Replacing the hard drive of my iMac
Just before christmas my aluminum 24" iMac decided to get stuck in the loading screen forever and ever after I had to restart it. After troubleshooting, I felt that my hard drive was still accessible, just not bootable. I was able to access all the files via user mode but not able to copy anything. I tried booting the machine off a linux live CD to at least save the files but my mac didn't seem to want to do that.
Thinking that the apple store might be able to help, I went ahead and brought the computer to the store and went to see what they thought. As expected they said the 300GB hard drive was hosed and they could replace it for $400. I politely left with my machine and bought a 500GB Western Digital SATA drive for $64 and a T4 and T6 Torx bit for a total of $70.
I then google some instructions and went on with the work. Surprisingly enough it was really easy. You just pop off the glass, take of the aluminum cover, move the LCD panel out of the way and then swap the hard drive. Take my word for it, it is a lot easier then it may seem. If you are doing this and have questions, please message me at AIM screen name joffroirunning or email me. I would be more then happy to help.
Honestly I wish I would have done this much sooner. If I buy another iMac, I will buy the base model and upgrade it myself.