Hard drive question

[EugeneS123]

Hello everyone,

Couple of days ago i found, near our dumpster a 2008 iMac 24", the only thing that was missing inside was it's HDD
As i am new to macs in general, i'd like to know what are my options here, I have a spare 1TB sata HDD at home, would it be better to just buy an OSX DVD snow leopard for instance, install it and upgrade from there, or, I saw a bunch of macbook pro hard drives over on ebay, preloaded with OSX, would they work with iMac as well?
Any help at this stage will be appreciated.

 

[rigormortis]

if you install the hard disk and it works, the people at the genius bar at the apple store will be happy to install whatever os x you want on it free of charge.

 

[EugeneS123]

if you install the hard disk and it works, the people at the genius bar at the apple store will be happy to install whatever os x you want on it free of charge.

Thanks, but does it work the same way as windows? I mean, if I have a genuine OSX installation dvd, and I have a clean hard drive and by clean I mean a hard drive that I did a format on, do I just simply install the OS when I boot the iMac, or does it work differently?

 

[panzer06]

Assuming the DVD drive actually works you can install from the appropriate install disk for the system.

 

[rigormortis]

Thanks, but does it work the same way as windows? I mean, if I have a genuine OSX installation dvd, and I have a clean hard drive and by clean I mean a hard drive that I did a format on, do I just simply install the OS when I boot the iMac, or does it work differently?

you don't need a genuine dvd, you just ask them , and they will connect your mac to either their hard disk or their LAN and install whatever os x you want from their network server. they haven't sold copies to anybody since snow leopard.

think different.

its windows that makes you buy a dvd and a license key. apple is not microsoft. if you have any mac
and you need os x, the apple store will just give it to you

make an appointment and bring the mac in and ask for os x.

they won't install the hard disk for you.

now if you want a physical copy of os x, then they might want money

you won't get access to apple diagnostics that came with the original disks. you will have to make your own

 

[EugeneS123]

you don't need a genuine dvd, you just ask them , and they will connect your mac to either their hard disk or their LAN and install whatever os x you want from their network server. they haven't sold copies to anybody since snow leopard.

think different.

its windows that makes you buy a dvd and a license key. apple is not microsoft. if you have any mac
and you need os x, the apple store will just give it to you

make an appointment and bring the mac in and ask for os x.

they won't install the hard disk for you.

now if you want a physical copy of os x, then they might want money

you won't get access to apple diagnostics that came with the original disks. you will have to make your own

It sounds, great, my biggest problem is, in my country they don't have official apple stores yet. We have official retailers, I'll check with them though.

Thanks for the help.

 

[rigormortis]

Assuming the DVD drive actually works you can install from the appropriate install disk for the system.

It sounds, great, my biggest problem is, in my country they don't have official apple stores yet. We have official retailers, I'll check with them though.

Thanks for the help.

if you have any mac friends, ask them to go to mac app store. download a copy of install os x from the app store like for El Captain, and then follow the directions to make a usb installer. and then you are set to go

use the ' createinstallmedia ' method
http://www.macworld.com/article/236...otable-os-x-10-10-yosemite-install-drive.html

just substitute the file name of the version of mac os you got

i think it will install faster if you use a sd card versus a usb key