Googling '24" imac hard disk replacement' came up with this:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=350120
I've replaced hard drives in 17- and 20-inch iMacs, once you learn the
basic steps to opening the case for your model, which can be pretty
mysterious just from looking at the outside, it's not difficult. The
drive itself is probably going to be a standard 3.5" SATA drive,
although I consider the Seagate 7200.10 to be the least reliable SATA
drive ever made (I've actually given up sending them in for free
warranty replacement).
Note that in addition to the SATA power and data connectors there will
be a little four-wire cable attached to a heat sensor on the side of the
mount. The iMac will not start without that cable, and they cost $30 if
you mess them up. The tiny little connectors on the ends of that cable
are not exactly robust. Handle with care.
The main issue with an iMac or laptop is that you can't mount two drives
at once, so retrieving your data from the old drive has to be done on
another machine or using a USB or Firewire adapter. You can either get a
full external case ($40 - $80 or so) or a little adapter and power
supply that leaves the drive naked on the bench during recovery (about
$15).
Failed hard drives generally come in two classes. The first is that the
data has become scrambled, which is normally actually a failure of the
format. The best tools for that are Alsoft Disk Warrior (if you want to
try to correct it and continue using the drive) and Prosoft Data Rescue
II (copies data from the drive without making any changes to the drive
at all). The latter is much safer as it can't cause further data loss
but may require more free disk space on another drive than the size of
the drive to be recovered. Disks in this situation are normally
recognized by the Apple Disk Doctor program, even if it can't fix the
problem.
The second main class of drive failures is the case of a total failure
of the controller, the circuit board on the bottom of the drive. Disk
Doctor doesn't recognize these drives at all, and they may not even
spin. In that case you have to find an identical hard drive to
sacrifice. I normally buy them on eBay where the vendors tend to take
good photos of the disk label so you can tell exactly which model of
disk it is. (Over the time that Apple uses a specific brand and size of
disk there will be model changes.) Ideally you would buy a disk with a
serial number that is really close to the one that failed, but I've
generally been able to get this in one try, particularly with Apple
systems where the presence of the Apple logo on the label cuts down the
number of incompatible controllers immensely. You then carefully remove
the two controllers (requires a T-9 Torx driver), move the new
controller onto the old platters, and fire it up. I don't think I've
ever failed to recover the data in this case, although I've had to buy
more than one sacrificial disk a couple of times.
There may be drives that can't be recovered by either of these means,
some of which may be salvageable by the professional drive-recovery
vendors that charge $1,000 and up to do the job. Actually, with some of
the ones I've saved I probably should have charged that much just to
deal with the stress!
Van
On 17/12/2010 9:00 AM, Carlton W wrote:
>
> My internal hard drive failed on my 24" IMAC and I am looking for
> advice to replace/repair it.
> Any feedback for would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Love in Light,
> Carlton
>
> http://carltonwardphoto.com/
> Buy Prints @ http://carltonward.zenfolio.com/
>
> A picture is the expression of an impression.
> If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it? -
> Ernst Haas
>
>
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