Help with crashing 24" imac! =(

I have been having a problem over the last few months where my imac crashes and wont boot back up. It gets stuck on the spinning gear loading screen and just does nothing. If i insert my windows installation disc and delete the hard drive partition i can load up the os x installation cd and reformat the drive. This is the ONLY way i can even get it to do anything OS X related, and i lose all of my data this way! I cant keep having this happen! any help? It would be really appreciated...

I have a 24" iMac
4gb RAM running OS X 10.5.8 with a 2.66ghz processor..

thanks!

I don't understand why you have to use your Windows CD to delete a partition and then insert the Leopard installation DVD to install OS X again? Why can't you boot your machine with your Leopard installation DVD and do the same thing?

Anyway, it sounds like your hard drive is failing and may have to be replaced. Boot the machine with your Leopard DVD and do a verify and repair on the hard drive. Let's see what it says.

im not sure either, but when i put in the disc all it does is sit on the spinning gear and then restarts after a while. Even if i force boot by holding "C" it does the same thing. But if i put in the windows CD it allows me to at least get in and erase the partition and then load up my Leopard CD.

I thought it was a harddrive failure as well but if i install windows i never have that problem, only with OS X. I have verified the drive and everything and it never comes up with any problems.

Maybe im wrong, but if it was a drive failure wouldnt windows not load up too?

Thanks!

No, not necessarily. I have seen other folks with the same problem. Windows will boot but not OS X. Usually indicative of a bad hard drive. Back up your data and be prepared to swap out that drive. Also, you may have a defective install DVD if it won't boot your machine. Before doing anything else though, try resetting the PRAM/NVRAM, then see if you can boot with your Leopard DVD.

i have tried reseting both NVRAM and PRAM but not luck. The dvd cannot be defective because it works on all my other macs @_@

also, is swapping the drive easy enough for a hobbyist? Im usually really good with electronics but it would be like super ridiculously hard right?

Swapping out a hard drive in an iMac is a moderately difficult task even for someone who has some experience with electronic repair. The reason it's fairly difficult is because the entire display panel must be removed before being able to gain access into the machine.

I suggest taking a look at the entire procedure at iFixit: The free repair manual. The ifixit web site also sells the special items you will need to remove the display panel.