Swapping internal Hard drive vs external Hard drive

My iMac G5's logic board is dying. I just bought a refurbished Intel iMac from Apple.com (not the newest version). It has a 250 gig HD which I thought I would swap with a 1 TB drive but I have just discovered that the interior is not as accessible as the G5 and drive swapping needs to be done by a pro.
But I would like to do the following set-up culled from the archives instead:
"There is operational efficiency to running the OS and apps off a limited size volume, about 160GB to 250GB, and storing user data on a separate drive. My setup is the stock 160GB internal drive which is mostly used for the OS and apps. Most of my user data is on an external drive, so more than 50% is free space on that internal drive. I have a 320GB FireWire (400) drive that holds most of my user data. And I have a 750GB USB 2.0 drive that is my Time Machine archive drive, which backs up the internal drive and FireWire drive."
I wold like to do this set-up using the 250 gb iMac drive for the OS and apps and the 1 TB drive as an external for the user data. Here's what I've got -- iMac with 250 gb HD no info on it yet but the OS and apps that come with it. My old system, setting, files etc. are backed up on my 500gb Time Capsule (as well as still on the old iMAc G5 which can turn on but when it goes to sleep it does not come back on without a restart and other issues.) I just bought a 1 TB drive that I thought would go into the iMac but if I use your set-up I will get a case for it and use it externally.
How do I get all this stuff configured so I have my apps and OS on the new iMac and the user data on the external? The catch is this -- the old IMac G5 has over 300 gigs of info, apps and OS on it so I cannot put it all on the new iMac and the move it around.
Thanks
Robert

Hi Robert
I did put a larger HD in my Early Cord Duo, but as you have noticed it is a lot harder that the G5.
If you do decide to take on the challenge, take your time peeling back the foil EM shielding around the display as it rips real easy. You will also have to carefully pry the temp sensor from the old drive and re-cement it onto the new one so that the SMC is getting the correct feedback to properly control the fans..
First study > http://home.comcast.net/~woojo/DFFA53A0-F23D-4541-9015-481FD3B6532E/iMac_Disasse mbly.html
See part 1 > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVgL9u7ySUk&feature=related
and part 2 > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_QmBueWg4&feature=related
Also note that when setting up the new drive for the Intel iMac's they use GUID Partition Table instead of Apple Partition Map.
Dennis

Similar Messages

How to swap internal storage with the external sto...

Is it possible to swap internal storage with the external storage on Nokia X without any damage to phone as well as external sd card? It has been a very popular issue in recent times. If someone has a really good solution then please reply keeping the criteria provided beforehand in mind. Thanks in advance.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 530...

>
I have a table which is partitioned by Year. Now I want to move the 1 (EX: 1999) year data to another history table.
For this first I want to swap the 1999FY partition out with an external table and then swap them back to HISTORY table.
Please help me by providing a sample script for that.
>
It seems to me that you use the term "external table" in a wrong context. External table means a flat file, accessed as db object with select.
But probably, for you "external table" is a normal table that may hold the same structured data as a partition of another table does.
We have a feature for your requirement called "exchange partition with table".
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/statements_3001.htm#i2131250
Kind regards
Uwe
http://uhesse.wordpress.com

Are iMac G5 17-inch / 20-inch internal hard drives interchangeable ?

Hi,
Can I swap internal hard drives from 17-inch / 20-inch iMac G5 ?
BTW, they are both 2.0 Ghz.
Drive capacities would be different eg. 80GB vs 250GB.
Thanks in advance.
Pat De Marco
Message was edited by: Pasquale De Marco

What is the 14"? If it's a laptop no, they have 2 1/2" drives, iMacs have 3 1/2" SATA drives, so the answer is no. Sorry. If they are both SATA 3 1/2" drives, the capacity makes no difference and they can be swapped with no problem.

Can i use seagate goflex 3tb external hard drive for 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacment if i take it out of the goflex case.do i need to format it before installation due to it allready having goflex software on it from manufacturer.

i have 3tb seagate goflex external hard drive.its brand new in package.i took it out of case and deleted partitions that were created by manufacturer.so now i have 2800 gigs.its formatted ntfs.will it work for late 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacement.i found a apple repair place that will charge me 50$ to swap drives for me assuming i have the drive.i will have to install leopard myself at this price.i dont want to have to pay for anything other than the swap.will this hard drive work with this format or do i need to format it differently.

