iMac Hard Drive not recognized after disk utility error

Hello, i own a 2006 Intel imac with a 120gb hdd. Recently it's been working slow on me, as in a bunch of rainbow wheels when going on finder, etc.


I decided to boot up my install disk (10.6 Snow Leopard) and verify and repair the drive. Not surprisingly, when verifying an error came up. It said "invalid node structure" and literally 5 seconds after that came up, the entire mac froze. The cursor couldn't move or anything.


I waited 15 minutes to see if the imac would unfreeze before deciding to do a hard reset, so i unplugged all cables, waited another half hour, then started it up from the install disks again. Now, when i go into disk utility, the drive isn't even recognized!


Is there any way i can fix this without going to the apple store? This is the first time my HDD has been acting up in the 6 years i've owned this computer.

The hard drive has probably failed. You can try repairing it with a sophisticated program such as Disk Warrior, but since it's $99 I would just replace the hard drive. You can replace the drive yourself by following the step by step instructions given at the ifixit web site.

iFixit: The free repair manual