Help! iMac monitor problem

I was online downloading and reading emails when all of a sudden, long pixels the length of my screen and in varying widths in various colors appeared on my screen obscuring the desktop. When I move my mouse, the pointer became scrambled and whereever I move my mouse over to, the image under it gets scrambled with glitchy pixelated graphics. I was downloading emails at the time so I thought perhaps its some kind of virus but I hadn't opened any email attachments. I quickly forced my computer to shutdown, holding down the power button and restarted. Same thing happens, the whole screen has the long bars with various widths, looking glitched. I put in an OS X install disk and restarted from that, and it appears to be ok while starting up from it which lead me to believe its a software/hard disk problem. But after I re-installed OS X and restarted again to read the system software off the hard disk, the pixelation came back. I couldn't get to my desktop using OS X install disk so I had to restart using the original system 9 disk (no screen problems here as well) that came with my iMac for it will allow me to go in back up some of my files from desktop first because it seems like I would have to re-initialize my hard disk and re-install everything. Anyone have any insight on this?
iMac 500 mhz SE DV (snow) Mac OS X (10.4.9)
iMac SE DV Mac OS X (10.4.9)

okie dokie...now i'm really scratchin' my head on this one: since i last posted, i just left the computer alone to rest and just recently i tried to start up the computer using the OS x system that in the computer already . i got to the white apple screen, (no pixelation, just like normal) and the little pin-wheel thingy spins for like 5 - 10 mins then a black blue screen with a white box with pixelation which i'm thinking is the arrow. when I move the mouse it doesn't move. then i did a force shutdown. when i tried again to start up from the system 9 disk that came with the computer, the start up screen with color bar pops up (no pixelation, as normal), then as the color bar is almost filled, then comes a black/blank/dead screen. What do you guys think it is now?
I guess the only thing i can do now because I can't see properly what's on the screen, is take the harddrive out and hook it as an external drive to get the files I need out of it. does anyone know if its possible with these harddrives?

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