Transmission problem

Hi people,
i got an issue with a 97 sable.
No matter what gear, D,R or anything doesnt drive. Stays in one place.
I removed the tires and could see that the disks were trying to rotate and would do that for very short distances. When shifting from P to D a very hard noise comes from under the car.

Do you think its a transaxle or something more serious? If it is the transaxle could it be done without expensive tools? Do i need to remove the transmission in whole or not? I have Chilton manual and it doesnt mention anything of transaxle replacement.

Thanks a lot for your time, and suggestions ... in advance.

If one of your axles / CV shafts is broken at the joint, the car will not move. It's not that hard of a job to replace the shaft. I usually end up un hooking the lower ball joint and dropping the lower control arm down. Then you can swing the steering knuckle out of the way to get the cv shaft out. You usually have to bang the cv shaft with a hammer to get it to pop out of the transmission.

but if the cv shaft of on wheel is broken, why doesnt the other wheel move, .... i mean move properly. did those two shafts have a deal with each other to break instantly?

thanks for the reply.

The differential's deigned to turn the wheel on the side that has the least resistance. This is why it has side gears. This is why the wheel won't turn on the good side. It is designed this way so the 2 front wheels can rotate at different speeds going around a corner.

How can I find out which side is bad and wich is good, or when i buy the part, hopefully thats what is wrong, i get the axles for both sides?

When i take out the part how can i tell that indeed the axle is the reason for the car being broken without replacing it with a new part and finding out the car still doesnt drive?

Jack the car up getting both front wheels off the ground. When in Park, if you rotate a wheel on one side it will rotate the other in the opposite direction. If the other one doesn't rotate, then a cv shaft is probably broken. If the other one does rotate, the shaft may still be broken but making enough contact to cause rotation. Lower one of the wheels to the ground and try rotating the one in the air. Then switch which one is jacked up and which is on the ground, try rotating the tire again. The one with the broken shaft is the one that rotates while the other wheel is on the ground. If when both were in the air they rotated opposite and neither would rotate when the other was on the ground, then the problem in in the tranny somewhere.

Thanks for your reply Comet but unfortunately the problem is not that easy. I pulled the car up and the wheel would move very loosely , I pulled all of it up and the wheels would move in reverse of each other quite nicely and than when I tried to rotate the other wheel by itself it would move without any problem.
So my guess is that its not the cv shaft , isnt it so?
If so , what might it be and how hard would be to try it myself?
If that would be impossible how much would a mechani charge me?

Thank you for your time guys.

Usually when one of those CV joints break, that boot is all torn and the grease gets all spun out. When the joint drys up from lack of grease is when they break. I've also seen where ball bearings and pieces of the bearing cage will fly out on the ground when you put the car in gear. It will make quite a noise as well. It's really hard to say what is exactly wrong with yours without seeing it. Also hard to determine what it would cost to repair. So you don't see any damage on those boots and any parts falling out? When you put it in gear where do you hear the noise coming from? If I had to guess it would be the passenger side CV, that's the side I see broken all the time.