The HD portion of my fusion drive seems to have gone bad on a old 2014 iMac. I was able to install MacOS on the SSD and all is good, however it seems to still be trying to connect to the HD and makes constant noise. The drive is not mounted. Is there any other suggests to turn off the drive. I do not want to open of the iMac. Thanks
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Disable Internal HD on iMac
- Thread starter koni11
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
it’s on Catalina and the HD is unmounted, I actually can’t mount as I get errors when doing so. It seems once the HD goes to sleep its silent but was wondering if there was a way to have it never check that drive
I've never tried it, but I believe there are commands that can be entered using terminal that will tell the OS to "not mount" the HDD at boot. In other words, the OS will ignore the HDD unless you send a command to mount it.
I'm not sure if this will even work anymore with the newest versions of the OS.
But you might check this out before opening up the iMac...
I'm not sure if this will even work anymore with the newest versions of the OS.
But you might check this out before opening up the iMac...
Get the old drive out. I run on my Apple internal blade- 120 GB which is a sweet boot drive. Opening one of these is easy. It helps to have two people when first unplugging the two cables but after that it is easy. The only hassle is cleaning off the old "gasket tape" and putting on the last two pieces of the new tape. But if you order two sets of tapes for resealing the screen you will not have to worry if you mess one piece up. BTW the suction cups are stupid, when the little roller cutter is used to cut the tape gasket the screen separates with ease
Opening up the iMac can be intimidating the first, but is pretty easy. Take a look at the ifixit site to find a complete procedure for your model.
If you do end up opening it up, make sure to get the pizza wheel cutter for the tape and a decent set of replacement tape strips. Apple also has this piece of foam called the “service wedge” that goes in between the stand and computer to keep it propped up. Any piece of foam will do, but it keeps the computer stable as the center of gravity shifts when you cut off the display.
If you do replace the drive, you might need to get an inline thermal sensor for the new drive. (I remember seeing those on the OWC site).
If you do end up opening it up, make sure to get the pizza wheel cutter for the tape and a decent set of replacement tape strips. Apple also has this piece of foam called the “service wedge” that goes in between the stand and computer to keep it propped up. Any piece of foam will do, but it keeps the computer stable as the center of gravity shifts when you cut off the display.
If you do replace the drive, you might need to get an inline thermal sensor for the new drive. (I remember seeing those on the OWC site).
The following instructions allow you to not mount a volume(s) at startup...
Prevent a volume from mounting at startup - Apple Community
FWIW the HDD in our 2013 iMac crashed. We now boot and run using an external 1TB Samsung T5. We use the above technique to keep the crashed HDD from slowing things down trying to mount and failing. BTW the T5 is faster than the original 1TB HDD.
Yes, I could open the iMac and replace the HDD with an SSD. But this older iMac also has screen issues (randomly dims) so we will replace it with a 2020 iMac after the dust settles or Black Friday -- which ever comes first
GetRealBro
Thanks, I checked the link and it seems I need to have the HD mounted but currently mine is dead and won’t mount. I’ll keep looking. Its fast and quiet when only running on the the 128GB SSD from the fusion drive.The following instructions allow you to not mount a volume(s) at startup...
Prevent a volume from mounting at startup - Apple Community
discussions.apple.com
FWIW the HDD in our 2013 iMac crashed. We now boot and run using an external 1TB Samsung T5. We use the above technique to keep the crashed HDD from slowing things down trying to mount and failing. BTW the T5 is faster than the original 1TB HDD.
Yes, I could open the iMac and replace the HDD with an SSD. But this older iMac also has screen issues (randomly dims) so we will replace it with a 2020 iMac after the dust settles or Black Friday -- which ever comes first
GetRealBro
My iMac’s HDD was completely crashed, and would not mount, when i edited the fstab to keep it from even trying to mount. You may want to use the terminal commands immediately after you get your iMac to boot, while the HDD is still trying to mount so you can find it’s UUID.
GetRealBro