Guidance needed in late 2009 iMac upgrade

[JessC]

Hey, I have an iMac 27" late 2009 I need to upgrade and after searching and watching many instructions I'm getting a bit lost in the woods. I'm not so young alike the computer, and feeling kinda stupid to have to ask stuff that's probably basic to most of you but I'm looking for the correct steps to achieve proper upgrade.

.The imac is now running on OS Sierra;
.I have a 500gb SATA SSD to install (the technical installation is clear from tutorials, just the software side isn't)

?
A. I gathered that High Sierra is the latest OS that I can upgrade to (?)
B. Do I install High Sierra on the SSD first, prior to installation or can I install SSD first?
Or do I transfer everything on my imac with eg TimeMachine and upgrade to HighSierra afterwards?
C. Best way to backup everything in the right formats? (I have external memory drive available)
D. I gathered I need to make a bootable usb, but with OS Sierra or HighSierra straight away? And what is the right sequence in the overall process?

Got confused for the proper steps, probably cause I'm not from the digital generation, but would be greatful if you wizzards could help me do this !

 

[elvisimprsntr]

If it's in good shape, trade it in and apply coin$ towards a new machine. You can specify trade in upon ordering a new machine, which you send in after resetting to factory defaults or re-installing the latest OS.

The coin$ you spend trying (and possibly failing) to upgrade your existing machine you will likely never get back upon resale and will not be able to trade in since it's been heavily modified.

 

[bobesch]

1. Don't listen to the "trade in and apply coin$" BS.
2. Go on to upgrade Your fine machine!

I assume, there's a running system / spinning-drive within Your iMac and You have an SSD, that is meant to replace the iMac's internal drive?
1. Put the SSD into an external USB3-case and connect it to the iMac.
2. Make a clone-copy (CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!) from Your iMac's internal drive to the external SSD/USB3
(Better make another Backup (TimeMachine or Clone-Backup) to another external drive). With CCC You can also clone the iMac's Recovery-Partition to the external SSD.
3. Try to reboot the iMac from the external-USB3-connected SSD (by holding ALT-button while booting and choosing the SSD as the boot-drive.
4. If booting from the external SSD is successfull, then swap the drives.
You'll then have Your cloned current system on SSD within Your iMac and a valid Backup (the iMacs original spinning-drive) (or better even more backups) and continue to either any supported macOS-upgrade (through SystemSettings or AppStore) or an unsupported patched macOS.

 

[TheShortTimer]

1. Don't listen to the "trade in and apply coin$" BS.

Yeah, there have been a number of posts recently by people who do not understand that this forum is geared towards helping people to get the most out of their early Intel Macs.

Good advice btw @bobesch.

 

[JessC]

1. Don't listen to the "trade in and apply coin$" BS.
2. Go on to upgrade Your fine machine!

I assume, there's a running system / spinning-drive within Your iMac and You have an SSD, that is meant to replace the iMac's internal drive?
1. Put the SSD into an external USB3-case and connect it to the iMac.
2. Make a clone-copy (CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!) from Your iMac's internal drive to the external SSD/USB3
(Better make another Backup (TimeMachine or Clone-Backup) to another external drive)
3. Try to reboot the iMac from the external-USB3-connected SSD (by holding ALT-button while booting and choosing the SSD as the boot-drive.
4. If booting from the external SSD is successfull, then swap the drives.
You'll then have Your cloned current system on SSD within Your iMac and a valid Backup (the iMacs original spinning-drive) (or better even more backups) and continue to either any supported macOS-upgrade (through SystemSettings or AppStore) or an unsupported patched macOS.

Thank you Bobesch, indeed I have a standard Hdd in the iMac and want to replace with the SSD.
I'll get a hold of an external USB3-case like you mention and follow your guidelines and let you know! Appreciate the help ?

 

[Amethyst1]

1. Don't listen to the "trade in and apply coin$" BS.

You probably wouldn’t get much, if anything, for trading in a 2009 iMac sadly anyway.

 

[TheShortTimer]

You probably wouldn’t get much, if anything, for trading in a 2009 iMac anyway.

That's what I thought too. Apple would be angling for machines that they can resell to their partners as refurbished units and they're unlikely to want 2009 Macs at this stage.

 

[JessC]

You probably wouldn’t get much, if anything, for trading in a 2009 iMac sadly anyway.

