Water and Imacs, ATA vs SATA, enclosures

Question

I have a flat panel G4 into which water has leaked from the apartment above me, and now it won't start up. It was turned off at the time, and I've left it a few days to dry out but no luck so I guess that major damage has been done internally.
I really need to save the data, so rather than paying someone a huge amount of money to do so, and following a bit of research, I am thinking about trying to remove the hard-drive and put it in a new enclosure myself.
My questions:
1. Is the hard disk itself likely to have been damaged by the water?
2. Most of the USB/Firewire enclosures I have seen advertised are for SATA drives - but the flat panel Imacs are ATA, right? So would an Ultra ATA drive work in a SATA enclosure? Or do I need to look for a specific ATA enclosure?
3. Anyone have any recommended manufacturers for mac drives, or are they much of a muchness?
4. How easy is it to get the drive out of the flat-panels? Is this something I could do myself, or would it be best left to a tech?
Many thanks for any help the forum can offer.
G4 Imac Flat Panel 15"   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions. 
Sorry to hear about the damage.
1. The hard drive is located above the optical drive so even if the base was sat in a pool of water it's quite high up. However it is located directly under the fan openings around the chrome neck so if water went in that way you may have less chance. That said there is a white plastic wrapper on the top of the hard disk under the fan. Whether any shorting occurred that may have damaged the drive we won't know until you get it in an enclosure.
2. Actually my experience is the opposite, ATA enclosures are more common in the places I've looked; you do need an ATA enclosure and not an SATA one. Here's one example, it's not great but it's cheap for this one off task. If you plan on using the enclosure more often this one is a far better item (link) even once you factor in VAT and shipping.
3. Depending in what context. An internal hard drive is an internal hard drive. If you are looking at an external hard drive then the type of chipset used is important too.
4. iMac G4s are difficult to work in but you have the luxury of not having to worry too much about keeping the machine working. The following paragraphs are a cut-and-paste from an earlier post of mine.
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It's pretty fiddly to work inside an iMac G4 so you must be cautious. Always take anti-static precautions. Here are three options for guiding you through the procedure:
MacWorld
xlr8yourmac
Service Manuals
I've also taken a fair few photos which you can find here.
I'd advise reading the reports on the xlr8yourmac drive database (link) to get other people's experiences first.
You must replace the Thermal Paste when you close the iMac up or it will overheat.
It's probably worth replacing the PRAM Battery whilst you're in there as these have a finite life (once they fail to re-charge you may start to run in to snags - it's only a £5.50 item).
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Hope that helps some
mrtotes