My Mac is Dead

SkyHog said:
I opted to not spend money on AppleCare, so I doubt there'd be much reason. What should I ask for? Even if the hard drive is recalled, what's the odds they'd include the labor in the replacement?
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The odds are very high, imho ... we buy applecare on iEverything. It's the ONLY extended warranty I'll buy. I've gotten more than my money back on applecare.
 
jesse said:
Seriously nick this is a very normal repair, to suggest that you can't do it without damaging it is absolutely ridiculous.

MacBook pro drive replacement is also pretty simple.
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Yeah. I was going to say if Nick goes so far as to get the hard drive out, he might as well pop a new one in.

It depends on whether he can overcome his Applerage.

Item; My neighbor, entirely on her own and without talking to me, made three trips to the Apple Store, talked to the Apple Genii about her mission, and on trip 3 ordered a refurb iMac and had it shipped.

When it arrived it wouldn't fully boot. She calls me. Somehow this is my fault. I was working. I went over in an hour and got no answer to the doorbell. She wasn't home. I call and she's at the Apple Store. :mad2:

We haven't talked since so I dunno if she got refund or a repair. I guess I owe her an apology. I'll ask His Steveness to call from his sickbed for me. :dunno:

The lesson, boys and girls, is the safest advice you can give is that all computers are garbage and you should use a pencil and paper.
 
denverpilot said:
I fixed that once on someone else's machine by booting it from a OS DVD and running Disk Utility from there, then doing a Permissions repair. Figured something had the permissions or ownership wrong, and the GUI couldn't write to the file.

Another thought... open up Keychain Access, and delete all of the WiFi stuff out of the keychain. Look for "Airport Network Password" in the "Kind" column. Could be a problem accessing the keychain if she stores her passwords (most folks do).
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Thanks for the suggestions but I have tried all of those to no avail.
 
SkyHog said:
I've been happy with the Mac, and still loved it up until the day before yesterday. I wasn't a huge fan of OSX, which is why I used Linux almost primarily on it, but it was a very well built machine.

But that doesn't mean we should accept stupidity in design. And making it this hard to replace a piece of hardware that fails as easily as a hard drive fails is stupid.
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But you could surely see that there's no easy way to get into it. Even I can see that. :rofl:
 
SkyHog said:
Looks like its the iMac Intel 20" EMC 2105 and 2118
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Nick, that's the white plastic iMac. I thought you said yours was silver. Then you'd be looking for the aluminum models. There were 20" and 21.5" versions of those, and they're the ones that require suction cups:

http://www.ifixit.com/Browse/iMac_Intel

Since you bought in Feb 2009, it might be either of these:

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_20"_EMC_2133_and_2210

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_20"_EMC_2266

FWIW, I'm not entirely sure I'd tackle an iMac disassembly either. There's a good reason I'm EE and not ME. :D
 
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denverpilot said:
Have you even called Apple to see what a repair would cost? They ship a box and turn it around in like three days. And you could always get lucky and find out they had a recall on your hard drive and they'll do it for free.
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The only active iMac recalls I can find is on certain 1TB Seagates installed in iMacs bought earlier this year.

http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/
 
rpadula said:
Nick, that's the white plastic iMac. I thought you said yours was silver. Then you'd be looking for the aluminum models. There were 20" and 21.5" versions of those, and they're the ones that require suction cups:

http://www.ifixit.com/Browse/iMac_Intel

Since you bought in Feb 2009, it might be either of these:

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_20"_EMC_2133_and_2210

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_20"_EMC_2266

FWIW, I'm not entirely sure I'd tackle an iMac disassembly either. There's a good reason I'm EE and not ME. :D
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Its not exactly the same as any of those pictures - mines silver, but it has a silver border all the way around the screen....

Why can't they just put a freaking model number on the thing? lol.
 
Nick if you look on the bottom of the foot your iMac stands on you will find a plastic plaque with the serial number and other information. The serial number can be used to find out which model you have.

If the hard-drive were under a recall or maintenance program the labor for replacing it would be covered too.

The bottom line is if your machine has a silver body, you definitely have to pull the front glass and screen LCD out to get to your failed hard-drive. Anyone with reasonable mechanical skill and patience can tackle this.

If your iMac is a 2009 model the hard-drive has special temperature cable that if not present will cause the cooling fans in your machine to run full speed all of the time. It may be possible depending on the specific model to transfer this cable to the new hard-drive.

Feel free to Private Message me if you have anymore questions. I look forward to seeing how this problem gets resolved.

