Single user boot : remove read only

Sorry to say it does sound like a drive failure. Does it have a recovery partition? Try booting with COMMAND-R held down see if it boots there, maybe that part of the drive is still functional and Disk Utility can do some repairs...

But honestly, I would contact the seller or manufacturer and see about a warranty replacement.

Give this a try. If you can get to single user mode you can remove the file that OS X checks for during boot to determine if the Mac has already been setup. If it doesn't find the file then it boots to the setup assistant, which allows you to create a new admin user.

Try resetting PRAM:

1. Shutdown the Mac
2. While holding ⌘+option+P+R, power on the Mac
3. Continue holding all four keys until the Mac has chimed (restarted) twice, then release the keys and allow it to boot normally

If that fails, or you still can't boot to single user mode, give this a try. Resetting NVRAM:

1. While holding ⌘+option+O+F, power on your Mac, after a few seconds you should be greeted with the Open Firmware screen.
2. Type and click return: reset-nvram
3. Type and click return: `reset-all'

Hopefully by now you can boot to single user mode.

1. Boot to single user mode (⌘+S while powering on)
2. Type and hit return: /sbin/fsck -fy
3. Type and hit return: /sbin/mount -uw /
4. Type and hit return: rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
5. Type and hit return: reboot

This should boot your Mac to the setup assistant. From here you can create a new user account, which will automatically be designated as an administrator account.

Hope that helps.