My iMac is broken
for a bit and take ride round the block John.I shall bear that in mind. At least you had hassle instead of expense eh.
When that's finished, grab another external HD, buy SuperDuper! (£18.50) and do a bootable backup ASAP. (It'll take a while on the first time but subsequent backups are incremental and take only minutes.)
You can even run your Mac from the external backup. (Albeit a tad slower than normal.)
It really is that bootable*.
*Lots of backup software claims to be bootable, but isn't really. (Not without a lot of faffage and 'rescue' DVDs etc.)
When that's finished, grab another external HD, buy SuperDuper! (£18.50) and do a bootable backup ASAP. (It'll take a while on the first time but subsequent backups are incremental and take only minutes.)
You can even run your Mac from the external backup. (Albeit a tad slower than normal.)
It really is that bootable*.
*Lots of backup software claims to be bootable, but isn't really. (Not without a lot of faffage and 'rescue' DVDs etc.)
Agreed.
Thanks for that. I bought a fresh terabyte drive that I'm doing a full TM backup to (is taking forever). The bootable backup from SuperDuper sounds good so I will create one of them as well...
But in the meantime am just trying to do a factory restore on a neighbour's Vaio...
Well I'm glad I managed to take a Time Machine backup yesterday 
Hard drive now appears completely dead again. However, have managed to do a bootable clone of my MBP (using Carbon Copy Cloner, because I'm cheap), and can boot up the iMac with it. So when I get the hard drive replaced, I can boot up, clone onto the new HD, and then restore the Time Machine backup.
Now, am just trying to decide whether I fancy replacing the hard drive myself...
I have replaced a HDD and memory in an iBook and repaired the power supply board, but don't know if the MBP is much different for access. There are several tutorial sites on the net though, that are very good.
Wish me luck, boys and girls, I'm going in...
"...and may be some time."
Suction pads at the ready!
Good luck John, keep us posted.
It's a game of two halves. New drive is in, just need to put it all back together again. After I get some milk from Budgens...
Not a computer buff but really not sure that using milk is going to be good for your Mac...
Expect a vanman moment any time soon! 
That was in case I needed coffee to keep me up all night. However, am just restoring a backup onto new hard drive now...
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Ah computers - don't you just love them!
No, they are a PITA.
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