Flat Screen imac iMac won't boot up, will not boot from DVD

My 24" imac flat screen will not boot. I only get a blank gray/white screen. Reset the PRAM and tried to boot from the DVD. I held the C key down when I powered on but the system will not boot from the DVD. If I wait long enough, the DVD will eventually be ejected. I have had HD issues and Disk Warrior indicated that the drive was damaged. Will a dead hard drive cause the system to not boot from the DVD? Is there any way to get the system to boot from my DVD?

Hello PMcDer,
Welcome to Apple Discussions!
By what you are describing you're correct in believing your drive is probably gone. The sad news... if Disk utility can no longer see the drive, your ability to retrieve any data off of it is getting slim.
There are a couple of options for data retrieval.
1. If you still have Apple Care have them fix it. But make sure they know that you do not have a backup.
2. If you do not have Apple Care, have an Authorized Apple Tech replace the drive and make sure that they will give you back the old drive. This may prove to be a challenge. Or you can replace the drive yourself. It is not easy for some but take your time and you'll have no problems. Lots of youtube videos on this as well as on-line tutorials.
3. You could try a Hard Disk Utility program like Disk Warrior to see if it can help, but it's not free.
4. You could pay someone big bucks for Data recovery in order to get the data of the drive for you.
If you decided to do the HDD swap yourself. You could purchase a 3.5" firewire enclosure that you could put your old drive into once you do the swap. Plug it into the iMac and prey that it recognizes it. Then "MAYBE" you could copy the data over to the new drive, but that is a stretch.

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