gray apple screen then turns off....

i am thinking it's a hdd failure....it can boot off an external hdd but not on it's on. gets to the gray apple screen, tries to load, then just turns off.

i am trying to use disk warrior on it but it seems to be stuck at the blue screen. when i turn on the ibook, i hold down "c" until it gets to the blue screen and i let go. i see nothing but the blue screen and the cd rom drive isn't spinning anymore.

help?

It does sound like hard disk failure. Is your external hdd in a caddy, or is it a sealed unit? I'm wondering if it's worth swapping the two around to see if it's an internal controller failure or the disk itself?

i can't remove the hdd from the external drive...it's one of those that you buy at staples.