IMac wont boot after file transfer from Windows laptop

Hi folks,
I am looking for some advice if anyone can help?
Sunday evening I transferred asome data off an old knackered Windows laptop via my home network. During the transfer, my 2013 iMac 27" started to really slow down and became unresponsive (i tried to cancel the data transfer and restart). In the end I have to force shut down by holding the power button in. Now, upon reboot of the machine, it won't get passed half way of the progress bar - and I've left it an hour at the most and given up.
I have attempted a verify and repair in Disk Utility, and even though I have managed to Verify Disk and Repair Disk, they took an absolute age to get through - I was chatting to an Apple Customer Care person, and they told me to chat back once it was done, which was probably 20-30mins after I started.
I then went on to Verify Disk Permission, which I left running for around 2 hours until it finished, and then moved onto Repair Disk Permissions, of which I cancelled after about 4 hours worth of it doing not a lot!
When I try and boot, it gets to a stage where the hdd is making a repetitive noise, as if it is stuck in a loop somehow.
I am running Yosemite 10.10.1, and have reset the PRAM to no avail.
I am fearing the worst tbh, but my main concern is the data on the drive - any tips on how to attempt to recover that data - or to fix the drive itself?
Thanks
Andy

The correct way to restart in Safe Mode is when you hear the "Bong" sound hold down and continue to hold down the Shift key until a progress bar appears. Here are Apple's instructions on how to correctly restart in Safe Mode.
I would recommend that you also look over Gray screen appears during startup.

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