1tb HDD in 2006 iMac?

[tarqfon]

I have a late-2006 24" white iMac (core2duo) which had its 250gb hard drive die recently.

I purchased a WD Caviar Black 1tb SATA drive to replace it. After install, I booted up via the Snow Leopard install DVD, but the new drive is recognized as having only 33mb of space.

I understand that motherboards will not support drive capacities over certain sizes, but all of my research prior to purchase led me to believe that this model iMac would support a 1tb drive. Western Digital thinks that is probably the issue, but the Geniuses at the Apple Store think that my iMac should support 1tb. (Notice that everyone "thinks," but no one will give a solid answer.)

So, the questions are these:

Will a late-2006 iMac support a 1tb drive?
What drives will this iMac support?
Did I purchase an incorrect drive?
What can I do to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Jim

 

[Techhie]

From my research, there is no distinct limit that the SATA controller within the iMac is limited to, so any capacity 3.5" SATA drive should work.

My guess is that the drive is bad.

 

[Hellhammer]

1TB should work fine. As Techhie said, the drive may be bad so return it and buy a new one

 

[tarqfon]

I called Apple this morning and asked very nicely for them to help me out since the Applecare for my iMac expired 2 months ago.

The Apple tech initially told me that a 1tb drive in my particular iMac should not be a problem. I asked him to double-check that info. He put on hold and then came back 2 minutes later and apologized for giving me the wrong info --a late-2006 (September) 24" white iMac can NOT support a hdd larger than 500gb.

I returned the 1tb hdd, bought and installed a 500gb hdd which the iMac recognized with no problem. I'm currently installing the OS; all seems good at the moment.

 

[alzi1]

Interesting. I have a 1 TB (WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1) working in my late 2006 24'' iMac without any problems. My original 250MB drive died, too.

I guess your HD was bad and the hotline person an idiot.

Alzi

 

[ljonesj]

Yeah my thoughts to on the drive and the person on the phone but at least you have got your machine back up and running so not a real big deal.

 

[gianly1985]

Will a late-2006 iMac support a 1tb drive?

Yes. I did it last year with my 17" late 2006 iMac and WD Green Power 1tb.
Now I replaced it with an Intel 160gb SSD

 

[rodll]

Interesting. I have a 1 TB (WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1) working in my late 2006 24'' iMac without any problems. My original 250MB drive died, too.

I am researching for an upgrade drive for my late 2006 iMac and have found many users reporting using the Caviar Green on it with no problem. But I am having trouble finding users who installed the Caviar Black sucessfully.

Does anyone here have it installed?