IMAC won't start up. White screen keeps loading

I have an IMAC. Yesterday I turned it on but it kept loading (there's a white screen with the apple and a circle running all the time).

I tried to restart holding the option key but the only icon appear is the Hardrive one and if I click on that it gets the same loading page.
I followed the instructions on the apple page and tried to reset NVRAM / PRAM. Result is that I have a brighter white screen page with the apple icon and the circle still running.
I went to next step and it suggested to insert the Mac OS X Install disc in the Mac and then hold the "C" key. I did it but nothing came up (apart the apple and the loading circle).

Any help on this???

Thank you!!

the disk just came out. That's a relief

But problem persists though...

thanks for the tip. I tried and unplugged the cable for more than 30 seconds but I still have the same issue. Since I have this problem (last night) I can't access the computer at all.

and now I turned it on again and there a noisy fan coming out from the pc!

wtmk81 said:

Same thing happened to me on Thursday. I made a genius appointment for Sunday and they tried to reload Lion on it and it turned out my hard drive was fried. Luckily I have all my stuff backed up. The install takes 3-5 business and cause I've had it less then a year (bought Jan 2012) it's free.

Click to expand...

did you have only the fan issue or also the white screen freeze one?

mollywix said:

I think your hard drive is fried. This happened to me this summer. I had not backed up anything. I cried. But, I found an awesome dude who got 99% of my stuff back and charged me very little. Good luck.

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I haven't backed up either. So it's time to cry for me I guess.

Hi guys

I managed to enter in the disk utility with the Mac Install OS X disc.

I repaired the disk and said that was ok (that was a relief)

Then I repaired the disk permissions and it said the permission differed for some System/Library files. And right below the message the file was repaired.

Only for one I didn't get the repaired message. For one I got:

Warning: Suid file"System/Library/CoreServices...etc has benn modified and will not be repaired.

Not sure if this cause the pc not to start.

Then I restart everything but I get the same loading issue.

Any suggestion on what am I doing wrong in checking the utilities?

Thanks!!!

Razorhog said:

You can safely ignore these messages. You can also usually ignore any "ACL found but not expected..." message. These messages can occur if you change permissions on a file or directory; they are accurate, but generally not a cause for concern.

Taken from: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1448

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thanks Razorhog.

Any other thing I can check on utilities? Because even though it says the disk is ok the issue persists when I restart.