My late father’s eMac went into service early 2003 (Feb or March), and the only “repair” it has needed was due to a power failure in the summer of 2007 (flaked the b-tree on the hard drive, restored it and the files using an external drive and software recommended by the local Apple Store genius). Have you had any trouble with the CD/DVD drive? Maybe mine was a media problem, but I had a couple bad burns.
May I ask what the software was that the Apple guy recommended for your bad hard drive? I have one with the same problem but got a quote from a recovery company for over $2,000 to recover the files. I’ve done without them up until now, but would still love to get them back.