iMac G4 Problem... Please help!

[nygiants242]

Here's my story:
(First a brief description of the iMac itself, it is the swivel screen with the base by the way)

700 mHZ processor, 512 MB Memory, 10.4 OS (I Believe), originally 9.2 OS

- Downloaded all of the updates (Quicktime, Mac Safety, etc.) that usually come up in the "Software Update" application
- Later, I return to the computer and try to open up Word (force quits automatically, then an error message) This is MS Office 2004, btw.
- I try Excel, Powerpoint all = same result

Therefore...
I restart my computer and get the Gray screen + Apple logo + circling "thing" underneath it FOREVER. Honestly, I've tried sifting through a few Apple help articles.. and I've tried Safe Mode (holding down shift) for the past 2 hours now to no avail. Meanwhile, I was not able to find the 9.2 discs nor the 10.4 however my friend has his iBook G4 9.2 disc and I tried to boot from the CD, but that did not work either.

Please, does any one have a legit solution that will work? I really don't know what to do at this point and am in great need of this computer right now.

Thanks a lot, in advance, guys.

 

[CubeHacker]

Could be a couple of problems, its difficult to say at this point. Do you happen to have the Mac Hardware Test CD that came with your iMac? If so, you can see if that detects any problems. From the sounds of it though, it seems you have some kind of hard drive related issue. Perhaps a corrupt installation, or your hard drive has gone bad.

You can try to boot from the original OSX install CD and see if it detects your hard drive. At that point you may want to do an archive and install if all other options fail. Be warned, you may loose data doing that.