Replacing HD in intel iMac

[cwright]

Ok... I know that the intel iMacs are not supposed to be user-serviceable, but when the hard drive in my brother's computer died I decided to try swapping out the drive on my own. It was out of warranty anyway...

So, I spent most of the day finding the right tools and following instructions found online and finally got the drive replaced with a new one (actually an extra drive pulled from my G5 tower). So, I got the new drive installed, set the LCD screen back in place, and decided to test it before trying to get the outer case back into place. Booted it up and... nothing. I hear the fans start up, but the light just starts flashing and the screen never turns on.

Any ideas?

FYI: I've never tried fixing an iMac before, but I've troubleshooted enough Macs to know that the hard drive was the problem... You could hear the drive clicking on startup and it would go to the "missing system folder" icon. It also refused to boot from an OS X install disc, but did boot from an OS X system on my external hard drive. When doing this, no internal hard drive showed up, not even in the system profiler as a disk that could not be mounted. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[iGrant]

Ok... I know that the intel iMacs are not supposed to be user-serviceable, but when the hard drive in my brother's computer died I decided to try swapping out the drive on my own. It was out of warranty anyway...

So, I spent most of the day finding the right tools and following instructions found online and finally got the drive replaced with a new one (actually an extra drive pulled from my G5 tower). So, I got the new drive installed, set the LCD screen back in place, and decided to test it before trying to get the outer case back into place. Booted it up and... nothing. I hear the fans start up, but the light just starts flashing and the screen never turns on.

Any ideas?

FYI: I've never tried fixing an iMac before, but I've troubleshooted enough Macs to know that the hard drive was the problem... You could hear the drive clicking on startup and it would go to the "missing system folder" icon. It also refused to boot from an OS X install disc, but did boot from an OS X system on my external hard drive. When doing this, no internal hard drive showed up, not even in the system profiler as a disk that could not be mounted. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Idea 1 The iMac can not boot till the case is back on properly. I am not sure if this is true, but I have seen it before with computers. When the case goes back together there is sometimes a switch that is pressed when the case is installed that allows the computer to boot.

Idea 2 You said that you pulled an hard drive from your Power Mac G5 and installed it into an Intel iMac. The iMac will not be able to boot from that hard drive till it is re-formatted with the correct partition map for Intel iMacs.

Idea 3 Go back and double check all your steps to make sure that everything was plugged back in properly to the motherboard, etc.

Hope this helps!

-iGrant

 

[cwright]

Thanks. It could be the case, although I didn't notice any wiring or a switch connecting it to the rest of the computer. I won't be able to mess with it until later tonight, but I'll put it back together and see what happens.

The hard drive being from a PowerPC computer could be a problem, but if that was preventing it from booting, I would think I'd see the screen turn on and give me the same "missing system folder" icon I had before. The drive is ready to be formatted so I'll try booting off an OS X install disc, but something tells me that won't work either.

If nothing else, I'll do it all over again!

 

[iGrant]

Thanks. It could be the case, although I didn't notice any wiring or a switch connecting it to the rest of the computer. I won't be able to mess with it until later tonight, but I'll put it back together and see what happens.

The hard drive being from a PowerPC computer could be a problem, but if that was preventing it from booting, I would think I'd see the screen turn on and give me the same "missing system folder" icon I had before. The drive is ready to be formatted so I'll try booting off an OS X install disc, but something tells me that won't work either.

If nothing else, I'll do it all over again!

Let me know what happens. I have seen my Macbook not boot to any screen because of the wrong partition map on the drive.

-iGrant

 

[cwright]

Well, still no luck.

I put the case back together, as best I could. I got it seated and screwed in at the bottom, but had trouble getting the latches to reattach at the top (it still closes). Booted it up, but still just stays on a blank screen with the light flashing.

I wanted to try booting off an OSX install disc, but there's already a disk in the drive and I can't eject it. Eject key on the keyboard doesn't work, and the computer doesn't respond to holding the mouse button on boot.

I opened the computer back up and checked all the connections – everything looks fine. I tried putting the old hard drive back in and get the same problems, no screen and a flashing light. I do hear the drive clicking though, so I know that it's spinning the hard drive on boot.

So I'm getting pretty frustrated. Everything looks right. What else could be wrong with it?

Thanks