iMac late 2009 hard drive replacement

Question

Level 1

0 points

iMac late 2009 hard drive replacement

Hi,

A little late to the party. My iMac drive finally "died" (invalid node structure) when I tried to upgrade from Lion to Mavericks. Applecare ran out in Feb 2013 😟. When I got the notice last year and even early this year about the recall, I punched in my serial number and it says it is not part of the recall, though I was having issues with the drive, which Disk Util has manage to fix each and every time. I don't know why my drive is not part of the recall. According to this blog:

http://keeleysam.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/apple-imac-1tb-seagate-drive-recall/

it should be this particular Seagate 1TB drive: ST31000528ASQ revision AP24. I just got off the phone with Apple Technical Support and the senior support advisor said it is not related to the model or revision, but rather just strictly based on the iMac serial number. Perhaps it is just a coincidence the folks who posted about hard drive replacement, their drives just happened to be the STxxx and AP24 or AP25.

I manage to use firewire target disk from another Mac to the iMac and use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable image of the drive. CCC did complained about a handful of files that could not be copied. iMac manage to boot up from the external drive and everthing looks to be in place.

Have an appt at the Genius Bar tomorrow to have them quote me on a replacement drive. Few questions:

1. Is it true it is strictly based on serial number and not the particular ST model and AP revision?

2. Anyone who has a drive replaced by Apple due to it failing that whose serial number wasn't part of the recall?

3. General ballpark on replacement drive including labor? Is it a $200, $300 or more?? Problem is no one wants to tell me how much it will cost until I actually lug the computer in

Thanks.

iMac 27" i5, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Oct 25, 2013 7:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 25, 2013 10:02 PM in response to hamproof

hi sorry to hear about drive, I have a 2010 i7 2.93 ghz 27" iMac and i had a bad drive. I went this past month. i was out by 2 months of my apple care and didnt meet the requirements of the https://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

The program covers affected iMacs for three years after the first retail sale of the unit or until April 12, 2013, whichever provides longer coverage for you. Apple will continue to evaluate service data and will provide further updates to this program as needed

sorry i am only able to answer your 3rd question by this -

Thank you for visiting the Apple Store. Below is a copy of your service record.

Apple Store Mayfair
29-Sep-13	414.290.9780

Genius Bar Work Confirmation

Repair No: J234234103

Customer Information		Product Information
Mr. Apple Cllgestdnt	Warranty Status: Quality Program(E1)
Model: IMAC (27-INCH, MID 2010)
Date of Purchase: 27-Aug-10
Serial No:*********

Parts and Services

Item Number	Description	Price	Amount Due
661-5520	Hard Drive, 1TB, 3.5", 7200, SATA	$ 226.14	$ 0.00
S1490LL/A	Hardware Repair Labor	$ 39.00	$ 0.00
Total (Tax Not Included)		$ 265.14	$ 0.00

Thank you for choosing AppleCare for the repair of your Apple Product. To ensure the highest level of quality and reliability, all work is performed by AppleCare certified technicians using genuine Apple parts.

I hope this helps you out some. and no you dont need any cables or os discs

just have a back up of your data at home ask to wipe your drive infront of you other wise theyll just take it in back and you never know what happens to it

labor is per hour is what they told me i said i drove 4 hours away and that i had to wait there that day to get it back and i wouldnt be able to come back in 2 days for it i got it 3 hours later no issues they even put ilife and i work on there for free

Message was edited by: CLLGstdt035

Reply

Answer 2

hamproof Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 26, 2013 5:14 AM in response to CLLGstdt035

Thanks. I guess $265 is not too bad. Compatible drive from OWC is discounted to $80 from $150. If looking form $150 standpoint, then paying $70 more is not too bad. But going from $80 to $226 is quite steep 😟 I suppose I can do it myself.

Another question for you. When you said a backup of your data, do you mean via TimeMachine?

As mentioned, I use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the internal drive to an external USB drive (bootable) and I'm able to boot up from the external drive from the iMac now. What I don't understand is, when I get an empty drive in the iMac, how do I restore the clone drive back?

