IMac Wont Boot Question.I cant find an answer.

Ok Heres the story.
I have an iMac 20" display Intel Core Duo.
I came home yesterday and it was locked up.. I had to turn it off manually.
When it rebooted it started up but was stuck with a folder with a "?" on it.
I know it has to be the HDD.
I booted it from the snow leopard DVD and went into disk utlilty and repaired and verified the disk. The HDD shoes up in disk utility with the Macintosh Partition.After I repaired it it still does not appear as an option to st it as a start up disc.. I dont think the HDD is bad.. But I am not an expert
To be honest I dont care about the iMac I just want the data. I back up but I did not do one in a month or so and there are some things I want. If I removed the HDD and plugged into another mac would I be able to get the data off? I have one of those sata to USB adapters..
Any help would be appreciated let me know if you have any ideas

Do you know why it shows up in Disk Utilty but it wont boot from it?
Because the computer can't find a bootable OS on it. This is much more complicated than just seeing the drive.
(57561)

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Hardware Information:
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          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
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Disk Information:
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                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (350.35 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
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Thunderbolt Information:
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Startup Items:
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Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
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          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.anchorfree.ajaxserver.plist 3rd-Party support link
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          [loaded] com.sophos.intercheck.plist 3rd-Party support link
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          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
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          Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
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          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.0.0 3rd-Party support link
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update
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          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
3rd Party Preference Panes:
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Bad Fonts:
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Old Applications:
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                    SophosAutoUpdate:          Version: 8.0.15 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
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                    /Users/[redacted]/Downloads/Programs/Install Spotify.app
Time Machine:
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               2%          EtreCheck
               0%          Google Chrome
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               0%          SophosUIServer
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          78 MB          mds_stores
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          1.25 GB          Inactive RAM
          813 MB          Wired RAM
          397 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs
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IMac Wont Boot Question.I cant find an answer.

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