All of a sudden today my 27" iMac (10.6.8) is having constant spinning beachball problems. It started in Safari, but I couldn't access any other programs or the Finder. After every restart now everything seems fine and then about 5 minutes in - boom, more beachball. My startup disk has plenty of room available. I've disconnected all peripherals (HD's, hub, etc) but the problem persists.

Is there a program I can try to run to diagnose this?

Any other suggestions?

How many GB's of space you got left?

900GB free

1TB HD

My iTunes library and any downloads go to an external drive. I like to keep my main HD as simple as possible.

I just tried to run Disk Utility upon the most recent restart and it seems like the hard drive is failing. Major Bummer. Anyone know of a service that'll come to your house to replace a hard drive in an iMac?

Youre much better to take it somewhere with the proper tools and a static-free environment.

Where are you located? Do you have AppleCare (covers 2 business day on-site for desktop)?

I'm in North York area. No AppleCare left. Any idea how much the Apple Store would charge to replace the HD?

Also if anyone has any other Apple Repair suggestions, I'm listening.

Night be good time to go SSD seeing as you keep your data on an external.

Apple won't do it but an AASP should be able to o it.

$275 for the drive (plus labour) for the Apple official replacement drive. Otherwise, as it's got a proprietary temperature sensor, you have to short the sensor or use a fan controller app, or else your iMac will run it's fans full blast.

That's correct, although, you still have to address the fan issue.

Thanks G-Mo, I'll call around and see what happens.

Going SSD would be more expensive, no?