Dying eMac, Don't laugh, you cows. Options

[novemberwind]

Oh woe is me.
I own an eMac. (Of course, not only me....but I use it the most.)
And I fear it has met its untimely end.
How?

I inserted a data DVD.
BASHOOM went the computer. (In a sense.)
More like.....A window started appearing stating that I ran out of application memory.
So I started cleaning out files.
I had about 17 GB free and it continued to scream at me , NO MORE APPLICATION MEMORY> PLEASE FORCE QUIT YOUR APPLICATIONS.

Hell no!
So I sent it over to a friend to get it fixed.
It came back, unfixed, last night.
So, in fear of things being erased, I started to back up files.
Guess what I popped in?
A DVD-RW.
Heheheh.
I managed to back up about 3.5 GB of my music....
And I popped in another DVD-RW.
And I started to copy the remaining 3.5 of my music. (More like 4.2, but whatever!)
And guess what happened.
It froze.
So I restarted it. (Interesting story so far, eh?)
And I restarted it again.
And it flashed a gray screen at me with a spinning circle.
"Nooooo!"

I popped in the CD. It worked before. Not to erase the damn computer, just to use Disk Utility and stuff.
Then I took it out.
Now whenever I turn it on, it flashes a little folder with a beautiful "?" in it, then a folder with the mac symbol in it.

Know what I did wrong? (I know that THAT'S obvious, but how did it make my computer go BAM?) Help? Is it a virus? (Damn! I bet it's because it's 6-6-06!)

If I'm in the wrong forum, go push me into the right one.