0
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louiev
1
Asked
What kind of HD do I need for replacement?
Hi Everyone,
I need help and tips on changing my HD in my iMac. My hard drive has been failing since I've been getting slow startups and shutdowns, tried a disk utility repair and did a clean install of the OS and I still get a slow imac and the spinning rainbow a lot.
I just wanted to know if the HD I need to buy is a regular 3.5 SATA 500gb HD for replacement? Does it need to be a SATA 2 or a SATA 3? I don't really know if there's a difference or if I will encounter any compatibility issues if I replace my HD with a SATA 3 since it's the one usually available here in my country(Philipp
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much!
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Score
machead3
21.3k
Answered
Any Serial ATA interface X 3.5 will work, you can go up to 3TB if needed.
If this Answer is helpful please remember to return and mark it Accepted.
Hi! Thank you for the reply. That's great! At least that gives me a relief knowing that any Serial ATA interface 3.5 will work. I'm really get confused if I should get the SATA II or the SATA III HDDs. Thank you so much for clearing this up. I'm afraid that I thought would get some compatibility issues if I bought the SATA III since it's the only available SATA HDD here in my country.
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Score
mayer
148.6k
Answered
Before spending any money, try re-formating the hard drive using the "write zero" option to map out any bad blocks. Then give it one partition, this will ensure it's set to GUID. The new hard drive may need to be jumpered down to 1.5 GB speed to be seen by your machine so make sure the new drive can be slowed down. These setting can be fund on most drives by doing a web search for the name of your drive and jumpers. Here's the one on Western Digital SATA II drives: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta...
Thank you for the quick reply. I'm going to try what you stated. What about this "write zero"? How does it map out any bad blocks? Does it mean even if the hard disk is failing, it will still fix a bit of the HD?
When you format, there is an options box. By selecting the write zeros option, the computer will actually write to every block n the hard drive. The directory keeps a record of any bad blocks it finds and will not write to those sectors again. If that is all that's wrong with the drive and you don't have to many of these bad blocks, your drive can continue to operate just fine.
