i mac problem

i have a 2006 i mac that i have never had trouble with until yesterday when i turned it on it took 20 to 30 minutes to boot and every task even typing takes minutes to perform i have run disc utility that came with the i mac and it detected no hardware problems , is this an acurate check or could i have a hard drive failing lucky i have it backed up with time machine software snow lep. 10.6.3 any help would be appreciated

G'day and welcome to the forums Vernon.

Sounds very much like a dying HDD. Pop in disc one of the original install discs that came with your iMac, you do have them one hopes, and run Apple Hardware Test in extended mode.

Next step is to boot from your OS disc, hold down 'C' after the chime, go into Utilities and run Repair Disk. You cannot repair or verify a drive you are booted from. Keep us posted?

thanks

es i do have the disc i put 1 in and it runs apple hardware test which shows no problems i guess the utilities is on disc 2 will try that and thanks for the help

You hold down C right after the Startup Sound and keep it down till the OSX boot screen shows up. When you get to the OSX installer, look up top for the Utilities drop down. Click on Disk Utility. Besides what was suggested above check the SMART status at the bottom of Disk Utility. Does it pass or fail?

It really does sound like the hard drive.

thanks so much

you guys are awsome i finally got the disc utilities up and running and it does have a bad hard drive , suspected that but did not want to replace it if that was not the problem , thanks again i love my mac

...now to get that Shift key fixed! ...and the period, question mark, semi-colon

Or, just write one sentence per post!