27" iMac: Home Maintenace / Repair

Alright, so my understanding is that on the iMacs of the past couple of years or so, the display glass lifts right out and allows access to a bunch of screws keeping the LCD attached to the body of the "computer" -- and that to replace a dying hard drive or optical drive, you have to disassemble all of this.

Has anyone here found themselves having to do a home swap of, say, a hard drive on its way out? Any problems with dust or lint getting on the inside of the display or any other issues? I ask because the nearest Apple store is something like 45 minutes away.

I used to always build towers at home, so a failing disk was a simple matter, but it's a little different with all-in-ones like this.

 

This is one of those threads that pertain to desktops and needs to be posted over at our sister site DTR.

That being said, Google is an awesome resource.