iMac G5 hard drive replacement

Question

iMac G5 hard drive replacement

In time, my iMac G5 will need a hard drive replacement. I looked up the HD model in System Profiler. The drive is ATA and the exact model is MASHITACD RW-8124. (At least, I think that's the internal drive. That might be the optical drive. Hardware isn't my strong point!)

My question is, where can I find another of these HDs? It must support a minimum of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8) for the processor is PowerPC. I looked on eBay but no luck.

Any information appreciated. Thanks.

PS The exact model of iMac was not listed, so I had to find the earliest line possible :-)

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jul 3, 2021 1:53 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 3, 2021 2:49 PM in response to Alice-Charlotte

Hello, Alice-Charlotte.

You are correct that the model number you listed above - Matshita CDRW-8214 - is for the optical drive. :(

The drive you're looking to buy will be a SATA 3.5" HDD.

You want one that spins at 7200 rpm to best match what I believe your iMac shipped with.

If you go to Amazon and use the search term "sata 500gb hard drive 3.5 7200 rpm" you will come up with a several drives that theoretically should work in that old iMac. The Seagate and Western Digital drives in particular and in the $20 range.

You will have to reformat it before you can use it in the iMac.

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Answer 2

Jul 3, 2021 2:53 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

I would strongly advise you to do everything in your power to find a newer replacement for this old iMac.

Fifteen computer years is like 100 in people years. That old machine is likely to give up at anytime.

I hope you have a backup of anything important.

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

60,242 points

Jul 3, 2021 6:24 PM in response to Alice-Charlotte

The iMac G5s had a lot of issues with swollen and leaking capacitors on their Logic Boards and Power Supplies plus the LCD Panels on many of them had issues. So be very carefeul spending money on the white iMacs (PPC or Intel).

You may have a hard time finding a drive that will be compatible with the iMac G5 since most hard drives today are over 2TB and I'm betting the iMac may have a limit on the size of the drive it can use. Plus today's hard drives use a different default sector size which may not be compatible with such an old Mac.

You may want to see if OWC sells an SSD which is compatible with the iMac G5 as that would be the best option in my opinion if you insist on repairing this iMac.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc

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