer starts up normally.



Products affected
Computers that use the ROM-in-RAM architecture, which would include computers that have built-in USB ports.



Solution

This is happening because Network Disk is selected in the Startup Disk control panel and no NetBoot servers are available.


To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

1. Open the Startup Disk control panel.

2. Select the appropriate startup disk icon.

3. Close the Startup Disk control panel.

4. Restart the computer.

[johnj2803]

Thank you for this I know this is an old post but this just happened to me

[Treb22]

what could cause this?

[Pipay]

@Treb22

This is what's causing that behavior:

This is happening because Network Disk is selected in the Startup Disk control panel and no NetBoot servers are available.

[kaizersix]

this happened to me too a while back. what i did was restart the comp by holding the option botton and selecting win xp first then restarted back to os x using boot camp.

but it's good to know the real way to fix it. thanks for sharing.

[phantom]

happened to me once but after a while, it went back to its normal boot-up without me doing anything.

[DON2003]

but if you have no bootcamp installed, how can you get to the control panel to set the startup disk?>

[bluephampy]

This Just saved my imac g3 thanks guys