iMac G4 Not Booting

[ddeadserious]

Looking at picking up a hard drive-less iMac G4 for a smokin price.

Here's what the seller told me:
"It turns on but the rainbow circle kept revolving. When I took it
to Apple they were able to retrieve my data and do a transfer to
a new computer but they said that the machine was useless and
there was nothing I could do to make it work again. "

Does that sound like the hard drive might have been bad, and the Mac genius wanted to sell them a new computer, or does that sound like logic board?

 

[gehrbox]

Looking at picking up a hard drive-less iMac G4 for a smokin price.

Here's what the seller told me:
"It turns on but the rainbow circle kept revolving. When I took it
to Apple they were able to retrieve my data and do a transfer to
a new computer but they said that the machine was useless and
there was nothing I could do to make it work again. "

Does that sound like the hard drive might have been bad, and the Mac genius wanted to sell them a new computer, or does that sound like logic board?

If they are getting to the beach ball then at least part of the OS is loading. If they were able to retrieve the data then the HDD was functional, probably via firewire target disk mode. Could be as simple as an OS reinstall. You really won't know until you try.