Can I upgrade my iMac 6,1 to accept and run Maverick? Is it just a question of buying additional memory?

Ryan

I am a new Apple fan and just adquired an IMac 6,1. How can I contact you offline so you can help me? Thanks in advance

Posters here are discouraged to post private information; as per the ToU, hosts regularly and quickly delete such information. Why? Because it it not safe to post such info on an open online forum where anyone can copy it.

So, if you have a question, please start your own thread in the correct forum so you get the proper attention it deserves.

Babowa. Thanks for setting me straight

Ryan. Or anyone else can point me in the right direction to upgrade my Imac ?

I too recently acquired an iMac 6.1. It has Tiger installed, and I got it a little over a week ago. I am new to Macs (having deliberately avoided them for the past 15-20 years) but I have been building and using computers for just over 40 years. I built my first personal computer in 1977, a Motorola 6800.

I know computers well, and I have concluded that Apple computers are among the most difficult computers to upgrade, or to do anything with, other than what Apple sold them for.

Although I do not like Macs much, I have many Mac-loving friends who often ask me to help them with their Macs, so I feel a little "forced" into learning about them.

I have examined my "new" iMac 6.1 in some detail and read many, many posts about it. I have moved the OS to a different hard drive and re-partitioned it to enable it to dual boot. Some parts of the process were easy to do (as easy as on an IBM-type PC), but critical parts of the job, that should have been easy, like simply booting to a CD containing a 64-bit operating system installation media, were extraordinarily difficult.

I concluded that the 6.1 iMac is just not worth messing around with. You can upgrade to Snow Leopard (a stable OS) easily. And you cab upgrade to Lion easily, but it has lots of bugs. But don't try to upgrade higher than that; Apple themselves say it can't be done because the iMac 6.1 will NOT recognise more than 3 GB of RAM, and OSs higher than Lion need at least 4 GB to run.

Now, I must admit that the iMac 6.1, 24" is a beautiful looking machine, but it was not designed for the "tinkerer" to be able to change it much from the way Apple made it.

A good analogy is to liken it to a Mercedes Benz sedan, which is designed for the person who does not want to check the oil or water themselves, but simply wants to drive it from place to place, and just leave it the way Mercedes Benz built it. The iMac is the same. It was built for the person who wants to use it only the way Apple made it.

If you want to "tinker" with a computer, sell the iMac 6.1, and use the cash to buy something that lets you mess around with it. For example, something like a second-hand Lenovo running CentOS is much more rewarding than an iMac (in my opinion).

Anyone in this forum knows if a second HDD could be add to the iMac 6,1?

As always there are a few different answers to this question depending on what you want to do.

Inside the iMac 6.1 is only one mounting bracket for one HDD. There is no spare room inside the case for a second 3.5" HDD. But laptop HDDs are significantly smaller and it may be possible to fit a second laptop HDD inside. But you'll have to build your own mounting bracket for it. (Or use Gaffa Tape 🙂 )

I don't know if there is a spare SATA port on the motherboard to connect it to though. I didn't check that when I opened my iMac last week to change the HDD. You might as well open up your iMac and check if there is a spare SATA port on the motherboard. Opening it up and putting it back together will be good practice for when you do the real job of replacing the HDD, if you decide to go ahead with it.

A second HDD can be added easily and externally by simply plugging an external USB HDD into one of the rear USB ports. OSX will find it immediately and treat it as a second HDD in the system.

If you just want more HDD space, it is very easy to open the iMac and replace the HDD with a bigger one. Apple built the iMac 6.1 with a 250 GB drive, but the previous owner of my iMac had replaced the original 250 G HDD with a 1 TB drive. I wanted the 1 TB drive for something else, and I didn't need 1 TB in the iMac so I pulled it out and replaced it with a 500 G drive that I got for $25.

May I ask why you want to add a second HDD to it? I have found over the years that there are often better (and cheaper) ways of doing things than adding a second HDD to a computer.

Some people add second HDDs to computer systems so that they can put different operating systems on each drive. Is that why you want a second HDD? If so, it is an easier alternative to just split your HDD into a few partitions and place each different OS on a different partition. OSX sees each partition as if it were a different HDD.

But I say again; if you want to tinker with computers and add HDDs, or swap HDDs, and stuff like that, it is either impossible, or three-four times harder to do it on a mac, than on any other kind of computer.

That is my experience from building and modifying many dozens of computers for over 25 years.