Hello
formatted ntfs
NTFS format not work on mac system , need to be formatted as Extended Mac os Journaled format and partition table need to be GUID
how to do that in video
HTH
Pierre

Want to swap internal 120GB hard drive with 500GB but retain Aperture Lib

I am still on Aperture 2 but want to upgrade to Aperture 3. Current Aperture lib has grown to over 40GB. My laptop is starting to get generally slower and I feel that I have a lot of HDD fragmentation that I have not resolved yet. My internal HDD is 120GB with only 19GB now available. I do a monthly backup to an external 500GB drive using Time Machine. No other backups performed nor do I do any Aperture backup including vaulting. My laptop is roughly 3 years old.
I have not used any kind of defrag software. I have been reading about iDefrag which gets a lot of praise. But my understanding is that to use it, you need to have a lot of disk free space to copy files to temporarily. Below is what I plan to do and I am asking for opinions as to whether it is practical.
1.) Purchase another 500GB portable external drive.
2.) Divide new drive in 2 partitions; bootable 300GB and 165GB (remainder is used in formatting).
3.) Copy my entire internal 120GB hard drive to bootable 300GB partition as a full system backup.
4.) Start Aperture.
5.) Vault my entire Aperture 2 library to non-bootable 165GB partition.
6.) Stop Aperture.
7.) Have Apple technician swap out internal 120GB drive and replace it with a new 500GB drive.
(Data will not be copied from old drive to new drive by Apple tech.).
8.) Boot the reconfigured laptop from the 300GB external drive.
Q1.) Is it possible to boot from an external drive with no data on the internal drive?
9.) If yes, copy the 300GB drive to the new internal 500GB drive. (Maybe format 500GB first?)
Q2.) Will the copy put in place all previous software e.g. Aperture, etc. on new drive.
Q3.) Will I be able to start Aperture and retrieve images without accessing 165GB partition?
Q4.) If I can not access my Aperture library images after the copy, can I restore the library
from the vault operation in step 5?
10.) Upgrade to Aperture 3.

Hi metoymi;
Personally I don't like your plan. Even with two partition on a single drive all of your eggs are in a single basket. The most like disk problem is disk failure which will wipe out both partition on the single drive.
I know it is more to carry but I would suggest that you at least consider putting the old drive in a portable shell and using that for your vault instead. At least that way a disk failure is only wipe out half of your data.
Allan

I have a new MAcBook Air and my photos don't fit on the internal hard drive. I want to store my photos on an external hard drive which I will connect to my Air when using Iphoto. How do I set an external hard drive as the default drive?

I have a new MAcBook Air and my photos don't fit on the internal hard drive. I want to store my photos on an external hard drive which I will connect to my Air when using Iphoto. How do I set an external hard drive as the default drive in Iphoto?

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on external drive. I'd like to migrate only the internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive then just plug in iPhoto library drive. Is this going be a problem?

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on an external drive. Both drives are backed up on Time Machine. I'd like to migrate only the old internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive and then just plug in iPhoto library drive to the new iMac. This would save having to transfer several hundred GBs of data. Will this work using Set Up Assistant?

Your user account on the new Mac must have a different UID than on the old one. See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.
You'll need to change the permissions on the iPhoto library on the external HD. Do a Get Info on it, click the padlock at the bottom of the Sharing & Permissions section of the Info window and enter your Admin password.
Then click the plus sign, select the user account you want on the next screen, and click Select. Then change Read only to Read & Write for that user via the little arrows. Finally, click the "gear" icon and select Apply to enclosed items. That may take a few mintutes on a large library.

How to connect my MacBook's internal hard drive as an external drive to another computer?

My MacBook suddenly became extremely slow, so slow that it takes over an hour to display login screen.
Therefore I'd like to clean our my hard drive but i have a couple things I'd like keep before i do that. It's not possible to transfer these files using Mac so is there a way I can connect Mac internal hard drive as external one via USB to a Windows computer?
I have a MacBook Pro 2010 17"

I was actually looking at enclosures butwasn't sure which ones would be suitable. Would something like this work? http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00A0HBJLW?cache=76a97cdbbf58eb4ad66ed32bb2668f0 6&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1408052242&sr=8-2#ref=mp_s_a_1_2

I have a power pc (g5) computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

I have a Power PC G5 computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 Mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

Hi, likely the easiest is to just poll the drive & get something like this...
Get MacScan...
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/macscan.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/
But if you have a good external drive already, just clone it.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

Can I clone and transfer from the internal hard drive to an external hard drive ?

