Re-purposed Fusion Drive from iMac 2012

[hellfried]

I have a very old 2012 iMac that stopped working all of a sudden few months ago. While booting up the computer I saw sparks from the back and then it just went silent....forever. There was no way in hell I was going to re-try booting it up again. Today I finally got round to removing the Fusion Drive within it. I then used disk utility to erase it. This got me thinking. Shouldn't I be seeing 2 drives i.e the SSD and the regular HDD within disk utility? Until the day it stopped working, the computer was still showing the Fusion Drive. IS there any way I can get it function as a Fusion Drive again?

 

[Fishrrman]

You did not remove "the fusion drive".
You probably removed ONE of the two drives that comprise the fusion drive (one is a platter-based hard drive, the other is an SSD).

I'm going to guess that it's the HDD that you took out.

 

[hellfried]

You did not remove "the fusion drive".
You probably removed ONE of the two drives that comprise the fusion drive (one is a platter-based hard drive, the other is an SSD).

I'm going to guess that it's the HDD that you took out.

Yes, I removed the HDD from the iMac. But the SSD part of it is one with the platter based HD, right?

 

[chabig]

Yes, I removed the HDD from the iMac. But the SSD part of it is one with the platter based HD, right?

No. The SSD is soldered onto the logic board. The "fusing" part is all software magic.

 

[hellfried]

No. The SSD is soldered onto the logic board. The "fusing" part is all software magic.

Anyway to remove that?

 

[chabig]

It might not actually be soldered. It might be socketed, and if it is you could remove it, it the. You’d have to find a suitable external case for a 2012 SSD. I doubt it would be more cost effective than just buying a new SSD.

 

[hellfried]

I saw the pictures and steps on ifixit.com. Too much trouble to bother. Thanks for all the help though.