Could the grey screen on start up mean a harddrive failyre?

I have been having a problem with starting my IMAC G5. I am running OS X (10.3.9) and have had the machine since March 2005. This started two weeks ago and has gotten worse since then. It makes the start up chimes and goes to a grey screen and sometimes the grey screed with the Apple logo and then just stops, there is no spin sound either. For a while it would finally start after three or four trys, several days later I had to start using install disk 1 to get it started. Even with that it would take two or three trys.
I used the hardware test disk that came with the machine and it showed everything fine. Next I used the start up disk 1 with c key down and used disk utility and ran verify disk permissions and then repair permissions. everything was checked and repaired. I then ran disk repair just in case and it checked out ok also. I thought I had it fixed.
The next day could not get it to start up. Stopped at grey screen. I got the disk 1 out again and rebooted to install disk to go through it again but this time no harddrive was showing, only my install disk. rebooted again and got the same thing. Third time I had the harddrive back. Did the thing again. etc
Rebooted and everything worked fine till the next day. Repeat same thing all over.
I think that the harddrive for some reason is not turning on and that is the problem. Is it a drive going out? Software?
Two weeks worth of this. I have the Apple Care protection plan. Is it time to call them?
Thanks,
Dick

Dick,
If you have gone through all of the steps/suggestions stated in the above link and its associated links and if you choose to try Tech Tool and have no luck then it is probably time to try a reinstall of your system. If for any reason that you cannot do that at this time then, yes, I think it is probably time to talk to someone at Apple Care.
It would seem that you have exhausted all remedies other than that that I can think of and apparently others that have posted to your topics.
The only causes of grey screen startup that I have seen have been due to hardware or software conflicts and are usually to my knowledge corrected when these are corrected (such as bad ram, conflicting software, pci cards, bad USB devices etc.) I would truly be surprised that it would be a bad drive causing those symptons but I have been surprised before.....
Good luck,
littleshoulders [:-)

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