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hard drive
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caifara
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Sep 17, 2001, 09:40 AM
 
hi, I would like to change the hard drive of my imac 350
at the moment there is a 7GB hard drive in the mac, but it's completely full.
Can I use one of these hard drives?
Diamondmax 80 - 61.4gb Udma 100 9ms 5400rpm
Diamondmax D540x - 40gb Udma 100 5400rpm
Diamondmax D540x - 60gb Udma 100 12ms 5400rpm
Diamondmax D540x - 80gb Udma 100 5400rpm

Another question, if I have the drive and installed it (I found a guide on imac2day.com, is it good?), is it difficult to make it work?

thanks
-c
-c
     
xyber233
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Sep 17, 2001, 10:04 AM
 
Those should work. I would check reader reports here.Hard drives aren't that hard to install and are very easy to set up. Drive setup should automatically recognize the hard drive so you can format it.
     
vmarks
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Sep 17, 2001, 01:06 PM
 
The truth is as Xyber233 says, you can use any of those hard drives.

If it isn't mac formatted when you install the drive, you need to have a bootable cd to install from, either a 9.1 cd, the Software Restore, or Software Install cds.

You also may want to partition the drive (divide it up so that it appears as two or more drives even tho it's physically one drive) with an 8gb partition at the beginning of the drive- This helps avoid booting problems with some iMacs. (Yours may not be affected by this, but it doesn't hurt to take this as a preventative measure.)

Good luck,

Victor Marks
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If this post is in the Lounge forum, it is likely to be my own opinion, and not representative of the position of MacNN.com.
     
caifara  (op)
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Sep 17, 2001, 03:53 PM
 
Hi,
thanks for the input, I think I'll go for the 40 Gigs, I don't think I'll need more.
Ow, vmarks (or someone else), could you tell me how I partition a disk and what the advantage is?
-c
-c
     
xyber233
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Sep 17, 2001, 04:11 PM
 
When you use Drive Setup to initialize the hard drive, it will ask you how many partitions you want. Partitioning the hard drive is like dividing it into seperate hard drives. If you are planning to use OS X and OS 9, I recommend partitioning it. That way to two OSs won't be interfering with each other.
     
vmarks
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Sep 17, 2001, 04:22 PM
 
Originally posted by caifara:
<STRONG>Hi,
thanks for the input, I think I'll go for the 40 Gigs, I don't think I'll need more.
Ow, vmarks (or someone else), could you tell me how I partition a disk and what the advantage is?
-c</STRONG>
The advantages are:
1) prevention of a booting problem with some iMacs
2) organization of files
3) keeping different Operating Systems separate to avoid problems (OS X and OS 9.x on the same partition? it may work well for some, but I choose to use separate partitions.)
4) small amount of additional usable space. That is, having one large partition uses more of the hard drive than multiple smaller hard drives. You'll gain a few hundred MB at the very best.

Good luck,

Victor Marks
[email protected]
If this post is in the Lounge forum, it is likely to be my own opinion, and not representative of the position of MacNN.com.
     
caifara  (op)
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Sep 17, 2001, 04:51 PM
 
me again, could you give me some advice for partitioning the hard drive? How many MB for 9.x and X.x. (in case I buy a 40 GB or 60 GB hard drive).
thank you.
-c
-c
     
xyber233
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Sep 17, 2001, 05:24 PM
 
I have my hard drive setup like this:

4 GB OS 9
4 GB OS X
12GB For whatever I have left

I have the first 2 partitions at 4 GB each so that I can boot up OS 9 from each of them.
     
pscates
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Sep 17, 2001, 08:57 PM
 
Okay, you guys seem to know your stuff here...great!
I'm in a similiar position, regarding a hard drive for my iMac DV.

Some background: I have a tangerine first-generation iMac DV purchased in February 2000. After several months of working good, the hard drive gradually started to produce this metallic grinding "whirring" sound at all times. It was constant, and seemed to get louder as time when on.

I figured it was the hard drive because as soon as I put it to sleep, the noise would wind down and stop. When I woke it up, there it came again. It got so loud and obnoxious that I could be in the other end of the hallway from my room and hear it! I even had people remark "man, that CAN'T be good, can it?".

