I've done so many things, still can't get my imac to load

[evansville]

First of all, I have installed Lion, so there is no installation disk to try and boot from, I can't get my 24" 2008 imac to load past the grey screen.

I've unhooked all the cables, held down the power button for 5 seconds, reattached the cables, powered it back up,while holding down the P-R-command-option keys, no luck.

I've tried starting it holding down command, command option, shift, no luck. I did get an arrow once, I think I was holding the option key down when I started it and got an arrow.

I've unplugged it several times, all the cables, hoping it would reset, but it hasn't.

Can someone help me. I'm hours away from a Genius, I'm on my own here. I hear the tone when I boot, but I can't get to the Apple logo. My time machine is backed up to an external drive, thank goodness, I can hear the motor whirring when I first boot, it just won't finish the load.

 

[tom vilsack]

-what comes up if you just hold down "option"?

-you don't have original leopard/snow leopard dvd to see if you could run disk utility?

-guess you could try dl Ubuntu live dvd to see if your issue is software or hardware related...

 

[evansville]

I got it up

Tom, I finally got it up by unplugging and holding the power button several times.

I'm now doing a disk repair on it. Now my fan is noisy, that happened one other time and quit, now it's noisy again.

I obviously have issues. I'm going to run a hardware diagnostics check next. Thanks for helping me.

 

[tom vilsack]

after you try and figure out your issues you may have to reset your smc in order to get the fans running correctly...

-Shut down the computer.
- Unplug the computer's power cord.
- Wait fifteen seconds.
- Attach the computer's power cord.
- Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.