Power Macintosh 5400/120: Disk Icon at Startup

Whenever I start up my Power Macintosh 5400/120 computer, a disk icon appears on the screen before the "happy Macintosh". Sometimes when this happens, a flashing question mark also appears in the disk icon. This has happened since the first time I started up the computer. What is causing this?

The Power Macintosh 5400/120 computer does not have a startup volume selected in the Startup Disk control panel. So, the computer checks the floppy drive, then the SCSI bus, and finally the IDE ATA bus for the startup volume. This checking can cause a slight delay in the startup process. This phenomenon is normal on the Power Macintosh 5400/120, but you can follow these steps to resolve it:

2. Select the internal hard disk as the Startup Disk.

3. Close the control panel and restart the computer.

The computer should now start up normally. However, resetting the Parameter RAM (PRAM) on the computer deselects the Startup Disk again, causing the issue to reappear. So, after resetting PRAM, you need to repeat these steps.

This article was published in the Information Alley on 13 July 1996.