Heat Sensor on SATA Drive (iMac G5)

Question

Heat Sensor on SATA Drive (iMac G5)

The hard drive on my iMac crashed and I am in the process of replacing it.

I followed the "any SATA is OK" rule and bought a Seagate/300 750G.

As I try to install it, I see the it does NOT have any attachment point for the small heat sensor wire.

Does that mean it doesn't need a heat sensor? Is it OK to just let the wire dangle? Or should I go back and get a different kind of drive?

iMac G5 20in 400G (now crashed), Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 6, 2007 6:13 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2007 7:33 PM in response to Dennis Cunningham

I believe the attachment that you are referring to (the one with the wire attachment) is held on by a sticky material. You can probably take a knife and remove it and if you are careful, you can just stick it on the new drive. If not, get another double-sided high temperature sticky tape and cut to size.

Hope that helps!

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Answer 2

Jul 7, 2007 3:51 AM in response to Dennis Cunningham

Hi Dennis Cunningham-

Interesting. I just replaced a hard drive in a G5 iMac yesterday and did not have to replace that bracket as it is held on by two screws. Just take the screws out and transfer the mounting bracket to the new drive with the sensor intact.

My experience is that once you mess with the sensor you may have issues in the future with heat.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

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Answer 3

Jul 7, 2007 1:03 PM in response to Jeffrey Bonner

No, the wire is attached by a small plug (with holes that match-up with a set of pins on the side of the drive)

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Answer 4

Jul 7, 2007 1:07 PM in response to DaddyPaycheck

Hmmm.....

On mine, the attachment point (i.e. the pins) is very much a part of the drive itself.

The drive came out very easily, needing only the removal of 4 screws.

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Answer 5

Jul 7, 2007 1:14 PM in response to Dennis Cunningham

DaddyPaycheck,

I just reread your post. Right now my old drive is back in the iMac because I'm using some Data Rescue software (which seems to be working well, but takes many, many hours). When It's finished, I'll take the drive out and re-examine to make sure I didn't mistake some bracket for the drive itself.

At the speed this process is going, that might be a day or two from now!!

Thanks,

Dennis

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Answer 6

Jul 7, 2007 3:45 PM in response to Dennis Cunningham

Hi Dennis Cunningham-

I did this on a 20 inch G5. Perhaps mounting is different but there were three screws holding down the drive and bracket(s) assembly. On each side of the drive were two screw holding the respective left or right bracket attached to the drive. I believe the bracket on the right looking down had the sensor attached. It was a short reach but I did not have to detach anything in order to get the two screws out and the bracket off.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

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Answer 7

Jul 10, 2007 9:09 AM in response to Dennis Cunningham

DaddyPaycheck,

You were 100% right. Once I got the old drive out again, I could see that what I had thought was the body of the drive itself was actually a bracket.

Thanks - my system is now up & running. Between you and DataRescue II my life is starting to return to normal. (And I have made a vow to be better at back-ups - that was a scarry experience)

Dennis

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Answer 8

Jul 10, 2007 10:37 AM in response to Dennis Cunningham

Hi Dennis Cunningham-

Thanks for the feedback and the pretty star!

-DaddyPaycheck

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Answer 9

MGW

Level 7

27,041 points

Jul 10, 2007 12:21 PM in response to Dennis Cunningham

Dennis - I see you have vowed to make backups regularly, the easiest way, I have found, is to use SuperDuper!, it will make an excellent clone of your system, and then it makes regular scheduled incremental back-ups. You set the schedule and as long as you remember to have your firewire drive connected, you're all set! The first clone will take a long time, the following incremental back-ups are much faster, I schedule them for very early in the morning, before I get up, so the computer is all set without being used to write the backup.

Hope this gets you started on the virtuous road,

Miriam

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