Possibly stupid question: 2.5" HDD in 2008 20" iMac

[iMpathetic]

The hard drive in my iMac is, sadly, dying. I do have a 160GB laptop drive just sitting on my desk and working fine, however. While I know that it will WORK in the iMac, I was wondering how ghetto it would be to actually put the computer back together with the drive in it.

I've seen some pics of where the drive is, but it's hard to see what holds it in place and how much wiggle room there is. I could just use electrical tape....

Thanks for any input!

 

[flipster]

I might be wrong, so someone correct me on this if i am, but i think iMacs use a 3.5" drive. So your best bet is to probably get a western digital black cavilar 1 tb drive. (best known to be quieter than most drivers, although my seagate is silent).

 

[iMpathetic]

I might be wrong, so someone correct me on this if i am, but i think iMacs use a 3.5" drive. So your best bet is to probably get a western digital black cavilar 1 tb drive. (best known to be quieter than most drivers, although my seagate is silent).

Oh, sorry. I meant to put this in the original post: I do know that the 3.5 drive is what's SUPPOSED to go in the iMac. It's just that I would have to buy a new hard drive when I've got a perfectly good one sitting right here!

 

[excommie]

You would need a drive caddy/bracket to convert 2.5 sata drive (assuming it's sata) to 3.5 sata. Not worth the $$$. 1TB drives are selling for $40.00 on ebay (I'm selling 2 myself). That's the better option. You can also boot from external (assuming you have a FW800 enclosure, USB enclosure will work but will be slow). FW800 boot drive will perform similarly to your internal drive, especially if you go with a fast drive like WD black.

 

[flipster]

Oh, sorry. I meant to put this in the original post: I do know that the 3.5 drive is what's SUPPOSED to go in the iMac. It's just that I would have to buy a new hard drive when I've got a perfectly good one sitting right here!

Don't put some old drive that's not suppose to be in a computer (especially an all in one computer) in a computer lol. Spend the $80 on a new, nice drive and make it last.

 

[biggd]

You could do it!
It's ghetto and ******, i suppose with double sided tape maybe it could work. Remember that laptop harddrives run slower then PC