My iMac (intel based early 2008) turns itself off after the gray apple logo and spinning wheel

The other day was using my mac normally. Later on I noticed a pixilated horizontal black stripe on the desktop screen so I restarted. The screen ended up stalling at the gray apple logo with the spinning gray wheel. After a minute or two the Mac just turned off and I can never get beyong this point after restarting a bunch of times. I tried plugging in the power cord at another outlet with same result. Boot up disc did give me option to reinstall Mac OS X but then I'd lose my data (which is stupidly not backed up). Is this a power issue, or something else?

Hello
try use apple hardware test if is possible , 2 ways to launch AHT ( depend on your mac and system version )
1-  hold on just after start up sound "D" key on key bord
2- boot from AHT dvd com from your mac , hold on "D" key on keyboord
see if aht report any error
HTH
Pierre

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