Replacing my internal Hard Drive

Hey peoples. I recently have begun to run low on my computers available space. It is becoming very slow to boot up and a pain to just push the save button (4 gigabytes left ) and I began to consider installing a new hard drive in my mac.

That is when I realized I have no idea what to do.
I did some research and found that I have a 160 GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive, These are the full specs
Western Digital WD1600JS Specifications - Serial ATA Hard Drive, Hard Drive

Also, I know I need to make a bootable copy of my hard drive. I just don't know how to really do that either. I found two apps called "carbon copy cloner" and "SuperDuper" Which are supposed to do that. I also have an external drive that is big enough to hold the back-up

I have mac OSX 10.5.5 (Leopard)

I'm not sure where to start or what to do. but knowing what kind of hard-drive I should buy first may be a good first step.

I upgraded my iMac to 2.5 gigabytes of RAM, in case that is important.

*EDIT* forgot to post what kind of iMac I have (@Stingme you get a cookie) I have an iMac "Core 2 Duo" intel mac. 17 inch screen. iMac (Late 2006) - Technical Specifications (the second column)

Also, I would like to upgrade to something in the 320+gig area

A good place to start would be to tell us which iMac you have

To boot a PPC iMac from an external drive you must have firewire. An Intel iMac will boot from USB 2. Back up your system using SuperDuper and then start cleaning out the internal drive as replacing the drive is not for the faint hearted.

Here is a link on how to do it with video shots. Look at Macman post towards the bottom of the page:-

Can i Uprade the intel imac's hard drive? - Mac User's Forum

Unless you REALLY want to get into this project (that involves removing the access door, front bezel, EMI shield, and LCD display before you gain access to the hard drive) I would recommend getting a big (500-750GB should do nicely), fast (7200RPM), firewire (400), external hard drive to house whatever is taking up so much space.

Nothing beats starting with a clean slate - after backing up everything (SuperDuper! will do the trick) I would reformat the internal drive and do a fresh install of Leopard, all updates, and then all of your Applications. Go through the installers carefully and only install what you actually use (no way you need all of those printer drivers and extra languages!). Monolingual is a handy app that can help you slim down a bit as well.

Then move your data, preferences, bookmarks, etc. over to the new, lean system - again, take the time to delete things you don't need (we all tend to accumulate lots of junk over time).

If you want to speed up your iMac even more, you can install 4GB of matched RAM in that machine - it will only be able to address the first 3GB but you will see some benefit of having a pair of 2GB modules installed rather than the 512MB + 2GB you have in there now (or even 1GB + 2GB).

Performance testing of Apple iMac Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, and Core 2 Extreme Models with various Memory configurations | OtherWorldComputing.com

You can pick up a 4GB set for about $15 after rebate...keep an eye on

FRYS.com | CRUCIAL

as there have been many rebate programs this year (they seem to crop up every other week or so recently).

Good Luck!

Oh my...

Maybe I should consider sending it into a professional.

I've changed computer hard drives before, but never going into such depth of taking it apart. Granted I have never taken a mac apart before as well.

Thanks for the help guys! you have shown me that I am incompetent at repairing macs! You just saved me a computer!