hi the issues with imac are resolved. i had the hard drive changed (i chose a hitachi this time), apparently the samsung was "doa" even though the tech people couldn't find any thing wrong with it. things are now runing smoothly and i'm enjoying my 800gb of free space on my imac! regards alexandre 17" 2.33ghz ic2d macbook pro / 2.0gb / 160gb / X.5.2 24" 2.33ghz ic2d imac / 2.0gb / 250gb / X.4.11