Hello,

Your computer is probably running OS 9, but I could be wrong on that. The icon you see is part of the older Mac firmware.

Your computer has lost the ability to boot, perhaps due to a hard drive failure, or there could have been a major corruption of the hard disk. If you have a CD-ROM drive, you can put in the system disk that came with the Mac, and boot from there. When you hear the computer go BONG, hold down the C key on the keyboard to help direct the computer to boot from the CD-ROM drive.

If you don't have a CD-ROM drive, you could try to boot from a floppy. But floppys were best used for System 7 (1989 - 91) or older. Most likely, you have a CD-ROM sitting somewhere.

Once you do boot it, see if the hard drive mounts. If so, the first thing I would do is get her data files off the hard drive, especially if they are not backed up anywhere else. Not knowing anything else about what she has, you might need a box of floppies, or find a network solution.

If no hard drive comes up, then go to the Utilities folder on the CD-ROM (OS 9) and see if you can mount the disk.

NOW, if you are running OS X, then boot with the OS X CD-ROM, and when yous ee the Welcome screen, go to the Blue Apple menu in the upper left corner, and select Disk Utility. Run a scan on her disk, and also repair the permissions with that utility.

Let us know,

Christian