Yeah, was clearly not what I was looking for here; don't have the €/$ for a new one and at least I'll learn something while I'm doing this

 

[TheShortTimer]

Yeah, was clearly not what I was looking for here; don't have the €/$ for a new one and at least I'll learn something while I'm doing this

Hopefully you'll have some fun too. It can be tremendously rewarding to develop the technical skills and know how to repair, maintain and upgrade your hardware so that it remains operational and viable. Seeing my 2010 MacBook Air running a fairly current version of macOS which Apple had officially barred from its upgrade path brought me great joy.

 

[Hughmac]

I have exactly that 27" 2009 iMac, and I've just (yesterday) completed the HDD to SSD swap, by the method detailed above. I had already upgraded it to Mojave using the Dosdude patcher as soon as I got hold of it, and am awaiting an extra 8GB RAM to complete the job.

Remember though, there is nowhere on the SSD to connect the thermal sensor cable, so I first installed the free Macs Fan Control and set the hard drive fan to a constant 2000 rpm, otherwise the fan will run wild and loud all the time

Cheers

Hugh

 

[JessC]

I have exactly that 27" 2009 iMac, and I've just (yesterday) completed the HDD to SSD swap, by the method detailed above. I had already upgraded it to Mojave using the Dosdude patcher as soon as I got hold of it, and am awaiting an extra 8GB RAM to complete the job.

Remember though, there is nowhere on the SSD to connect the thermal sensor cable, so I first installed the free Macs Fan Control and set the hard drive fan to a constant 2000 rpm, otherwise the fan will run wild and loud all the time

Cheers

Hugh

Nice one Hugh ! And thanks for sharing, this is a bit of a moral boost ? for sure. And so is @TheShortTimer 's fb ..
Can you tell me a bit more about the Dosdude patch? So it allows for a later OS than HighSierra to be used?

Cheers ?
Jesse

 

[TheShortTimer]

Can you tell me a bit more about the Dosdude patch? So it allows for a later OS than HighSierra to be used?

It does indeed! Click on the link below for DosDude's site.

macOS Mojave Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs​

The instructions are thoroughly detailed and easy to follow. If you don't have a Mac that can download Mojave, let us know and I'm sure that a solution can be found.

 

[Hughmac]

Yes, it lets you go above High Sierra. However like a lot of others I wanted to keep 32bit app support and only went to Mojave - see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-14-mojave-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2121473/ for more details. Just the first post should be enough to give you all the details, and if you follow the instructions it is a painless process and in our iMac's case everything will work properly except iSight.
I installed the iSight patch but found USB slowed down to a crawl, and I lost the use of my EyeTV (the iMac makes a great kitchen television) and so removed that patch.

There are other various threads by Dosdude on here for upgrading to MacOS past Mojave if you should wish.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[Hughmac]

It does indeed! Click on the link below for DosDude's site.

macOS Mojave Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs​

The instructions are thoroughly detailed and easy to follow. If you don't have a Mac that can download Mojave, let us know and I'm sure that a solution can be found.

Doh! Beat me to it

 

[TheShortTimer]

Doh! Beat me to it

Sorry!

 

[bobesch]

Remember though, there is nowhere on the SSD to connect the thermal sensor cable, so I first installed the free Macs Fan Control and set the hard drive fan to a constant 2000 rpm, otherwise the fan will run wild and loud all the time

There might be a way to bridge the logicboard-located socket for the thermal-sensor cable e.g. with a piece of a paper-clip. Did this on either an early 2009 24" iMac or a mid-2010 21,5" iMac. (The longer I think about it, the more I believe it has been the latter ...) Too bad, I can't remember the details and couldn't find a note, posting or picture about that.
Don't know, if the 27" late-2009 allows such a fix too !?

Edit: added a picture ...

 

[Hughmac]

There might be a way to bridge the logicboard-located socket for the thermal-sensor cable e.g. with a piece of a paper-clip. Did this on my early 2009 24" iMac. Don't know, if the 27" late-2009 allows such a fix too ...

This iMac has a cable and connector onto the hard drive itself. It may be possible to connect a stick on sensor onto the SSD, but my Macs Fan Control solution works well.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[bobesch]

This iMac has a cable and connector onto the hard drive itself. It may be possible to connect a stick on sensor onto the SSD, but my Macs Fan Control solution works well.

Cheers

Hugh

Found the source for the fix of the thermal-sensor-cable in my mid2010 21,5" iMac:
This is, what I posted here ... [ #15 ] - too bad, that I didn't take a picture of that fix.
But here is a link to the sources [ #14 & #1 ] (threads in german language) - but it's about the 27" 2009 iMac.
Here's a picture from that latter source, showing, how to brigde the in/out-cable of the sensor's plug: https://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn0521rpbd.jpg

 

[EugW]

1. Don't trade it in. Apple offers exactly $0 for this model, and other companies don't offer much more.

2. High Sierra is fine as a minimum, but patched Mojave would be good too. (Too bad I can't easily use Mojave on my 2010.)