1) Will the iMac with an empty drive even bootup? I assume Apple is not going to put any OS on it. My original iMac came with SL (has recovery partition) and I've since upgraded to Lion in 2011.

2) Assuming it will boot up, I'm guessing holding the OPTION key, I can then choose to boot up from my external drive (CCC clone) or internal. Say now I'm up and running on the external drive. How then do I get my stuff from external drive to the internal drive?

I suppose I can download the Mavericks installer and put it on the internal drive and go from there? But then I'm still faced with the issue of moving all my stuff (and applications) over from the external to internal.

Is there a way I can clone this external drive to the internal drive? I don't think I can simply copy from external to internal. I tried contacting CCC but their hours are M-F unfortunately.

If I do a TimeMachine backup, when the iMac boots up with empty drive, I'm guessing there's a way to tell it to restore everything from the backup?

Reply

Answer 3

hamproof Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 26, 2013 5:23 AM in response to hamproof

Ok .. looked at the Disk Utility Menu and I think I should be able to do this. Can someone confirm?

Assuming I get a new empty drive into the iMac and upon power up, I hold OPT key and choose to boot up from my cloned CCC external drive. When it boots up, I run Disk Utility (on Lion). I can select the external drive and choose Restore. So the source will be the external drive and I drag the internal drive as the destination.

Will this work? I'm able to do the above without actually clicking Restore since I don't want to wipe out my somewhat defunct internal drive yet.

Thanks

Reply

Answer 4

hamproof Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 26, 2013 6:43 AM in response to hamproof

Hmm.. I connected a spare drive as the destination to try this out and it doesn't work. The Disk Utility restore expect the source to be a disk image. So, now I'm creating a disk image to a spare drive.

Hopefully someone can let me know when I get back the iMac with the empty drive, how can I get back to what I have previously? Note, I don't have a time machine backup (at least not a recent time machine backup that will get me back to where I was at). How can I do it with the 2 things that I have now, one being the bootable external drive from CCC and hopefully a disk image which I'm creating now using Disk Utility.

Thanks.

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 26, 2013 7:01 AM in response to hamproof

ive used ccc before on my laptop when i used teh data doubler from OWC to put stuff on my ssd

okay first apple will put any os that you have currently on your imac when you take it in for service

wether its paid for or not i only had SL on my imac i got lion and ML via different ways with out paying for it

theres no way to show if its a legit verison or not if thats what your getting to

and its a clean fresh install from apple

so u dont have to worry about thpse other issues your bringing up

so as long as u have a time machine back ur okay for some of ur files

u can start up fresh on ur imac and skip the migration and do that later from the time machine or do that on ur first boot up

now CCC does not make a recvoery partition when you copied your disk is what i learned i had to make a partion recovery disk image via the restart option process

Reply

Answer 6

hamproof Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 26, 2013 8:33 AM in response to CLLGstdt035

Ok. Thanks. I'm heading there this afternoon. Not sure if they can actually perform the swap today or not but I want to be ready.

Based on what you said, I'll get back either SL (which came with the machine) or Lion (which I purchased, though I'm not sure how to proof it now but as you said, they don't care). Either way, it'll either be SL or Lion.

When I first boot it, I assume it'll try to setup. So, which option is best to avoid having to re-install softwares (3rd party)?

1) Use setup assistant and migrate data from either the bootable external drive or disk image which I'm creating now (though looks like it'll take 8 hrs ~ 600GB bringing me really close to my appt time)

or

2) Boot up from the external drive, and use CCC to clone back to the new internal drive? Or maybe similar utility from Disk Utility to do this?

Reply

Answer 7

hamproof Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 1, 2013 9:30 PM in response to hamproof

Just closing out this thread. I did pay the same amount. A bit disappointed that my serial number didn't match the recall hard drives. I have the same Seagate model and revision AP24. Also should have taken it in while I was still on my 3 year Applecare plan.

Anyway, upon booting up the iMac with the new hard drive, connecting the bootable external drive, I was able to use Migration Assistant to get everything back. All is good.

Reply