hi. i dont know much about macs yet (im a pc guy) and im trying to fix my gfs imac. when you boot, or attempt to boot i should say, you get that question mark thing. i did the thing to see all the disk partitions, cds etc. and it shows me nothing (im assuming this is why it wont boot) so it would seem that either the hdd died or somehow the cables came loose. havent taken it apart yet. is this a correct assumption? or could some wiered setting possibly be preventing it from showing me the drives? it has(had?) os x on it. if it does need a new drive, what are the differences (if any) between ones for pc (ide not scsi) and mac? thanks

I believe all are the same. You can just put a standard IDE drive in there. I did, I've upgraded a g3 all-in-one when the drive died. Incidentally, it had a piece of sh.. Western Digital in it originally (so no wonder it died).

A question mark and a folder means the startup disk isn't "blessed." Try popping the OSX CD in and booting from it and doing an Archive and Install. I'm a PC guy, too, so I know where you're coming from. ;) -Andrew