Odd Resurrection

[Dpock]

About a month ago I was here looking for advice on my 2007 24" iMac, which died. Attempted fixes included erasing the HD several times, repartitioning it, having it fail to reload the OS, or the second installation disk, etc., followed by having Diskwarrior confirm the HD was failing.

Earlier today I was preparing to box it up for a future project and decided to make one more attempt reinstalling the OS, so I plugged it in (it had been unplugged for several weeks), started it holding the option key with the OS installation disk in, once booted re-erased the drive and partitioned it, then ran install. It installed, and it's up and running now.

While I'm pretty sure I need to replace the internal HD, I don't understanding why it's up and running now. Is this just a ghost in the machine kind of thing?

I'm almost afraid to run Diskwarrior again (but of course will). I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.

 

[Intell]

I've had some hard drives die and come back like that. They always die again very soon and don't work ever again. The most life I've ever gotten out of one of those zombie drives is about 2 months.

 

[Dpock]

I guess the good news is it means the logic board and everything else is operating okay (hopefully).

 

[harcosparky]

Get yourself an external FIREWIRE HDD ( faster than USB )

Hook it up and install the OS to that.

My buddy did that when his internal iMac HDD died. He said it was a " temporary fix " almost a year ago. He is still running on that external.

 

[Dpock]

That's was one of my prior resurrection attempts, only to learn my model wouldn't boot via firewire to an external drive (now sitting back on the shelf at Best Buy minus a cable I forgot to repackage before returning).

 

[Intell]

That's was one of my prior resurrection attempts, only to learn my model wouldn't boot via firewire to an external drive (now sitting back on the shelf at Best Buy minus a cable I forgot to repackage before returning).

All Macs that have a FireWire port will boot from a FireWire drive and all Intell and most PPC Macs will boot from a USB drive.

 

[Dpock]

I may give it another try now that it's up and running on its own. In the meantime I have a nice Pandora delivery system.

 

[harcosparky]

You need to make sure you select the proper settings when you format that external drive.

I am not at home so I do not have the info in front of me, but in addition to selecting " HPFS Journaled " I think it is, you have to select " GUID Patrition Table " to make THAT EXTERNAL drive a bootable volume.

 

[Dpock]

but in addition to selecting " HPFS Journaled " I think it is, you have to select " GUID Patrition Table " to make THAT EXTERNAL drive a bootable volume.

If I can get a few others to chime in and confirm that, I'd like to give it a try.

 

[Intell]

What harcosparky said is correct. Intell Macs need a GUID partition type and a HFS+ formatting. Then install a version of Mac OS X equal to or greater than the version that came with your Mac. Press the option key at boot to select your external drive and boot from it.

 

[mr.steevo]

The hdd went on my folks 2007 24" iMac last week. I replaced it with a 1TB drive after spending about an hour with a Philips and a couple of Torx screw drivers, and a suction cup. It's not complicated (suction cup to release the glass front, about 15-20 screws and a couple of clips).

I'm not a tech repair guy at all but this was achievable. It's worth it to search for "How to replace an 24" imac hard drive HDD EASY" and follow the video instructions.

s.

 

[Dpock]

Thanks Steevo--that's down the road a bit.

Could someone please clarify whether a Mac compatible external hard drive means it can be configured to be bootable, or does it have to say "bootable" on the package?

 

[Intell]

Could someone please clarify whether a Mac compatible external hard drive means it can be configured to be bootable, or does it have to say "bootable" on the package?

All external drives are bootable when formatted correctly.