I got an intel duo iMac, the machine is very good even if it is almost 3 years old. But with the internal hard drive having 320 Gb I am running out of hard drive space. I have looked into changing the internal hard drive but that involves having to send the machine away to have that done. So I was wondering if I could just transfer all the Mac OS X and all the applications and settings within three user accounts to say a 2 TB external hard drive, and boot from that, using cloning software.
Alternatively, is there a way to transfer the iPhoto and iMovie libraries to an external hard drive. That would free up space. I do not know how, if that is possible, although I have managed that with iTunes. My iMac is running Snow Leopard.
Regards from John5801

John,
USB should be fine for general computer use, but media may add a little too much for the sustained rate that USB2 provides. In a previous career I did a lot of video editing. Firewire was much preferred in that task because of its stability at higher rates. I can see why the SuperDuper! people might suggest it.
When I cloned the wife's iMac, I had replaced the HDD on the MacBook Pro with a USB pocket drive that I've kept the original MacBook's installation mounted on. I've booted directly to that external drive, so you should be okay if you can make the clone across the USB. When I cloned the wife's machine I booted the MacBook Pro with a fresh HDD in Firewire target mode and connected it as an external Firewire 800 drive. Firewire 800 is much faster, but you'll need the cable and everything to be right.
Firewire has a better reputation among people running a lot of media from their drive. I would suggest that you try and get an external drive kit that can support both. I think your iMac supports both firewire 400 AND firewire 800 along with the 3 USB2 ports. I'm guessing based on my wife's 24" imac. The fastest would be the Firewire 800, but that standard is about to be pushed aside in both cases.
Hope that helped.

How do I migrate my itunes library from an external hard drive to my mac mini's internal hard drive?

I have my iTunes library on an external hard drive because my macbook pro's internal hard drive didn't have enough room. I would like to migrate or transfer the itunes files while continuing to keep my playlists. Is there a way to do that with the migration software?

Thank you for your help. My biggest concern is losing all of my sorted music into playlists. I have 124GB of music and resorting it will very difficult. When I moved the itunes library with the help of a supervisor at apple tech to the external HD I had to resort it.
Will it move the entire library and setting as they are now?

How do I keep a file on my external hard drive and delete it from my internal hard drive?

I have a iMac with 1 TB internal hard drive, connected to it is a 3 TB Seagate external hard drive using Time Machine to back up my computer.
I use this computer for making family movies with videos and pictures. My 1 TB internal hard drive is now almost full with only 200 GBs of storage left on it. My external drive has 1.62 TBs of space left on it. I would like to delete a lot of the videos on my internal hard drive and keep them only on the external hard drive. I've tried this and it tells me I cannot do it because it is part of the Time Machine back up. Why can't I manage my computer files as I would like??
Also once you import pictures into Aperture or videos into iMovie, good luck having access to the initial files you imported. It seems once these programs get hold of your files they aren't accessible to you any more. I don't understand that! Anyway can anyone help me get the files I want off my iMac and onto my external Seagate hard drive?
Thanks in advance!

CCLIANA wrote:
My sister is trying to rename a file on an external hard drive...
What is the File...?

Why does dying internal hard drive stop you booting from external hd

Why do I need an internal hard drive if I am booting from an external drive? Doesnt make sense,
Disk Utility warned me that the internal hard drive is failing. I have managed to change start up disks. I have an external bootable drive and even have an empty partition on it, "just in case" I need to install a brand new OS, but here I am waiting for local disks, and I cant access my back-up OS.
Why doesnt OSX just move past the dying faulty hard drive and get to work on the bootable disk? Basically here I am supposedly doing all the right things to cover for an emergency - I may as well have no backup strategy.
Am I missing a step, or is this how OSX works. Perhaps if you read the steps and outcomes below, you can see if there is more I need to do?
If I press "option" at start up, it only shows the internal drive, not recognising the external bootable drive.
fsck -f produced a looping "missing thread" message that went on for an hour or more so I stopped that.
I tried the dvd and command-c at start up, got through to the installer window and when I selected disk utility it hung, but no spinning ball, just nothing was happening.
The next attempt with th DVD i changed start up disk, this time it saw the external bootable drive and I thought I was in business again.
And here I am full circle, waiting for local disks.
Any thoughts most welcome.
btw, does the SMART issue a warning of a failing drive because a drive is definitely unsalvagable due to a mechanical fault? or is there a chance my drive is physiclly healthy but shows as Failing because it has unbelievable directory issues that Apple tools cannot solve - but DW could?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

The Bombich forums have helped me troubleshoot the integrity of the bootable volumes on my external hard drive which I made using Carbon Copy Cloner. The clones are fine ie after I reset nvram after booting up via command-alt-o-f, the clones are now recognised when I boot up-alt. So it seems that there was nothing wrong with the bootable volumes on the external drive per se.
However, the Powerbook will still not boot up past "Waiting for local disks".
As it stands now, nobody seems to be able to give a reason why I cannot bypass the failed internal hard drive. I found a Knowledge base article from Apple saying Cmd-Alt-shift-delete at start-up should skip you to the next working volume hitched up to your computer, but that didn't work either.
I have a new internal HDD coming, so prior to installing it, the final part of the troubleshoot will be to reboot the PB without an internal HDD. I will see what happens and see what conclusions can be drawn from that. Unless anyone has a clue now from what I have posted?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Internal hard drive- can it be used as an external hard drive???

