I had an Intel-iMac fried by lightening. UPS, surge protectors but it happened as I was reaching to unplug. Cold now. Could it just be the power supply? Can I replace that myself?

This is the full question since I couldn't get it all in the box.
I have some complex questions regarding an iMac, a Time-Machine backup, and iTunes on an iPod.
I live about halfway up an extinct volcano about 12 miles north of San Jose Costa Rica. Some months ago, we had a thunderstorm and as I reached to unplug my computers lightening struck about 50 meters from my house. I had an iMac with a 3-Tb external backup drive, a PC laptop and a laser printer on the same power strip. There was a definite surge and the light brighten and then power was lost for a few minutes.
When power was restored, the PC and the laser printer seemed to work fine but the iMac was cold.
First questions: Is is possible that the power supply was fried and not other essential parts? Would it be worthwhile to replace the power supply? Can I, with limited experience and tools do it or need I take it to a technician? My concern is that if the hard-drive is good, there is personal information on it that I don't want to risk.
Next question: Do I need to replace the hard-drive before taking it for service? How hard is that, can I do it? I have seen videos of the drive replacement on-line.
Those are my iMac questions, now the questions about backup restoration.
If there is a saving grace with this it is that the Time-Machine backup seems fine although I have only accessed the data through Finder. I replaced the iMac with a Macbook Air with significantly less mass storage and I can't just move files to the Macbook. My problem is that I have an iTunes library of some 10,000 songs on the backup and until recently on a 160 Gb iPod which was old and it crashed. I have replaced the iPod but have not tried to restore the iTunes library to it because of my confusion about how to do that. Can anyone tell me how I might do that or give me any insight into the process?
Thanks for any help you can give.

Is is possible that the power supply was fried and not other essential parts? Would it be worthwhile to replace the power supply? Can I, with limited experience and tools do it or need I take it to a technician? My concern is that if the hard-drive is good, there is personal information on it that I don't want to risk
Quite possible, but working on iMacs is not easy, & PSU might be prohibitive.
Hopefully the Drive might have info on it, but even pulling that out can be a chore.
If you don't know the model, find the Serial# & use it on one of these sites, but don't post the Serial# here...
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
How to find the serial number of your Apple hardware product...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1349
I have replaced the iPod but have not tried to restore the iTunes library to it because of my confusion about how to do that. Can anyone tell me how I might do that or give me any insight into the process?
I'd get an external drive & restore the whole works to it, then boot from the External drive.

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Thanks for ur quick reply to my problem. I tried all of that with no results... I did notice tho that the lights next to and above my caps lock key and my num lk key are now flashing. They flash in unison three times then there is a two second pause then they flash three more times and this repeats. They may have been doing this before I tried this solution but I did not take notice until now... I was also wondering how I am supposed to know, after pressing f10 to enter bios, how I can tell if my new drive is being detected when my monitor will not function? Was pressing f10 supposed to possibly make the monitor turn on? In a last ditch effort to try and further identify the problem, I re installed my old drive. Before replacing it my computer would begin to boot then display a hard error that would not allow me to continue booting and run Windows. My display would still work but I could not run Windows. After re installing the drive the monitor will not turn on. I'm beginning to think that I have a bad monitor. Is there a way of testing this with out buying one? Where does the monitor connect to the mother board? I wonder if maybe its been jarred loose, although I highly doubt it, it may still be worth looking at. Thanks again for your advice.
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How to do it?
Can i just take the case with the mainboard out and "short" the pins Power on (pin 8) with GND and check the voltages on the connector that comes out of the monitor case?
I know that the pin 8 is the power from articles about imac>atx case conversion.And i know that you can power up a normal ATX power supply by shortening two pins, and want to know if i can do the same with iMAc power supply. I don't want to fry anything.

Sounds like you have eliminated most of the possibilities, other than power supply board or motherboard. But it may also be the CPU daughter card that is faulty. I had one (233 MHz) that would run Mac OS 9 just fine, but it was unable to run Mac OS X reliably (crashes and freezes after a few minutes). I replaced it first with a 333 MHz G3 card off of eBay and later with a 467 MHz G4 card from the Fastmac booth at MacWorld San Francisco two years ago.
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Thanks to 'um' and BGreg for the helpful replies. I think I'll go for a new hard drive now. Although I'm not entirely confident inside the guts of a laptop (having looked at the iFixit guide, which does show things fairly clearly) I am less confident with my local Apple Centre for returning the laptop as 'fixed' when it clearly wasn't. They want about £50 to do the work on top of the drive cost too.
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Western Digital do a 250G parallel ATA drive I hear, but only give 3 years warranty. Suppose that's a decision I'll have to make for myself. I've done the "powerbook hard drive replacement" Google search and there's loads to read. A quick glance over one article spoke of the 'horror' of lost screws so I'll find some empty yogurt pots as you suggest BGreg.
Lots to read, then order the drive. After that I've got to fit the thing, and my work shifts don't leave me much free time right now, but I'll drop back online when it's done and let you know how it went – or maybe ask for help if it goes pear-shaped!
Thanks a lot guys!
Bruce

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