If the HD needs to be replaced

[ring]

Will the RecoveryHD still be active? And if need be, will I be able to put some sort of "recovery HD" on the new HD?

I'm not sure how this stuff works, I just know that:

- Hard drives are user replaceable
- It is not possible to brick a mac



Please enlighten me, oh geniuses of the Mac community

 

[Bear]

Since you mention RecoveryHD, it sounds like you have Lion. My answer is based on that presumption.

The recovery partition is on the disk and if you replace the disk it won't be there. Is you Mac new enough to have the internet recovery option? If so, this doesn't matter as Internet recovery offers the same recovery options a sthe recovery partition.

If your Mac is not new enough to have Internet Recovery, you can make a USB recovery disk following this Apple Knowledge Base article.

A full system recovery should recreate the recovery partition.

 

[James_C]

- Hard drives are user replaceable

Not in an iMac, they are very difficult to replace, and unless you have experience of taking an iMac apart, they should be done by an authorised repair centre. The 2011 iMac's have a special temperature sensor on them, which means they must be replaced by an Apple part, otherwise the fans go crazy.

 

[ring]

Not in an iMac, they are very difficult to replace, and unless you have experience of taking an iMac apart, they should be done by an authorised repair centre. The 2011 iMac's have a special temperature sensor on them, which means they must be replaced by an Apple part, otherwise the fans go crazy.

Ok, that being said... Would I be able to get up and running with the main "Mac HD" and "Recovery HD" again?

 

[James_C]

Providing that there is no physical damage to the disk and the recovery partition is readable then yes you can recover your hard disk with Lion's recovery system. Just hold down the Command ⌘ and the R keys during startup to start the recovery process. More information here. If the hard disk is damaged then you will need to take it to an Apple authorised repair centre to get the hard disk replaced. Note that the Lion Recovery system is not a backup of your data, it only will allow you to try to repair your hard drive or install a fresh copy of lion. You need a backup system like Time Machine to make sure your data is protected.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Ok, that being said... Would I be able to get up and running with the main "Mac HD" and "Recovery HD" again?"

The RecoveryHD is just a partition on the hard drive. If your hard drive "goes", so does your recovery partition.

Just wondering, are you currently backed up? Do you have some kind of external backup/boot source?

If not, can you spare a little money?

I'd suggest one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0
(some can be had for only $20 or so -- I suggest you get one that's "USB3" for future compatibility)

And then scrounge up a "bare" SATA hard drive (either buy a new one, or perhaps you might just find one someone wants to sell cheap or get rid of).

Put the drive in the dock, hook it to the iMac, turn it on, initialize it with Disk Utility.

Then download the -free- CarbonCopyCloner app from:
http://bombich.com
It's one of the best pieces of Mac software out there, easy to learn and use.

Use CCC to "dupe" the contents of your internal drive to the docked drive. You can even boot from the docked drive by restarting, and immediately holding down the option key (and keep holding it down) until the Startup Manager appears. Then select the docked drive and hit the return key.

Having an externally-bootable exact clone of your internal drive is the BEST "recoveryHD" you can have, bar none. Sooner or later you are going to have a "moment of extreme need", and it will be what you reach for to get going again in the matter of a couple of minutes....

 

[ring]

"Ok, that being said... Would I be able to get up and running with the main "Mac HD" and "Recovery HD" again?"

The RecoveryHD is just a partition on the hard drive. If your hard drive "goes", so does your recovery partition.

Just wondering, are you currently backed up? Do you have some kind of external backup/boot source?

If not, can you spare a little money?

I'd suggest one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0
(some can be had for only $20 or so -- I suggest you get one that's "USB3" for future compatibility)

And then scrounge up a "bare" SATA hard drive (either buy a new one, or perhaps you might just find one someone wants to sell cheap or get rid of).

Put the drive in the dock, hook it to the iMac, turn it on, initialize it with Disk Utility.

Then download the -free- CarbonCopyCloner app from:
http://bombich.com
It's one of the best pieces of Mac software out there, easy to learn and use.

Use CCC to "dupe" the contents of your internal drive to the docked drive. You can even boot from the docked drive by restarting, and immediately holding down the option key (and keep holding it down) until the Startup Manager appears. Then select the docked drive and hit the return key.

Having an externally-bootable exact clone of your internal drive is the BEST "recoveryHD" you can have, bar none. Sooner or later you are going to have a "moment of extreme need", and it will be what you reach for to get going again in the matter of a couple of minutes....

Ok, that sounds good. I have a 2011 iMac, and I just wanted to be sure in the worst-case senario that I wouldn't have to pay another $1200 for a computer.

That sounds like a good idea, and I do plan to clone my HD

But, I was wondering. If i replaced the HD without backing up, would I be able to set up a "Mac HD" partition along with the recovery "Recovery HD" partition (Just how it is set up now) from scratch?