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Replacing iMac G3 HD

Dustman

Dustman

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 17, 2007
1,382
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Hey. I'm pretty new around here and found you guys pretty knowledgeable. It seems my imacs hard drive has been failing for the past few months, and now the os x 10.4 installer refuses to even see it.. anyways, i need to know what kind of hard drive i need to get that will work in there : )

imac specs:
iMac g3 600Mhz, Snow, 256 mb Ram, os x 10.4, 40 gb hd

thanks in advance guys
 
Just flip it over, take off the covers, take out all the screws on the bottom(6). The heat shield is a pain so make sure you have a magnetic screwdriver, to get all those little screws out. I have lost a screw in the monitor area and spent alot of time getting it out! Then take out the 4 screws holding the hard drive in the cage. Stick in the new drive and put it back together. Its not that hard.

Remember you can only use up to a 120gb hard drive.
 
shu82 said:
Just flip it over, take off the covers, take out all the screws on the bottom(6). The heat shield is a pain so make sure you have a magnetic screwdriver, to get all those little screws out. I have lost a screw in the monitor area and spent alot of time getting it out! Then take out the 4 screws holding the hard drive in the cage. Stick in the new drive and put it back together. Its not that hard.

Remember you can only use up to a 120gb hard drive.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the quick reply. it was my understanding though that theres different types of hard drives that need special cables to connect.. like SATA and EIDE or something like that, im kind of a noob haha.. any help would be muchly appreciated
 
I had to do the same to my G3, but it was actually quite easy in the end.

Follow this tutorial. It was a while since I did mine (subsequently gave it to a friend, otherwise I'd do it again and take pics along the way for you), but that seems pretty close to what I did. :)
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148104
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3120814A 120GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM

Seems to have great reviews. It also has a 5 year warranty which you can't beat with any of the other ones. I should get mine in the mail tomorrow if all goes well. If you want to wait I can tell you how it is. It's the best HD you can get in your imac. I have a 500 MHz Indigo G3 iMac.
 
haha thanks guys.. i appreciate the replies and am going for the 120 gb that was suggested. : ) hopefully i was right when i assumed the hard drive went otherwise ill have a pretty new hard drive and a still broken computer lol
 
I've been playing around with the 120 GB seagate. It's a great HD. I can definitely sense the increased speed. (Probably helps because I was very low on HD space with my 20 GB drive). It is also a lot quieter than the Maxtor original I had in there. Good luck with your installation. If you haven't done it before it may take you a while (make sure you have good screw drivers with magnetic tips).
 
Dustman said:
Hey. I'm pretty new around here and found you guys pretty knowledgeable. It seems my imacs hard drive has been failing for the past few months, and now the os x 10.4 installer refuses to even see it.. anyways, i need to know what kind of hard drive i need to get that will work in there : )

imac specs:
iMac g3 600Mhz, Snow, 256 mb Ram, os x 10.4, 40 gb hd

thanks in advance guys
Click to expand...

Get some more ram while you are at it. If you can bump up to 768mb or better, 1gb of ram -- you will be very happy.
 
Point blank.....

Hey pointblank, is there a final version of your youtube video?????
I only saw you replace the drives but it was never put back together and never saw it running again.... how does it work now with the upgrades????
I am considering doing it myself with my G3 "snow" iMac 600mhz.
would love to know how good it can really be maxed out???

DROCK
 
D ROCK said:
Hey pointblank, is there a final version of your youtube video?????
I only saw you replace the drives but it was never put back together and never saw it running again.... how does it work now with the upgrades????
I am considering doing it myself with my G3 "snow" iMac 600mhz.
would love to know how good it can really be maxed out???

DROCK
Click to expand...

Let me know if you need any help. I have to say that my 500 MHz iMac runs much faster since upgrading the RAM from 384 MB to 768 MB. The 120 GB seagate is amazing. It's quiet and quick. My crammed 20 GB drive was extremely slow compared to this.
 
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