June, I thought the problem was with your G4. Obviously, I was wrong about that. Which is easier for you, to open up both computers and move the iMac's HDD to the G4 (moving the jumper on the drive to the Slave position) or to get a crossover Ethernet cable to network the two computers together? Or are they already on the same network? The idea behind all my suggestions to you is to copy those priceless files off the corrupted HDD, so you can repair, re-format, or replace it. If they are already on the same network, you can copy those files across the network. If not, then you need a crossover cable, which any competent computer shop should have, to connect two computers directly to each other. Brian Conner