Anyway, I finally took it CompUSA and they replaced it (warranty). It ran totally silent again for about 3-4 months. Then I started noticing that sound quietly returning. Small and subtle at first, but within 3-4 weeks, it had grown to its full-blown "roar", as is as loud and obnoxious and metallic and ugly sounding as the first time around.

I took it back to CompUSA, they said they couldn't hear anything and refused to do a warranty repair. I asked them to please go to hell (just kidding) and left, feeling pretty irked.

So here I am. On my second 10GB hard drive and dealing with this CONSTANT metallic whirring sound.

I found a Mac-only specialist shop here in town that several people have recommended to me and that supposedly know their stuff. I talked to a guy from there last week and I asked him if they're made by Apple to put the same drive in as what was originally shipped/spec-ed for that model. He said yes.

You guys correct me on this, but here's what I've heard from about 5 or 6 different sources around the web: the Maxtor drives (which mine came with originally) in the first-generation iMacs were prone to this? And that now the iMac is shipping with different drives (IBM?) and there doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.

I don't know if that's true or not. All I know is this: I have the loudest damn iMac on the planet and its REALLY starting to get on my nerves and affect how I want to use my iMac. We have 4 iMacs where I work and every one of them run completely silent. The only time you hear them is if you stick in a CD or if the hard drive is "chewing" on something (working and writing). That's a normal sound which I'm quite familiar with and enjoy. What I DON'T enjoy is this nasty grinding racket.

I'm not nuts about (even though it's a warranty and doesn't cost me anything) having ANOTHER of the same drive put in, only to deal with a noisy, grinding iMac in another 3, 4 or 6 months. I want a nice quiet iMac like I had when I got this out of the box and turned it on. And like all the ones at work. And like every OTHER iMac I've heard in stores and businesses over the nearly-two years (since the slot-loading, fanless models have existed).

Are you guys aware of a particular noisy and/or unreliable hard drive brand? Something I should go out of my way to steer clear of? I can't believe I'm just having bad luck twice in a row, you know?

If my warranty is simply going to be another 10GB of the same type and put me in the same position in a few months, I'd almost rather pay for a different drive (AND get a larger capacity one) out of my own pocket and fix this thing once and for all.

These days, 10GB seems a little pinched anyway, so why not? I was thinking about something in the 20-40GB range.

I don't want to face heating/ventilation issues, so I know I should be looking for a 5400RPM drive (I'm not a speed freak as much as I am a reliability/quiet freak...). And what's this about ATA66? All I seem to find are ATA100 drives.

Can one of you give me a quick, from the ground up tutorial in iMac DV hard drives, what's acceptable specs, what brands to look for, what brands to avoid, what ATA66 means and why I need to pay attention to it, etc.

I've installed RAM, AirPort cards and a Zip Drive inside a G3 tower, so I'm not completely squeamish about opening up a Mac and getting down to business. And I just got my new issue of Macworld and there's a nice article (with photos and step by step guide) for replacing the hard drive in your slot-loading iMac. They pretty much go over everything EXCEPT which drive to buy and what to specifically look for when purchasing.

Any and all help would be dug to no end

And by all means, please feel free to e-mail me directly at [email protected] with any info, advice, suggestions, recommendations, tips, "heads up", etc. you think would benefit me.

Otherwise, I'll check this back with this thread.

Sorry for the long, rambling post, but now you know the history, my situtation and my expectations/frustrations. I really want this thing resolved, one way or the other, before I get hold of 10.1. I don't want to have this cool, gorgeous OS (that's finally getting to be actually usable and more like a "real" OS) and have this stupid noise going on 24/7!

     
seanyepez
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Sep 17, 2001, 09:35 PM
 
"pscates",

Many questions you ask!

What brand hard drive do you have? What did they replace the first drive with?

ATA66/ATA100 ratings don't matter for your iMac. They're faster IDE standards that run on the same cable as ATA33. The iMac's motherboard can only support ATA33 anyway.

If you prefer a lower noise level rather than speed, I'd go with a Maxtor drive. Their newer models tend to be quiet. Then again, for reliability, I've never been disappointed with IBM drives. Their DeskStar 60GXP series is time-proven by me. I have four machines based on that series (40-gigabyte, 60-gigabyte, and older, 34GXP series hard drives including 34.2-gigabyte and 13.5-gigabyte models). It's given me nothing but solid, reliable performance. It's not too loud, either.
     
vmarks
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Sep 17, 2001, 10:22 PM
 
Hard drives I have had good luck with:

Maxtor
Quantum
IBM

Hard drives that have failed on me:

Western Digital. So many times it wasn't funny. they might have gotten better, but won't recommend them to friends.

