The inside is not dirty as I have disassembled the computer, washed and tried to buff out the casing, scrubbed rust spots out...pretty much gave it a detailing. I am quite certain the HDD is fine because I had initially gutted the iMac and was going to sell the parts that I was not using...I installed the HDD into my wintel box, put WinXPProSP3 on it, and worked beautifully...On a side note, I did not know that there was a LED built into the underside of the HDD. When I looked down one day at my PC tower and saw this greenish light shining forth from the case, I was like "what the hell is that?" Something else I find amusing...although the iMac is considerably lower tech than my desktop, even with the iMac's USB 1.1 bus (I am using a Linksys WUSB600N USB adapter), I have a stabler WiFi connection with it than my PC with the same adapter. I am frequently losing signal with my wintel box...is that not something?