Question-mark folder upon startup? what's going on!?

hello users,
when i turn on my IMAC, instead of booting up, it gives me a screen with a blinking folder with a question mark. i don't need to save any data, i just need to boot up and do an erase and install with leopard. how can i do this? any help is appreciated, thanks.

Power on the Mac. Immediately after turning on the power, hold down the option key.
Continue holding the key. Eventually, the screen will turn blue, and a number of disk icons will appear. (equal to the number of disks in your system, including any indserted CDs) There will be an additional image of an arrow (pointing to the right.)
If any disks have what the system considers to be valid bootable OS's installed, the OS logo (either the OSX logo, the windows logo, or the OS9 logo) will be superimposed on the disk icon.
Click on the OS of choice, then click the arrow.
The system should boot to the chosen drive and OS.

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  • Question mark folder at startup, safe boot not working

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  • I get a question mark folder upon start up

    My Mac has been freezing up lately, now at start up I just get a grey screen with a question mark folder. Anyone have any suggestion?

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  • Question mark folder at startup

    When I start up my computer, there is a question mark folder at the start and then it pops to the apple icon. I was wondering if anyone else has this problem and is it a software or hardware problem?

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  • After upgrading HD, "question mark" folder on startup

    Hi,
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  • Question mark folder on startup, Question mark folder on startup?

    Have startup problem with question mark folder flashing on startup. How do I fix it?

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  • OS X Insall crashed halfway. Now getting question mark folder on startup

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    Message was edited by: macjack

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