iMac sluggish and not responding

[Doogie479]

I'm not sure if this is an OS or a hardware issue...
Yesterday morning when I woke up my iMac (20" Aluminum Intel 2.4GHz/4GB RAM/320GB Hard Drive/Upgraded to 10.6/Purchased Aug. 2007) my desktop appeared with the spinning beach ball. I could not get anything to respond to mouse clicks or keyboard commands. I ended up holding the power button to shut it down while I went to work. Came home last night and booted it up and it was very sluggish in booting up and opening apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, Adium). After about 10 mins of use it hung up again with the spinning beach ball. Ideas on anything I can check to trouble shoot this issue further (or whats wrong)?

 

[hughvane]

If you have the original Install disks that came with your Mac, boot from Disk 1 by holding down the C key. If startup is successful, go to File > Disk Utility > First Aid and run a hardware check using Verify Disk followed by Repair Disk (if available).

If you cannot start your iMac with the Install Disk, you have the option of either using Disk Warrior (~US$100) or taking your iMac to an Apple tech for repair.

 

[Doogie479]

Thank you Hugh, I will give your suggestions a try tonight when I get home.