Anyone ever put a new hard drive in a Mac?

I mean, themselves? Looking for an idea on whether I can do this, or just wiser to pay someone else to do it. I've got an old G4 iMac with a bad drive that I want to fix up for my parents. I could give them a G4 tower that I've just gotten, but I wanted to keep that one as a backup for my system. iMac's more their speed anyway.

So, other questions I have: How hard is it to install a drive? Are they pre-formatted -- do I have to stick OSX on it and build from the ground up? Any recommendations on drive manufacturers that I should/shouldn't stay away from?

Help, anyone?

 

Yes. PM me. We'll talk. Very easy.

 

another Mac hard drive question

Related question: How difficult is it to back up a Mac hard drive?

The AppleCare tech support people think I need to do a clean install of OS X to deal with disk errors I didn't even know I had. I'm going to get a second opinion from a "Genius Bar" tomorrow, but I figured someone on SJ might've gone through the process before.

If paying a little $$$ to have a professional do the backup will minimize stress, I'm okay with that.

 

PD, get an external hard drive, plug it into a USB port and then run the backup software on the Mac. It'll do it for you.

(At least, that's how I took care of our home G4.)