imac wont boot

I have g4 800 mhz imac with max os x tiger and it will not boot up. It will either stop on the white screen with the apple, or it will make it to the blue screen and stop and stop. If I leave it long enough it will sometimes just power off, but that maybe because the power cord is very finniky. Any questions on what to do to get it to boot up. Thanks

Does it make any clicking sounds? Sounds like either a corupt Operating system or a dying hard drive.

Try booting from an OS X CD and run disk utility to see if the hard drive is still good. You can boot off the CD by holding down the "C" key right after you turn on the computer.

no it doesnt make any clicking sounds. as far as the os x cd, is there any way I could donwload something that would allow me to run the disk utility, because I do not have the os x cds right now.

depending what model imac you have, you may be able to boot from OS 9 if you have an OS 9 disk handy.. If not, you could always get an OS X CD, the older versions can be found really cheap!

Unplug everything but your keyboard/mouse and powercord. I have an external DVD burner that keeps my IMac from booting up. But I can use it just fine after my IMac is up and running.