I do have a question about the temperature of my computer.  It seems to get very hot.  Should I take it in to get checked out?  Or is it normal for an older mac to be hot.  Could the heat issue have contributed to the problem with my disk drive?

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The temperature of laptops can be very high. The entire purpose of the computer's physical design is to remove heat from the cpu. I would suggest installing istat made by the good folks at www.islayer.com. It's free and let's you keep an eye on what your computer is doing as well as the temperature. Depending on the model of the computer, each one has a different average temperature. Macbooks usually run around 105-120. Older powerbooks could be much hotter. There are fans that will help cool the cpus but only come on when the computer senses the higher temperature.

One last note: high temps can sometimes be caused by processes running on your computer that are hung. iStat will show you your cup load and that's a great way to determine if you are running something in the background that is causing your computer to overheat as well.

iStat Menus, a Mac app by iSlayer