Switching harddrives.

[settimiat]

So I have a 2012 21' imac. It is currently sitting in a closet not being used. Long story short, it fell over, and the glass and lcd panel are garbage. It still powers on, just looks as though.a pen exploded. Anyways Iam in the process of buying a MacBook, and thought I would ask the pros. Is there a way I can take the hdd out of the imac and put it in a MacBook Air or pro? I really want to get my stuff (pictures. Documents, ECT.) out of the imac without forking over $500+ to fix it if I don't absolutely have too..please help? Or if you know another way to get info, by all means SHARE

 

[yjchua95]

So I have a 2012 21' imac. It is currently sitting in a closet not being used. Long story short, it fell over, and the glass and lcd panel are garbage. It still powers on, just looks as though.a pen exploded. Anyways Iam in the process of buying a MacBook, and thought I would ask the pros. Is there a way I can take the hdd out of the imac and put it in a MacBook Air or pro? I really want to get my stuff (pictures. Documents, ECT.) out of the imac without forking over $500+ to fix it if I don't absolutely have too..please help? Or if you know another way to get info, by all means SHARE

No you can't. The MacBook Airs and Pros all use the PCIe blade SSDs. The 2012 iMacs still use the traditional 2.5" SATA3 drives.

However, you can purchase a Thunderbolt cable, connect the iMac to the MacBook first, then put the iMac into Target Disk mode and hence boot the iMac from the MacBook. Then you can access everything in your iMac through your MacBook's screen instead.

 

[nebo1ss]

No you can't. The MacBook Airs and Pros all use the PCIe blade SSDs. The 2012 iMacs still use the traditional 2.5" SATA3 drives.

However, you can purchase a Thunderbolt cable, connect the iMac to the MacBook first, then put the iMac into Target Disk mode and hence boot the iMac from the MacBook. Then you can access everything in your iMac through your MacBook's screen instead.

Terrible advice. Of course the Opp can just buy a USB enclosure that will take a 2.5 inch Sata. They cost about $10. Then connect the enclosure with the drive to the USB on the Air or Pro.

 

[yjchua95]

Terrible advice. Of course the Opp can just buy a USB enclosure that will take a 2.5 inch Sata. They cost about $10. Then connect the enclosure with the drive to the USB on the Air or Pro.

Enclosure with USB 3.0? 2.0 is notoriously slow.

In where I live we can't even get enclosures. My bad, because I forgot that I was living in a town somewhere in the mountains of Otago, New Zealand.

 

[Bear]

Terrible advice. Of course the Opp can just buy a USB enclosure that will take a 2.5 inch Sata. They cost about $10. Then connect the enclosure with the drive to the USB on the Air or Pro.

This is the best advice. Although I would recommend a USB 3 enclosure for speed especially if you want to continue to use the drive as an external drive on your MacBook.

 

[DeltaMac]

Or, if you do get the newer MacBook Pro or Air, you can connect between the two Macs with a Thunderbolt (TB) cable - then use Target Disk mode to mount the iMac HD on the newer laptop. And, you can then browse through the hard drive to get the files and docs that you want to retrieve.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10725

The TB cable is not cheap, but much less than attempting a repair of the iMac, and you don't need the challenge of removing the hard drive from the iMac.

 

[Bear]

...
The TB cable is not cheap, but much less than attempting a repair of the iMac, and you don't need the challenge of removing the hard drive from the iMac.

The Thunderbolt cable is $40(US) from Apple. I wouldn't call that expensive and it's cheap compared to losing files that are important to a person.

And removing the hard drive from a Mac that already has a broken screen and you don't care about reassembling shouldn't be that difficult.

 

[yjchua95]

Or, if you do get the newer MacBook Pro or Air, you can connect between the two Macs with a Thunderbolt (TB) cable - then use Target Disk mode to mount the iMac HD on the newer laptop. And, you can then browse through the hard drive to get the files and docs that you want to retrieve.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10725

The TB cable is not cheap, but much less than attempting a repair of the iMac, and you don't need the challenge of removing the hard drive from the iMac.

That's why I suggested the OP to buy one and use Target Disk mode in the first place, and save him the trouble of taking apart the iMac just to get the hard drive.