Help! Imac G5 Won't Start!

I was making a clone backup of my HD onto a new external Firewire HD using SuperDuper when everything locked up. The only thing I could do was to hold down the power button until it powered off. When I try to restart, I get the Apple splash screen, and nothing else. The computer does NOT make the clicking sound which I usually associate with the HD starting. After a couple of minutes the fans go to high speed. No spinning ball, and no curser. Is it possible, could it be that my internal HD failed while making a bootable copy? If this is the case, can I replace the stock 160 gigabyte hard drive myself with larger one. I have opened up the back of the computer to install more RAM and I think with some good instructions I could replace the hard drive even through I am not very handy. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

After installing the new drive, will the startup DVD automatically format the drive before installing OS 10.4, or do I have to go to the disk utility to format the drive and then install the OS?
One of my coworkers is a Unix programer and an aerospace engineer. He has offered to try to get the data off of the bad drive when I return to work from vacation next week. He switched to a Mac Mini a couple of years ago after spending too much of his spare time keeping his PC up and running. Now his family uses Leopard to surf the net and for their home computing needs. My friend can spend his spare time doing other things like honey do's. He still uses the PC for some things. His Mac and the PC are both on his LAN and share an external drive. I work for an extremely PC loving company, but I keep finding more and more of my coworkers are switching to the Mac basically to avoid Vista and the other PC problems.
I will let you know how the operation on the iMac comes out. I first have to buy a replacement drive.
Thanks again for all your good advice!
Bob

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