I had my first real talk with an Apple Genius today about my failing 20” iMac. It went very well compared to my last drop-in visit. I described my problem and got the answers I expected. I was told that Apple will only replace the internal hard drive with the same size it already has. Strange since I was told last time that they would replace it with any size which would vary the price. Anyway, for a 320GB drive replacement I am looking at $500+.
It was suggested that I could take the iMac into a different authorized service provider in order to get an upgraded hard drive replacement. I did email and call the two local non-Apple authorized service providers but got no response after multiple tries over a week.
Essentially, that is just too much for me especially with only a 320 GB drive. My flakey internal optical drive appears to my a dirty or bad lens so to replace the internal optical drive would cost $300+. $800 to repair an over 3 year old computer is too high, so I opted for complete replacement – 27” iMac i7. Once I get my new computer up and running then I will buy a 1 TB drive from OWC for the 20” iMac and replace it myself.