IMac not booting up - getting stuck on blue screen

Hello, first post here.
I have an iMac which I powered down last night and came this morning to boot it back up. Unfortunately it was having troubles booting up. It got stuck on the blue screen, kinda switching back and forth between two shades of blue and occasionally displaying the mouse and spinning load icon.
I tried restarting it, and curiously there was no startup sound. I tried unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in holding the power button and turned it on with the fan going full blast. I rebooted again, the fan was silent, but the startup sound finally chimed. I then proceeded to try the following:
•Reset the PRAM - no luck
•Tried booting in safe mode - stuck on gray screen with apple icon
•Tried booting into target mode - drive was recognized on my macbook fine
•Tried using disk utility on my macbook with the imac in target mode - repaired the disk, but still wouldn't boot
•Tried restarting it in single-user mode, worked, repaired the disk through that, rebooted and still no luck
•Couldn't boot into CD mode, I believe my DVD drive is broken
Whats interesting is that the hard drive isn't making the usual mechanism sound that I usually hear when its powering up (assuming that's what makes the sound)
So any help is much appreciated. I use this computer in my recording studio and have lots of data I wish not to loose, so any solutions needing a reinstallion/erasing the drive is fine, just keep in mind I need to do a good backup first.
Thanks

Hi J
Welcome to Apple Discussions
That sounds almost like a failed Leopard install:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1545?viewlocale=en_US
or it's Stuck in a "loop" at the login window after upgrading to Leopard: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1413?viewlocale=en_US
Try an Archive & Install:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710
or restore from your Time Machine Backup:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
Dennis

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Hi J
Welcome to Apple Discussions
That sounds almost like a failed Leopard install:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1545?viewlocale=en_US
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This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hello Sir,
You was right...
The CMOS Battery was discharged!
I've replaced it ... and the date and time problem has been solved...
And you was right again by saying that it should not cause the problem while start up...
So the second problem (Major Problem) was CD Writer !!!
(I've changed the location of the PC last 3-4 weeks ago!!)
may be the it has grabbed the hardware of CD Writer..
And as the hardware of CD Writer was not working as per the expectation the BIOS may have got stuck...
And so it was unable to enter in Boot or Setup menu !!
I've removed the data and supply cord of CD Writer... PC is working good now...
I am thankful to you sir.. for your thourough help..
Without you it may not happened
Now I am going to repair the CD Writer by opening it tomorrow..
Any help from you will be great help to me and its really appriciable..
God Bless You...
Thanks for your valuable time.

IMac not booting up - getting stuck on blue screen

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