[HM] beyond hmmmmmmmm

[michaelP]

hi everyone, thanks for everything, but something crucial has intervened (I
am now working from my friend's iMac): whilst working in a normal fashion
(iMac, G4, 800Hz, OS 9.2) and attempting to read a PDF application manual
from a MacFormat magazine CD, Acrobat crashed and I had to shutdown using
the button towards the back of the iMac. On rebooting the iMac could find no
bootable disk and came up with an alternating question mark. After several
attempts this persisted. I then booted up from a System 9 install CD and
found the following: at the point of displaying the internal hard drive it
came up with a dialogue box that said the disk was unreadable and did I want
to intialise it... Does this mean the hard drive is totally nobbled and
defunct or should I attempt to intialise it and perhaps re-install
everything? Could the hard drive be recoverable, and if so, how?

Can someone help?

regards

michaelP