DEAD iMac.. HELP

Can someone please help me.. My wife's 17" iMac G5 has crapped out. It won't start up. I can run it as a FireWire drive (Command T on startup) and see the contents of it's HD from my MacBook Pro, but it won't re-start OR start fron the OS X resore/Install disc... It just stays blank (forever) OR the fan screems at full speed an it comes up with the "Hold power button for 5 seconds...shut down" dialog.
Is there a Master Reset or somerthing I can do to force it too boot from the restore disc? I have unplugged and zapped the P-Ram.
OR, can I re-install the system from another computer's optical drive whilt it's in the FireWire mode? thanks.

Hi Shawn,
First thing to do is to run it in FW TD mode while attached to the MacBook and run DiskUtility over it. See if it can "Repair Disk" and "repair permissions" on the iMac.
Just by the way, did you have any peripherals other than the Apple mouse and keyboard attached when attempting to boot from the OS DVD. THis can sometimes prevent boot up from an optical disc. Try with everything disconnected eexcept the keyboard and mouse.
How did you try starting from the DVD? By holding down the c key or using the "option" key to invoke the startup manager? Sometimes the latter approach works when the first does not.
Another VERY SLIGHT possibility is that you have a problem with a defective keyboard preventing proper startup. If you have another USB keyboard available it may be worth trying with it.
The problem with re-installing the OS while in TD mode in this case is that the version of OSX which is needed to start up an Intel Mac like the MBP won't be able to start up the iMac G5, and vice versa. Accordingly you can't use your iMac G5 OS DVD to boot the MacBook, and therefore cannot use it accross the fw link to install the appropriate OS on the iMac. If you have access to another PPC based Mac you could try this approach though.
Cheers
Rod

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