Yes, its been a while since my last posting here on Andrew Kelsall Design. Whilst working on many projects (I’ll update my portfolio soon), my hard drive started to fail on my iMac. Nooooo! Here’s a a really dodgy photo of me fixing the little blighter…
Andrew Kelsall and the Broken iMac
A few months ago, the internal hard drive made high-pitched noises and clicking sounds. I made sure my time machine backup was in order then formatted the internal drive and started over. It worked …for just a while. Then, one day, it just failed on me.
I was sad. I sort of looked like myself in the image above.
After researching what to do about this, I found out I could still boot my iMac from an external drive. So, I bought another drive and installed Mac OS X on an external drive. It worked, but my computer was slow — and the Mac fan was going at it full speed.
This was annoying, and I could not design. Sigh…
Anyway, I did some more research and found out how to fix my own Mac (I tried to get a quote for a repair shop to fix it, but they would would need over a week to look at the machine and order parts. Way to fussy for me!).
How to Fix Your Own iMac
Here’s what I did:
• I Visited iFixit and found a guide on how to fix my machine. I had to get the model number from the base of the iMac to locate the instructions. Then I used the guide to attain the exact hard drive type and code I needed, then ordered one from eBay!
• Also, I ordered some suction cups to remove the display glass, and some Torex screwdrivers, too.
• I watched a couple of YouTube videos showing iMac repairs to build my confidence.
• The iFixit instructions were available (for free) to download as a PDF file, which I printed and followed to the letter.
• After I fixed the machine, it worked perfectly. I was happy, as the total repair cost was only £48 ($70 USD).
…Sorry, I don’t have a photo of this. True story.
Have You fixed your own iMac before? How did it go?
✪ Like this post? Then see also : Mac Dictation: A Bloggers’ Dream?
This post is Copyright Andrew Kelsall, author of the Andrew Kelsall Graphic Design Blog.
