I am ripping my hair out trying to save my iMac 05. 
Background: My iMac was chugging along when one day when I turned it on I had the flashing question mark and the hard drive was missing and the fan would run on high.
1. Performed a hardware check: all was fine
2. Opened the back and the indicator lights on it were on and green
3. Reset PRAM
4. Unplugged power cord from back
5. Restarted from OS disk and hard drive appeared and I performed an archive reinstall. Only after trying to restart without disk to have the drive still not appear
This is where the problem begins. Disk one completed with no problem. Inserted disk two, 87% complete and an install error appears saying there was a problem with garage band and the disk ejects. A screen then pops up saying insert disk two. So I tried disk two a couple times with the sake resolve and then it would not accept disk two at all. I insert the disk it start to read then it ejects.
At this point I just want to cancel the install and start over even if it wipes my hard drive.
On a side note after looking up the flashing icon issue for a while it appears it could be my hard drive is too close to full. Which could definitely be the case.
Thanks in advance and please help!!
Background: My iMac was chugging along when one day when I turned it on I had the flashing question mark and the hard drive was missing and the fan would run on high.
1. Performed a hardware check: all was fine
2. Opened the back and the indicator lights on it were on and green
3. Reset PRAM
4. Unplugged power cord from back
5. Restarted from OS disk and hard drive appeared and I performed an archive reinstall. Only after trying to restart without disk to have the drive still not appear
This is where the problem begins. Disk one completed with no problem. Inserted disk two, 87% complete and an install error appears saying there was a problem with garage band and the disk ejects. A screen then pops up saying insert disk two. So I tried disk two a couple times with the sake resolve and then it would not accept disk two at all. I insert the disk it start to read then it ejects.
At this point I just want to cancel the install and start over even if it wipes my hard drive.
On a side note after looking up the flashing icon issue for a while it appears it could be my hard drive is too close to full. Which could definitely be the case.
Thanks in advance and please help!!