3. Don't rely on Macs Fan Control for your SSD installation, since it is a suboptimal solution. The better solution is to buy an optical drive temp sensor cable. It costs less than $10 US on Amazon. One end goes on the motherboard, and the other end you can stick anywhere you want (preferably on the SSD, although I just stuck mine on the bracket holding the SSD). It is essentially a sticker with a temp sensor on it.

Here is my 2010 iMac with everything installed. Note the last picture is MacsFanControl just to demonstrate it gets a temperature reading, but I don't actually need that software so after taking the screengrab I immediately uninstalled it.

 

[JessC]

Hey Guys,
I’ve got an issue …
First waited for 2w for parts arrival, then got credited instead of delivered and finally drive around to get hold of them ?
Hence the delay

Got to it today, connected SSD via usb3 adapter, copied HD, carefully replaced HDD with SSD, …
and it only give a white screen, no startup or any activity ?

And on a sidenote, there was no temp-sensor cable to the hdd, only Sata and the similar smaller one; from your info I was expecting that T-sensor to have to loop.

Any experience/advice for the non starting of the computer??

?
Jesse

 

[JessC]

Hey Guys,
I’ve got an issue …
First waited for 2w for parts arrival, then got credited instead of delivered and finally drive around to get hold of them ?
Hence the delay

Got to it today, connected SSD via usb3 adapter, copied HD, carefully replaced HDD with SSD, …
and it only give a white screen, no startup or any activity ?

And on a sidenote, there was no temp-sensor cable to the hdd, only Sata and the similar smaller one; from your info I was expecting that T-sensor to have to loop.

Any experience/advice for the non starting of the computer??

?
Jesse

 

[EugW]

Got to it today, connected SSD via usb3 adapter, copied HD, carefully replaced HDD with SSD, …
and it only give a white screen, no startup or any activity ?

For a 2015 MacBook Pro, I just replaced a 128 GB Apple/Samsung OEM SSD with a 256 GB Apple/Samsung OEM SSD.

I had used SuperDuper! to clone the SSD to an external hard drive, and confirmed that external hard drive boots fine. However, when I cloned the hard drive back to the new SSD, it didn't work. I get the flashing ?folder at boot up. So now I'm reinstalling Monterey fresh from scratch. ?

I have a Recovery Partition on the drive which would allow me to reinstall Monterey, but that would take too long, I guess because it has to download the image from Apple. I also have a USB installer, so I'm doing it that way.

And on a sidenote, there was no temp-sensor cable to the hdd, only Sata and the similar smaller one; from your info I was expecting that T-sensor to have to loop.

Was this a second hand computer? Or had it been repaired at some point?

Take a look at the arrow I added in the picture. IIRC, this is the connector for the HD temperature sensor, and it appears the cable has been cut, with the wires likely connected / soldered together (under the orange plastic). Shorting the circuit like this will disable the temp sensor in such a way that the fans don't ramp up. This is the cheap way to avoid using Macs Fan Control to control the fans. See the post from @bobesch above. I prefer my way with the optical drive temp sensor though, since you actually get a temperature reading.

 

[JessC]

It was a second hand indeed … I’m surprised this mod was done in the first few years, but well noticed!

I followed the steps explained by @bobesch above, used CCC do clone … If no suggestions out of experience I think I’ll reinstall the old HDD and just try the process all over again.

Fingers crossed

 

[Hughmac]

You don't need to install the old HDD - put it in an enclosure and boot from it, then use it to reformat the SSD and clone the system back onto it
At the end of the process, select your SSD as boot device from System prefs.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[JessC]

You don't need to install the old HDD - put it in an enclosure and boot from it, then use it to reformat the SSD and clone the system back onto it
At the end of the process, select your SSD as boot device from System prefs.

Cheers

Hugh

Thank you Hugh, it occured to me just when I was about to start; So I tried but since the imac doesnt start up .. screen starts up white and you hear 'the chime' but nothing happens and screen stays white, no apple logo and startup loading bar.
So I just made the swap again, imac started up and I'm actually responding now from the computer ?

Probably the SSD boot doesn't work properly ..? I'm going to re-examine that how-to process from hdd to ssd first since that's possibly where I messed up.
> If you have a dummy-proof tutorial for me on how to double check that before making the swap again I would feel a lot better ??