Long live the iMac

Danica and I are claiming bragging rights. When one of our 2008 Macs suffered a lethal hard drive attack, we pondered alternatives. Buy a new one? Take the old one in for repairs?
Repair turned out to be fairly cost efficient. We got a quote for around $200, but it would have meant leaving our old hard drive and all of its data in the hands of strangers. We didn’t feel comfortable leaving financial data floating around.
So we watched some how-to videos online and downloaded PDFs showing the parts we’d need. We bought a new hard drive, a couple of Torx screw drivers, popped the glass off the screen with suction cups and lifted the LCD screen away.
Danica’s nimble fingers and her keen eye for detail helped with wiring connections. We removed the old hard drive, put in the new one and crossed our fingers.
The iMac booted back into life, asking for our Time Machine backup files. Within a couple of hours, the new hard drive had lapped up all of the backups and Danica was back in the game!
Total cost: $82 including tax, plus 14 bucks for the screw drivers. I can use them on our other iMac when the time comes.