IMac will no longer boot-up, Pink Lines

27" iMac running Mavericks, purchased March 2010, a great computer; that is until something goes wrong and local Apple support resources are scarce in my location!
Prior to the issue occurring I was performing a cut/paste from a website to a document and noticed red square dots on the screen behind the document I was working on, all functions were frozen. I did a cold reboot and this started normal then horizontal green lines appeared and the system would not come up. I turned the iMac off via the power button and after a couple of minutes switched on again this time the reboot worked, a error log and the option to report the fault to Apple was displayed, I typed a blurb about my issue and sent it off (I do not know what happens to them it felt good). There were no issues for the next few hours using standard functions like web browsing, Email and documentation etc.
While working on a Genealogy profile later in the day I again tried the 'cut and paste' process from a website to a document and the same issue occurred this time however there was no respite; each time I rebooted white screen, 5 horizontal pink lines about a cm wide the Apple Symbol and the wheel spinning then the pink square dots on a white background the dots were green over the apple symbol no other functions possible.
I would like if possible a diagnosis for this issue and if possible a ball park estimate of potential repair, recovery costs, I store most of my records, media etc on a external HD it would great to restore from a backup rather than start from scratch again!   
I have photos of the screen images but cannot post on this forum

I can boot both Snow Leopard and Leopard install disks, no problem. I cannot boot ANY version of Windows install disk (XP, Vista, 7). My Super Duper backup was a backup of my Snow Leopard install to reformat the drive, since one theory was that the partition table was messed up. No go.

Similar Messages

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    The "process" it's referring to is the process of setting up the NVRAM for booting into OS9 from the CD.
    Fortunately, I was able to find the disk, and it worked as expected. I can now, once again boot into OS9.
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    Thanks for checking in, BDAQua.
    Problem solved.
    In the docs that came with my Powerlogix accelerator card, I found this sentence buried:
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    The "process" it's referring to is the process of setting up the NVRAM for booting into OS9 from the CD.
    Fortunately, I was able to find the disk, and it worked as expected. I can now, once again boot into OS9.
    Conclusion: My (unadvised) attempt to load Leopard on this old machine apparently reset the PRAM on the accelerator card and cleared the NVRAM code for OS9 boot. Although I did attempt to reset the NVRAM via Open Firmware, it did not reset it on the accelerator card.
    So, thank you BDAQua, for your "Ah yes" . . . that's all I needed to steer me in the right direction.
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