imac wont boot because i'm an idiot!

[dan hughes uk]

ok so i accidentally burnt an image file of a utilities disk onto my master hdd and overwrote my OS. No i didn't mean to and yes I'm stupid.

now, I can't find my install disk either and after looking round at all the threads about non booting imacs and problems with not being able to boot to disc I thought "bugger this" and bought leopard and thought that might at least fix my problems..

well that sadly gets spat out upon startup just like every other recovery disc that i've tried.

I'll be the first to admit i know nothing about Apples, I can fix a PC but apples confuse me at the moment.

So laughing at my stupidity aside, what can i do? where do i go? what do i press.

I know its got to have something to do with my boot drive being messed up it's not hardware so surely it can be fixed? I read somewhere something about unmounting the main drive? but honestly i'm lost. I have reset the PRAM and can get into the terminal but it makes very little sense to me even after reading how-to's - i'm really looking for some support now as I want my Mac back!!

thanks

[jbarley]

1:Power off
2:insert install DVD
3:Power on while holding the "C" key down.
4:Tell us what happens....

[dan hughes uk]

I said to myself "haha yeah yeah we'll see what that does" after trying it for the thousandth time it still didn't work!! DAMN YOU APPLE!!!

Then i remembered that my keyboard was made in 1921 so i swapped it for a new one and OMG you are a legend! seriously if I had known it was my keyboard and that you have to hold c "whilst" powering up then well... I wouldn't have had to tell you how stupid i was. but seriously thanks very much.

[CJ MAC OSX IPOD]

Its not apple my friend. Thats your fault.
The trick is to never panic.