Again, to be fair, other people may have had good luck with W.D., but not me.

If your hard drive is making the grinding noise, it's a sign, and it's not going to get better. Take this opportunity to back up.

I said I had good luck with Maxtor drives. I know that there was anecdotal evidence of a bad run of Maxtors in iMacs like yours, but the only other bad Maxtor I heard of was one at a games company I used to work at.

Buying an ATA/100 drive is fine. ATA/100 will step down to ATA/66, or ATA/33, whatever is the fastest that the IDE controller can handle.

ATA/66 means, there is a PEAK transfer rate on the cable and IDE controller of 66mb/s. You may never actually get the drive to perform that fast, but it's designed so that if everything is perfect, that's the fastest drive access you'll get. The meaning is the same for 100, or 33, only instead it's 100mb/second, for the newer drives.

You need a 3.5 inch ATA/66 or ATA/100 (also known as UDMA/66 or UDMA/100, it's the same thing)

MacWorld isn't going to recommend a drive unless they're doing a review of drives, I'm not surprised they didn't say which to buy in the same article as the upgrade instructions.

Good luck, and feel free to ask more questions.

Victor Marks
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If this post is in the Lounge forum, it is likely to be my own opinion, and not representative of the position of MacNN.com.
     
xyber233
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Sep 17, 2001, 10:34 PM
 
I bought a 20gb CompUSA Maxtor ATA/100 Drive and it works great. I am so happy that I bought it. If I had to buy another hard drive, I would buy a Maxtor. It is so quiet compared to my stock drive.
     
pscates
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Sep 17, 2001, 10:46 PM
 
Wow, thanks for all the quick info, guys (and yes, Sean, I ask a LOT of questions because I'm a LOT frustrated...)



I found a 40GB Maxtor drive (ATA/100, 5400RPM, etc.) at CompUSA just a little while ago (just got back) for $99.

Does that sound right? That just seems so cheap for so much storage. Since I've never really had to worry or think about purchasing a hard drive, I'm a bit out of the loop on what they should cost.

Or am I correct to assume that hard drives - like RAM and other computer components - have simply dropped dramatically in price over the past couple of years?

If so, I'll probably buy that drive. Especially since I've three of you saying good things about the Maxtor.

Maybe I just got a bad batch and did indeed have two rounds of bad luck.

The original hard drive when I got my iMac was a Maxtor. I remember looking. If I run the System Profiler now, it says Quantum Fireball.

Thanks for all the info!
     
OldManMac
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Sep 17, 2001, 11:17 PM
 
I'll chime in with my $.02. Before I got smart and switched to Mac, I had several machines that had Western Digital drives, and they would last on average about 8 months to a year. One machine I had went through three drives in 18 months! I sell Macs for a living for a two store Apple Specialist shop, and the drives we see the least failures on are IBM and Maxtor. We see a fair number of Western Digitals come in for replacement, and I won't sell one. Hard drive prices have dropped dramatically in the past couple of years! In October 1997. I purchased a Maxtor 4Gb for $250 on sale. I had to return it because it wouldn't work in my crappy Pentium (wouldn't recognize several Maxtor drives). I put in a WD 3.1Gb for the same price, and went through 3 WDs in eighteen months! Then I put in a WD 6.8GB for $150, got rid of the junker, and got a Mac G3 B&W 350. I added a second drive to that. Bought a new G4/400 last November, and added a second drive to that; Maxtor 40Gb @ $169. Today you can get an IBM 60Gb for just a few bucks more. Maybe soon I'll be giving them away.
Why is there always money for war, but none for education?
     
xyber233
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Sep 18, 2001, 08:45 AM
 
Go for it. I bought my 20GB ATA100 5400rpm Maxtor from CompUSA for $99. That was about a year ago so 40gb for the same price seems right. You won't be disappointed. Good luck!
     
caifara  (op)
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Sep 18, 2001, 10:38 AM
 
I'm going for the 40 gb maxtor (5400rpm, udma, ATA 100), let's see what it gives (I expect it to be here within a few days, maybe earlier).

-c
-c
     
   
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