JRmwalsh

Thanks for your reply... I thought there was a way of adding a second drive by removing the super drive and using and adapter caddy similar to this? http://www.amazon.com/Nimitz-Drive-Caddy-A1311-A1312/dp/B00NAMTZ56

I just haven't been able to find anything for this IMac 6,1

imacnewbietx,

The device you have suggested (the Device), or something similar, is definitely NOT suitable, and you won't find such a device for an iMac, because the iMac does not need an adapter like this..

The Device is designed to solve three issues:

1) The Device is designed to provide an interface to connect the SATA connector of a laptop-sized Hard Disk Drive to the data-bus of a laptop computer. The Device is needed in a laptop computer because very few laptop motherboards have spare SATA connectors.

2) The Device is designed to easily fit into the CD/DVD drive slot of a laptop computer, so that the CD/DVD drive can be unplugged, and this Device slotted into its place.

3) The Device is designed so that it can be easily unplugged and the CD/DVD drive replaced without having to dismantle the laptop and re-assemble it.

But NONE of these conditions apply to the iMac for the following reasons.

1) The DVD drive on an iMac does not connect to the motherboard via a proprietary data-bus, rather, it connects via a standard SATA connector, which is the same as what any HDD uses, so the devices functionality as a an adapter is not needed. All you need to do is plug the SATA cable inti the drive. No adapter is needed.

2) The CD/DVD drive on an iMac does not slide in and out, like on a laptop, so this functionality of the Device is not needed.

3) There is no slot on an iMac where this Device can be slid into, or out of, and the CD/DVD drive replaced on a regular basis. This is because Apple designs their Mac computers so that Devices like this CANNOT be easily inserted into them.

Therefore the Device (or similar) that you have suggested is totally inappropriate, and unnecessary, and it will NOT work.

If you want to put an HDD into your iMac in place of the CD/DVD drive, you will have to dis-mantle the iMac, remove the CD/DVD drive and simply plug a standard SATA HDD into its place using the pre-existing SATA cable. Then re-assemble your iMac, and hope that the iMac's BIOS recognises an HDD where it is expecting to find a CD/DVD drive.

Again I ask, FOR WHAT PURPOSE DO YOU WANT TO INSTALL A SECOND HDD. If you can tell me that, I think I can suggest a better alternative.

However, if you are determined to install a second HDD, no matter how difficult it is, I'd be very interested to hear how you go.

JRmwalsh

Thanks for your comments and the reason I'm trying to considering adding a second drive to the IMac 6,1 are the followings:

1. I have already upgraded the IMac to Lion 10.7.5, and even though it is running pretty smooth considering this machine it is almost 10 years, I will like to push the envelop and get it faster by adding A SSD drive and a 1TB drive and create a fusion drive. I figure if I have to dismantle this machine I might as well get everything done at one time if possible.

2. If the fusion drive it is not possible under Lion, then probably tried a Raid 0, only for speed reasons. I understand if one of the drives crashes or gets corrupted I will loose everything, but I'm counting on weekly back ups to my Time Capsule just in case. This is just a playing IMac, not my main computer.

So if I can do all the research ahead of opening, I will like to upgrade the CPU, which I know it is possible; update the firmware so it would recognize 6GB, instead of only 3 GBor 4GB; upgrade the drives to SSD + 1TB for fusion drive and or RAID if fusion drive it is not possible. I only paid 50.00 for this beast and I already own all the necessary components for this project minus the CPU which is going for about 55.00 right in eBay. So maybe I will spend 100.00 for this project which I think will be worth it.

So that is my vision pretty much.... Everyone else feel free to jump in and comment. Thanks!!!!

Good luck.

I'd suggest you read this Wikipedia article

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_Drive#cite_note-jollyjinx-2012-10-31-1-7"

and particularly follow up on references 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the article.

By the way. It is very easy to open up the iMac, first time will take about 30 minutes, but with practice you'll do it in 10 minutes. I'd suggest you open it up for a little "exploratory surgery" before you do anything else, or before you buy anything else.

CrankTurner,

I realize this is an old post, but I got a donated iMac 6,1 without a hard drive and a bad memory card. (Took a while to diagnosis the black screen during start up). I'm going to replace it with SSD (Samsung 250gb 840 EVO). Question: what speed did you replace the memory card? 800mhz or 667mhz? I also plan on replacing the CPU with the Intel X7900. After baking the logic board from my MBP late 2008, nothing scares me. Lol.

JoeCoolHiker,

Do you mean that the iMac came without a hard drive and a bad video card or bad memory chip?