What is white wrapper for on iMac hard drive?

[Drum]

I just upgraded the hard drive on my Flat Panel iMac G4. The old Hitachi drive was covered with a piece of sticky white paper. When I installed the new Western Digital drive I did not replace the paper as it would have covered up holes in the drive housing that should be left exposed.

Does anyone know what the white paper is for? Should I have stuck it back?

 

[zac4mac]

Does the wrapper have a layer of copper foil inside? If so, it's for EMI suppression. Several HDDs I've seen in portables had this. If not, no idea.

Z

 

[Makosuke]

It was probably some sort of shielding or to keep it from vibrating against something it's touching inside. I seriously doubt it's necessary--covering up the breather hole is probably far worse than whatever it's intended to be doing.

Regardless, I've heard of a lot of people upgrading those, and I've never heard of anybody doing anything unusual with the drive, so I'm fairly certain it's not necessary. You could go read the drive reports at XLR8YourMac to make sure, if you're worried.

 

[Eidorian]

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMac_g4/imacg4_takeapart.html

It's either EMI wrap or just some additional heat sinking material for the CPU.

 

[Drum]

Here's a picture so you know what I'm talking about. No-one's come up with an answer yet!

Thanks to mrtotes for the photo.

 

[dejo]

When I installed the new Western Digital drive I did not replace the paper as it would have covered up holes in the drive housing that should be left exposed.

Did the paper only cover that top side with the label? If so, what holes?