My mac is freezing up

[alejov_solo43]

So two days ago i adopted a mac that was going to be thrown away. I figured i could work on it and get it working, but it turns out i'm over my head.
As far as i know my mac is an eMac with Mac OS X version 10 something (ive only been able to make it into the info screen once and i dont remember the exact version).

Here's the problem:
-it freezes at random times, its never the same.
-sometimes it wont get past the apple loading screen.
-when it does, it freezes on the desktop
-on rare occasions it will let me move the mouse and click on stuff, but when i go to open a programs, say itunes, or even just the hardrive folder, i get the beach ball of death.

It is clear that is the reason they were giving it away but i took it in because i wanted to mess with it and see if i could fix it. Granted, i am completely Mac illiterate. I know all the shorcuts and stuff for PCs but not macs. I was hoping i could get some direction here. Is there any way to purge the hardrive in a safe mode like enviroment? or do it without going into to the desktop?

 

[george123]

you can start it in safe mode and see if it is working than delete whatever you don't want to start in safe mode hold down shift key while powering on or try to fix the os with first aid in disk utility you'll need the os installation disk for that or you can use fsck to try to fix it
cmd+s while powering on
type fsck -y press return
it should check the mac and either report it hasn't checked if thats the case type fsck -fy press enter
if it say it is modified repeat the ab ove steps untill you get the message "appears to be ok
type reboot press return it should start normaly if this doesnt work
probably the os is corrupted so you'll need a fresh install of os

 

[alejov_solo43]

Okay i tried doing the fsck thing and it didnt reboot. i manually turned it off and turned it back on but on safe mode. I am able to do things in safe mode, at least it hasnt froze yet. I took this opportunity to get some more details on the machine.
-eMac
-Mac OS X version 10.4.11
-PowerMac4,4
-PowerPC G4 (2.1)
-speed: 700 MHz
-L2 Cache:256 KB
-Memory: 384 MB
-Bus speed: 100 MHz
-Boot ROM version: 4.4 2 f1

I tried updating the machine using the software update program but it got stuck when checking for new software...

How would i go about reinstalling the OS?