Diagnosis for iMac boot problem please?

[jamie.hunt]

I hope someone can help me here...

I have an intel iMac which I have not been able to get working for the last couple of weeks.

It started when I couldn't get the iMac to boot, it would not load past the white screen showing the apple or if it did it would only get to a blue/grey blank screen.

I unplugged everything except the keyboard and mouse.

I tried booting in safe mode by holding the shift key whilst it boots. When I do this on the white screen with the grey apple I then get a progress bar show up, It doesn't fill though and the iMac then turns its self off again.

I performed a disk verify/repair and got this:
"invalid node structure
invalid record count
invalid key length
Volume check failed
The underlying task reported failure on exit."



Eventually I managed to to a clean install on it via the disks that came with the imac, one day later the mac would not load past a white screen with a flashing question mark in a folder.

When I insert the install cds again sometimes the HD shows up if i wanted to reinstall again. Sometimes the HD doesn't show up.




Is this problem hardware related do you think? I am just trying to work out what the problem is to know if I will need to send it off to apple to get it repaired.

Thanks

[flopticalcube]

Sounds like the hard drive is dying or already dead. If under Applecare, take it to Apple. Otherwise, you can swap in a new hard drive, if your mechanically inclined, or run off an external drive which will be slower.

[rdowns]

Did you boot from the install CD and run disk repair?

[jamie.hunt]

Yes i ran disk utility from the install cd's.

Is this likely to be the Hard drive on the way out?

...I dont want to get a new hard drive to find its something else as well?