Information re:iMac asked for. ??s on zapping the PRAM

[June Parlett]

My iMac is one of the original 233hrz Rev. A Bondi Blue, with a 
NewerTechnologies 433  CPU, max amt. of ram, and OS 8.6.1
I did get it to shut down, and when I restarted it threw away the 
finder preferences, stating that they were corrupted. and I was able to 
start up with the extensions off, and then shut down normally. Since 
the Finder preferences were redone, Couldn't I also trash the System 
preferences, and the Macintosh HD preferences, and then restart, to see 
if that would help. I know that they are rewritten when they are in the 
trash(that has not been emptied). I learned that in a Troubleshooting 
the Macintosh class, where the finder preferences are trashed first. I 
didn't think of it, the iMac did it for me. So since the Finder 
preferences were corrupted, then rewritten at the time of start up with 
the shift key pressed down.
Now, everytime I go to start up, the imac gets stuck. I can see the 
progress bar, but it gets stuck around 15% of the way every time (not 
holding down the shift key). How do I remedy this problem and get my 
imac to start up properly?

Thanks for your advice. Should I zap the p-ram, before trashing the 
system preferences, then restarting then trashing the HD preferences, 
in that order, separately. I seems like the main issue was the Finder, 
but it did make a statement about the Finder and the System Folder.
Well, I was able to restart the computer only after taking a huge 
chance, and the computer trashed the finder preferences and created new 
Finder preferences. I still have the problem with the extensions 
because I cannot use the CD ROM to run any utilities.
June