Well, it seems it was a good choice buying Apple Care last year after all... I took my MacBook into the Bellevue, Washington Apple Store, and a support technician (I can't bring myself to refer to them as 'geniuses'... I reserve the term 'genius' for folks like Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Thomas Jefferson, etc, you get the picture) popped in a new hard drive and restored a Leopard image on it. Now I'm back in operation... Next, I'll see if I can recover any data off the old disk by popping it in the freezer... it's worked for me before... stay tuned.