Chosen Solution
will this work for sure? I have a 27" iMac 3.06ghz (late 2009) core 2 duo. The hard drive internal needs upgraded to a higher capacity drive. If I get one of these: https://www.applecomponents.com/items/00… And connect any 3.5 7200rpm Sata Hard drive, will I have problems with the fans spinning up? or any other abnormal behavior to look forward to? TIA Jeff
Here’s an excellent article on upgrading your 27" 2009. It also has links to compatible drives: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/im… UPDATE The problem with changing drives is the thermal sensor. If you stay with the same “brand” of drive there should be no problem. If you change brands, you will need to change to that companies sensor. As far as I know there are three different ones, the Western Digital 922-9225, the Seagate 922-9224 and the Hitachi 922-9223
I tried replacing the 500GB Seagate drive in my late 2009 21.5" iMac, with a 1.5TB drive, also from Seagate. But I had the same problem with the fan slowly reaching full speed. So I had to swap back the 500GB drive for the time being. At least with Seagate drives, the connector for the thermal sensor cable is normally used as a jumper block for speed selection. See page 20 of this: http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/suppo… Apple-branded Seagate drives have custom firmware to change the function of the jumper block. To install a non-Apple branded drive, you need an external sensor cable, the same type used in iMac prior to October 2009. I have ordered P/N 922-9214 for my mac and will install it together with my new drive once I receive it.
UPDATE! 3 days ago I changed my ‘‘‘1TB western digital cavier Black hard drive on my 27" 2.8GHz I7 iMac to a 2TB western digital cavier Black hard drive. With the instructions listed here in the site it was actually pretty easy to do. You must take care when pulling and re-installing wires. I almost found out the hard way but all is good. On to the fix; I installed the 2TB hard drive and put the display back on with 2 screws and tested. everything went well and the computer booted. I installed the new system and ran the hardware test, it failed and the fans started blowing. I looked at the instructions and double checked everything. I found that I put the thermal cable on the wrong side. The instructions stated to put the cable closes to the sata cables. I did that and put the screen back on with 2 screws and booted the system. I ran the hardware test again and failed. I tried zapping the pram-zram-bram the whole alphabet ram, and nothing worked. I must have tried the hardware test 4 times after doing some trouble shooting. I took the computer apart again and I took the thermal cable and turned it a half a turn with the grey cable now facing up. I inserted the plug, put the screen back on and ran the hardware test and it passed!!! YES I put it all back together installed all my software, final cut pro, photoshop CS5 and so on and everything is working fast and great. Hope this helps. Rick…..
I have also written a small blog about it here if you want a bit more detail, otherwise i can explain the process in more detail if you’d prefer. http://thebookyard.wordpress.com/2013/01… Update I have written a small blog about it here if you want a bit more detail, otherwise i can explain the process in more detail if you’d prefer. (i have also resolved the 2011 iMac hard drive upgrading process, which was a much more complicated problem) http://thebookyard.wordpress.com/2013/01…
