OGG
Master of the Meh
Well, my "free iMac" that was oh so close to pulling me over to the dark side, has decided to challenge my wherewithal.
Ok, so the HDD died, or so it appears. Fine, research like mad, weighing the options, finally succumbing to the advice of fruit hugging zealots, I order an SSD upgrade kit from OWC.
Great place for all things Mac, great service, fantastic tutorial videos... the price was pretty steep, but you know... apples.
Each kit is based on the exact year and manufacturing date of the individual machine. I ordered the kit after entering my serial number, which guarantees the proper items will comprise the kit.
While waiting for the kit to arrive, I watched the fantastic video they have which walks you through every step of the process to replace the drive. Very thorough, very well made. The kit comes with suction cups to remove the glass, a #10 Torx driver (which according to them, is the ONLY size needed), SSD, adapter cradle, and replacement thermal sensor.
So yesterday I set about replacing the HDD. The front glass came off just as it did in the video. I can't believe it's held in place with several tiny magnets. WTF?
Then I noticed that my LCD screen didn't look like the one in the video. In fact, they give you a little nylon pry bar to help pop the screen up out of the chassis, and the protruding tab that they used to place the tool behind in the video wasn't even there. After a thorough examination, I knew I would have to remove the front half of the clamshell case just to get to the LCD so I could remove it.
Sounds pretty easy... popped right off, almost. Ahh! So you have to unscrew and remove the little access plate on the bottom where the RAM chips are held? Ok, done, off with the front half (after disconnecting a tiny plug near the camera lens). Now I can get to the Torx screws that fasten the LCD to the chassis.
I grab my new #10 Torx driver and immediately realize it's not gonna work. No way. Luckily, I had my own set, and was back in business with a much smaller #7.
Got the LCD out, the guts look pretty much like those in the video. I pop all of the connections and remove the LCD entirely to have free access to the HDD. Here again, something doesn't jive (BTW, a few of the Internal Torx screws are #10... and some are #9 and some are #6). Fuckers.
First big issue: the thermal sensor is totally different. The one in my machine is just stuck to the HDD with adhesive, not at all like the built-in type it's "supposed" to have, and what necessitated the whole damn kit in the first place. WTF? Fuckers.
Anyway, the new sensor was useless, no biggie. Dropped in the new drive, re-atrached all seven thousand tiny connection plugs and put it all back together. Popped in my OS X El Cap Bootable USB thumb drive and fired it up.
No.
Hours upon hours of holding down various key combos at start up, resetting the SMC, clearing the VRAM, nothing worked. It simply couldn't "see" the new drive.
Some more research, possibly a bad SATA cable, maybe the Logic board itself.
Shits and giggles... plugged the original Mac HDD into an external drive bay and plugged it into my PC. loaded up Paragon, and bam! There it was... all three partions, fully intact and readable.
Fuck.
Hopefully it's just a bad SATA cable right? Should be an easy fix if so. No.
Fuck me runnin'! The amount of bullshit required just to get the old cable out was beyond ludicrous. Assholes. I can swap SATA cables in my PC without even shutting the machine off, and in less than 30 seconds. Not an apple though, no.
You have to completely disassemble this bastard just to get to it, and the liberal amount of stupid fucking tape from Hell they used to secure it to the inside of the case after running it through a thousand contortions along the crazy route from point A to point B... a distance of about 8" that requires an 18" cable to complete the journey. Motherfuckers.
Well, it's out. I have shit to do before I put this fruity fuckhead back together and see if it even works, but here are some horrifying images for you Mac lovers to enjoy in the meantime...
Ok, so the HDD died, or so it appears. Fine, research like mad, weighing the options, finally succumbing to the advice of fruit hugging zealots, I order an SSD upgrade kit from OWC.
Great place for all things Mac, great service, fantastic tutorial videos... the price was pretty steep, but you know... apples.
Each kit is based on the exact year and manufacturing date of the individual machine. I ordered the kit after entering my serial number, which guarantees the proper items will comprise the kit.
While waiting for the kit to arrive, I watched the fantastic video they have which walks you through every step of the process to replace the drive. Very thorough, very well made. The kit comes with suction cups to remove the glass, a #10 Torx driver (which according to them, is the ONLY size needed), SSD, adapter cradle, and replacement thermal sensor.
So yesterday I set about replacing the HDD. The front glass came off just as it did in the video. I can't believe it's held in place with several tiny magnets. WTF?
Then I noticed that my LCD screen didn't look like the one in the video. In fact, they give you a little nylon pry bar to help pop the screen up out of the chassis, and the protruding tab that they used to place the tool behind in the video wasn't even there. After a thorough examination, I knew I would have to remove the front half of the clamshell case just to get to the LCD so I could remove it.
Sounds pretty easy... popped right off, almost. Ahh! So you have to unscrew and remove the little access plate on the bottom where the RAM chips are held? Ok, done, off with the front half (after disconnecting a tiny plug near the camera lens). Now I can get to the Torx screws that fasten the LCD to the chassis.
I grab my new #10 Torx driver and immediately realize it's not gonna work. No way. Luckily, I had my own set, and was back in business with a much smaller #7.
Got the LCD out, the guts look pretty much like those in the video. I pop all of the connections and remove the LCD entirely to have free access to the HDD. Here again, something doesn't jive (BTW, a few of the Internal Torx screws are #10... and some are #9 and some are #6). Fuckers.
First big issue: the thermal sensor is totally different. The one in my machine is just stuck to the HDD with adhesive, not at all like the built-in type it's "supposed" to have, and what necessitated the whole damn kit in the first place. WTF? Fuckers.
Anyway, the new sensor was useless, no biggie. Dropped in the new drive, re-atrached all seven thousand tiny connection plugs and put it all back together. Popped in my OS X El Cap Bootable USB thumb drive and fired it up.
No.
Hours upon hours of holding down various key combos at start up, resetting the SMC, clearing the VRAM, nothing worked. It simply couldn't "see" the new drive.
Some more research, possibly a bad SATA cable, maybe the Logic board itself.
Shits and giggles... plugged the original Mac HDD into an external drive bay and plugged it into my PC. loaded up Paragon, and bam! There it was... all three partions, fully intact and readable.
Fuck.
Hopefully it's just a bad SATA cable right? Should be an easy fix if so. No.
Fuck me runnin'! The amount of bullshit required just to get the old cable out was beyond ludicrous. Assholes. I can swap SATA cables in my PC without even shutting the machine off, and in less than 30 seconds. Not an apple though, no.
You have to completely disassemble this bastard just to get to it, and the liberal amount of stupid fucking tape from Hell they used to secure it to the inside of the case after running it through a thousand contortions along the crazy route from point A to point B... a distance of about 8" that requires an 18" cable to complete the journey. Motherfuckers.
Well, it's out. I have shit to do before I put this fruity fuckhead back together and see if it even works, but here are some horrifying images for you Mac lovers to enjoy in the meantime...
