Is my G4 dead or dying?

My 8 year old G4 won't start up. Instead it goes click..click..click... etc at about 1 click/second. I booted up with the installation disk to get to Disk Utilities, but no options were highlighted.
Is this the hard drive dying or dead...or something else? What can I do? Is it dead?

As long as it is the same type of drive (e.g. IDE), just substitute it for the other drive and try it out. Your installation disk should boot and allow you to use diskutility to find the drive. It may not be Mac usable, but the utility should be able to see the drive. With the age and the symptoms you describe there is about a 99.95% probability that the hd is 10-7 aka fubar. Time to pry out the $50 and buy another one.

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    this is what i have tried so far and it kinda worked out well but for a while only
    hold power button for 30 seconds. and this brought my notebook back to life
    remove power plug for 1minute  then try again
    remove li-on battery for 1 minute then put it back in
    start the notebook by battery and then put the plug in and it worked
    play with battery only or use laptop with battery only and recharge with cable cord
    and this made me believe it was electrical problem , especially that my plug looks like one from UK  which is usually used in kuwait and i convert it to european standard plug which is used in egypt
    BUT! it only works for my notebook if i want to use the internet or watch videos etc,,, IF i decided to play a game such as the last remnant it shuts down, but if i play a very old game like final fantasy vii it works without shutting down .
    and yesterday i played the game such as last remnant for almost 45 minute to 1 and half hour in very high graphics despite that its 2009 game and then it shuts down ,
    i also bought a cooling pad just recently and started using it whenver i used the notebook , and notebook fan inside is working perfectly
     and i also thought of replacing thermal paste but i am not sure if that will help since it wont turn on , and i am not sure if formating the pc would help, since it usually starts and shuts down on windows logo but now it wont turn on at all
    and what made me post this today after all this experimenting and instability etc.... ,
    is because;
    today i tried to start my notebook from the battery and it wont start all and neither from the main cord plug
    and when it starts its shuts down very quickly less than seconds,, it used to happen before but usually it would start if i used the battery only!
    and now when my battery is plugged in , and the cablecord is also plugged it , it seems that the battery is charging ... 
    i am really sorry for the long post but anyways as you can see its really weird and complicated issues, and i never overclocked it but i usually play in high graphics etc.. and maybe it consumed too much power from nvidia perhaps ? i usually use it for maximum graphics and sometimes i use it for high performance only
    i cant specify my notebook nor  i can get dxdiag because my pc wont turn on but this is my notebook copied  from  msi website
    CPU   - Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.00 GHz)
    OS   - Windows 7 
    Chipset   - Intel® HM65
    Memory   - DDR3 1066/1333 MHz
    LCD Size   - 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) or HD (1366x768) LED backlight
    Graphics   - Nvidia GeForce GT 540M  + intel video card integrated
    Graphics VRAM   DDR3 1GB
    HDD (GB)   500GB / 640GB / 750GB
    Optical Drive   Blu-ray / DVD Super Multi
    Audio   7.1
    Webcam   HD type (30fps@720p)
    Card Reader   SD(XC/HC)/MMC/MS(PRO)/xD
    LAN   10/100/1000
    Wireless LAN   802.11 b/g/n (Intel or Atheros)
    Bluetooth   Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR
    D-Sub (VGA)   
    1
    HDMI   
    1 (v1.4)
    USB 2.0 port   
    1
    USB 3.0 port   
    2
    Mic-in/Headphone-out   
    1/1
    Express Card   
    N/A
    Keyboard   
    103 keys
    AC Adapter   
    120W
    Battery   
    6 cells
    Dimension   
    383 x 249.5 x 37.6~32.3mm
    Weight (KG)   2.4
    *** note:
    the same issue happened to my xbox 360 and it completed wont turn on and the issue by then was the cable cord , and then it worked out well after i replaced it and afterward my xbox 360 died... despite the new cable cord
    and another note is that here in egypt and especially before the military coup that happened, usually the electricity here turns off suddenly and it really made me worried that it caused both my pc and xbox to fuse .. because they both faced the same issue..
    and i never had this kind of issue in my 10 years old desktop in kuwait which is really making me believe its electricity issue
    or maybe motherboard died..
    and thank you in advance!

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    hello? firstly why i cannot edit or delete posts?
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    Users are permitted to modify their own posts for 180 minutes after posting
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    now after the testing, i noticed my laptop won't turn on even with  the battery only and doing the 30second shutdown rest
    you mean its doing at his own 30 seconds On, then shutdown for 30 seconds and repeatable in that way?
    that hapends if you use battery only?
    or its doing the same if you leave ac charger only?

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