Well, this may be ranked right up there with dumb stupid questions but I have to ask. My sons both have iMacs- one has a new 80G internal hard drive. The other has the original one (600mhz iMac). I have the 20G internal one that was removed from iMac #1- is there any way that can be set up for iMac #2 as an external drive? I don't believe there is anything wrong with it and iMac#2 user would like to have more hard drive space...... Thanks for any help with this! Judy

mrstee,
Before I upgraded my iMac, I went looking for an external 3.5" enclosure. I went to BestBuy and then CompUSA. There are more choices at CompUSA, and yet, I left CompUSA empty handed because their choices were 1) clunky looking, 2) pricey, and 3) the specifications on the enclosures left me wondering about their (intended) compatibility with OS X.
I purchased my external 3.5" enclosure from CDW/MacWarehouse. It is a Macally PHR-100AF (strictly firewire) enclosure. They also have the PHR-100A (strictly USB 2.0), and PHR-100AC (USB 2.0 and Firewire 400). Mine was $48 + shipping. Macally shows these offered at CircuitCity, CostCo, and Fry's.
Positives: Aesthetic appearance. Simple transplant of internal drive to external enclosure without jumper change. Only two screws and ten minute task. Very fast and simple solution. Works perfectly with OS9 and OS X (10.4.3). Atractive price. Positive online reviews.
http://www.giantmike.com/reviews/macallyfirewire.html
http://www.coolmacintosh.com/phr100af35firewireenclosure111304.html
Negatives: None.
You can see these at http://www.macally.com
I have no financial interest in Macally.
Hope this helps.
/ckh

Swapping circuit boards for an internal hard drive

My story may be a bit long and roundabout, so please try and bear with me as I explain.
My PowerMac G5 is 4.5 years old and over the past few months, the DVD and my secondary internal hard drive, both the originals that came with my computer, have been slowly dying. I finally replaced the DVD drive the other day and was little by little copying the data off my secondary internal drive before it completely failed. One thing that seemed to help the internal drive run more smooth was unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in. A worker at an Apple store's Genius Bar also suggested swapping each internal drive to the bay that the other was originally in, to see if that helped at all.
Anyways, in the end, the drive was giving me so much trouble and I had unplugged/plugged the power cable so many times that eventually the part of the circuit board that holds the pin connectors straight broke off, so now I had no way to get my data off the slowly failing drive. Another visit to the Genius Bar and I was told that the drive was as good as done, but not wanting to believe that the majority of my film projects were gone forever, I contacted a store across the street from my old NYU dorm called Digital Society. They told me that the circuit board on the drive needed to be replaced and that the new board had to be taken from an identical drive. I soon realized that the primary/system drive of my G5 was in fact identical. So, after running Time Machine, purchasing new primary and secondary internal drives, re-installing the OS and doing a Time Machine restore - which was flawless - I took my two drives back to Digital Society where they swapped the circuit boards rather quickly.
Now that I'm back home, I was easily able to recover all my data from my failing drive... only after having its circuit board replaced, the drive is showing no signs whatsoever of the read/write difficulties and failures that it had been showing prior to the circuit board swap, which leads me to a few questions
a) Was it really the drive that had a problem, or the circuit board itself? Is there anywhere I could buy just a circuit board without having to buy a new drive just to get a circuit board? The drives in question are 400 gig Hitachi Deskstar, model #HDS724040KLSA80. While I'm not entirely sure the once failing drive should be trusted again, my old system drive - which now has a busted circuit board on it - still works perfectly fine.
b) If I'm able to get a new circuit board, how easy is it to replace myself? The guy at Digital Society did it very quickly and for a price of $120. Are there any video tutorials?
Thanks!

Lot's of good question Will,
Hard drives are not what they used to be, if your work is important I'd replace them every 3 years & have 2 backups in the meantime.
I doubt you can get the circuit boards separate without buying a while questionable drive.
If I'm able to get a new circuit board, how easy is it to replace myself? The guy at Digital Society did it very quickly and for a price of $120.
1 TB 3 year warranty $99...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HD103SJ/
1 TB 7 year warranty...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HE103UJ/
More cheaper drives...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/3.5-SerialATA/WesternDigitalCaviar

Swapping internal Hard drive vs external Hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for