Regards,

Howard Griffith
Apple Certified Macintosh Technician - USA036E9
 
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Ok - so I finally decided now was the time. I took the screen off (was actually quite simple....) and then got stuck by little tiny torx screws. I have a ****-ton of tools, including a few different torx sets.

But nothing that small. ******it Apple, is nothing normal about your computers?
 
SkyHog said:
Ok - so I finally decided now was the time. I took the screen off (was actually quite simple....) and then got stuck by little tiny torx screws. I have a ****-ton of tools, including a few different torx sets.

But nothing that small. ******it Apple, is nothing normal about your computers?
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It's a T8 - which isn't THAT tiny - nor is it that uncommon. You probably have a torx set targeted more towards automotive than electronic.
 
Every HP server at the office has Torx screws in it. It's not as uncommon as ya might think...

Blame Foxconn. They build both the HPs and Apples.

Probably helps their cheap Chinese automation, cough... slave labor. ;)
 
I haven't had this much fun reading a thread in years.
 
OK - got a little further now.

Its an iMac E8335. I have the screen off and the screws. But I cannot find any way to get the stupid display off. I tried suction cupping it off (and I think it might have caused some damage), but failed. I don't see E8335 as an option on any of the sites linked so far....

Ideas?
 
NVM, found a youtube video...turns out the whole front comes off. Jesus.
 
You could destroy the Mac like the fax machine in Office Space, The Movie was destroyed. I might even pay a few bucks to watch the video!

David
 
I've seen some pretty dumb people replace these drives without all this bitching Nick - so either you're dramatizing this or you have a lot less mechanical ability than I thought :D
 
jesse said:
I've seen some pretty dumb people replace these drives without all this bitching Nick - so either you're dramatizing this or you have a lot less mechanical ability than I thought :D
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Finally got it. Seriously, I think Apple made it this way on purpose.

Now that I have done it once, I bet I could do it again much easier tho.

But seriously ... removing a display module to swap a hard drive????

Sheesh
 
And.....

I'm back. Got me a 1TB hard drive for like $60. For now, I'm still using this horrible OSX OS, but I'll get Mint going soon and never look back again.
 
Mint? Well at least it's Linux. ;)

aeff9183-9401-bc12.jpg
 
I, for one, appreciate the fact that Nick has perfected the curmudgeonly old-fart thing at a young age. It suggests to me that he is indeed an advanced soul.

Carry on, proud soldier!
 
It's been a bad week tech week for me. I had a SIM card go bad... :(
 
I'm still trying to find an apple geek that can tell me how to increase the size of the print in my mail box.

all E-mails open in -4 font you can barely see it, let alone read it. yes, I know how to hold the Command button and hit the + sign to increase the size, but that is a PITA

that occurs in the browser too. when I open POA it comes up as a 3" wide band in the middle of a 27" screen.

system OS X 10.7.2.
 
Tom-D said:
I'm still trying to find an apple geek that can tell me how to increase the size of the print in my mail box.

all E-mails open in -4 font you can barely see it, let alone read it. yes, I know how to hold the Command button and hit the + sign to increase the size, but that is a PITA

that occurs in the browser too. when I open POA it comes up as a 3" wide band in the middle of a 27" screen.

system OS X 10.7.2.
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Don't use apple mail.

Thunderbird can be configured to render all emails in plain text with a font and font size of your chosing.
 
Tom-D said:
I'm still trying to find an apple geek that can tell me how to increase the size of the print in my mail box.

all E-mails open in -4 font you can barely see it, let alone read it. yes, I know how to hold the Command button and hit the + sign to increase the size, but that is a PITA

that occurs in the browser too. when I open POA it comes up as a 3" wide band in the middle of a 27" screen.

system OS X 10.7.2.
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Apple=+ ?
View Zoom text only

BTW, turn on Zoom in Mouse (easier) or Universal Access in System Preferences and enable Zoom and you can use the mouse scroll wheel while you hold the CTRL key to zoom (the whole) screen. I use that frequently.

AND you can just type what you're looking for the search box in System Preferences like it shows here and the appropriate utilities will be highlighted.
 

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mikea said:
Apple=+ ?
View Zoom text only

BTW, turn on Zoom in Mouse (easier) or Universal Access in System Preferences and enable Zoom and you can use the mouse scroll wheel while you hold the CTRL key to zoom (the whole) screen. I use that frequently.

AND you can just type what your looking for the search box in System Preferences like it shows here and it will be highlighted.
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Those functions all work, but you still can't set what size the page will open with. you still have to click click click. each site and each e-mail.
 
Got it,
Safari > Prefferences > Advanced > top box sets size of fonts.
 
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