iMac 21.5" 4k 2017 model - might have got a good one!

[DCBassman]

Facebook marketplace find, and I'm the first responder, as it were.
Boxed, good condition, attempted factory reset by someone who doesn't know how - £50.
Good?

 

[Bigwaff]

Good?

If not hobbled by MDM profile or FindMy activation lock.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@DCBassman "Good?"
If it's the base i5 3.0GHz model it will only have an HD spinner with no NVMe slot. Very slow these days... ☹️
If it's a higher spec i5 3.4GHz it will have a Fusion Drive (or SSD) so will have an NVMe slot, allowing upgrades.
The top spec i7 3.6GHz may have only an HD, but is much more likely to have a Fusion Drive (or SSD).

Unless it's got a good spec internal SSD (which is quite rare) then it either needs a dismantle upgrade, or it will need to be run booted from an external SSD - the faster spec the better, TB3 is ideal.

Whichever way, it will be much slower than today's Macs, but they don't cost £50...

 

[ignatius345]

If it does have a Fusion Drive, keep an eye on it as they tend to die after either the SSD or the HDD wears out. That's what happened to my old 2016 5K iMac, but I was able to replace the internal SATA HDD with an SSD and got a couple more years' use out of it. I used a tools and parts kit from iFixit and followed their instructions carefully.

But yeah, even best case scenario with an SSD inside, it's going to be pretty slow by modern standards. Maybe good for text, email and the like though, and the 4K display should look nice if it's still in good shape.

 

[DCBassman]

3.4 with Fusion drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

Not so good.

Unless you are EXTREMELY limited in funds, look elsewhere.

 

[DCBassman]

Unless you are EXTREMELY limited in funds, look elsewhere.

Always...
Anyhow, I have it. Original box, Magic Keyboard/Mouse2 included, so definitely got my money's worth on that (over here, anyhow!).
Fired it up with a PRAM reset, nice big chime, question mark folder symbol. OK, that was expected, from the seller's description (he's only partially sighted, so thinks he did something wrong trying to reset it).
Plugging in a clean Big Sur USB installer gets me a progress bar, but no progress, so maybe I'll have to go the ethernet and Internet Recovery method.

 

[DCBassman]

Back to basics. Using a @dosdue1 patched Catalina installer, which in my experience will both just about anything that falls into its range, from 2009 to this iMac, and probably more. Anyhow, it's proved that the thing lives, so now I'll use the Catalina install to thoroughly go over the machine and make sure it's OK, then head for more recent OS installs via OCLP. Should be quite good, as it will do Ventura natively.
If/when it breaks (IE Fusion Drive dies), then I will do the full surgery and upgrade drives and RAM and maybe processor too, if that's possible.

 

[MacInTO]

Good find! I got the 5k 2017 iMac last year for about twice that amount. It can run Ventura so I don't think you need the dosdude patcher.

 

[DCBassman]

Good find! I got the 5k 2017 iMac last year for about twice that amount. It can run Ventura so I don't think you need the dosdude patcher.

You're quite right, it didn't need it, and the patched installer acts normally on natively supported machines. It was simply the one that managed to undo whatever the seller had done to it. Now running as it should.