What is the best way to reinstall my OS (10.9.1) and applications on a 2009 Model ID: 10,1 iMac?

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What is the best way to reinstall my OS (10.9.1) and applications on a 2009 Model ID: 10,1 iMac?

Hello All at Apple Support,

I have a 2009 iMac and it's time to replace the hard drive before it fails. I've searched a lot of sites and found this hard drive: Toshiba (by Hitachi) 2.0TB DT01ACAxx series (3.5 inch SATA 6GB/7200rpm/64mb cache) at Other World Computing. My current hard drive is a Hitachi HDT721050SLA360 500GB. I was told to only use a Hitachi drive on this iMac model. I'm planning on using the iFixit user guide when replacing the drive. My question relates to after the drive is installed getting everthing back correctly. I have Time machine running on a external 1 TB hard drive.

Thank you,

SDCM

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac10,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 4 GB

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Feb 22, 2014 11:26 AM

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Answer 1

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Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 22, 2014 11:30 AM in response to SDCM

First, locate your original OSX installer disc that came with your computer. You cannot use a retail Snow Leopard DVD.

Second, after installing the new hard drive boot from the installer disc.

Third, open Disk Utility from the installer disc's screen menu under Utilities.

Fourth, partition and format your new drive.

Fifth, install Snow Leopard.

Sixth, open App Store and re-download Mavericks.

Seventh, install Mavericks.

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Answer 2

Feb 26, 2015 3:24 PM in response to Kappy

I have a similar situation. My 10,1 iMac came with OSX 10.4 Tiger. I still have that install DVD. I had upgraded to Snow Leopard OSX 10.6 and updated to 10.6.8 some time back but now have a problem with my HD. I wanted to reinstall Snow Leopard 10.6, so bought a retail disk. The question is, do I go back to 10.4 Tiger and boot from the 10.4 disk, then re-install Snow leopard and then the 10.6.8 update? I just did a Time Machine backup of all files. Thanks for your guidance.

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,364 points

Feb 26, 2015 3:49 PM in response to donfromseal rock

You can use the Snow Leopard 10.6.x disc to start with. Once you have installed 10.6.x, download and install the 10.6.8 update combo (Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1) and then upgrade to Yosemite from there.

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