iMac Intel 20" EMC 2266 Hard Drive Replacement

The grid won't fall off by itself. You'll have to help it. Use the smallest screwdriver you have; the Torx 6 worked fine for me. It should enter in one of the many holes composing the grid. Use it as a lever to ploy the grid a little bit. You may catch it with your fingers and that's it.

Be carefull not to damage the hole by a too strong leverage.

much more safer to use duct tape, instead of torx 6. (glue it along the length of the grid and pull). it will loose instantly and smooth;)

Anyone know a guide to replace the plastic piece this screw connects to? I accidentally forgot this step - went to remove the front bezel and bent the plastic piece the access door connects to.

A good alternative to the two heavy duty suction cups is a regular household plunger.

Also, 2" wide packing tape. Maybe a 6 or 8" piece, folded in the middle to give you say, a 1-2" "handle". Make a pair of these. They look like a capital T but with a short vertical part (the handle), and a wide top I the sticky wings). Get the good 3M tape, it's strong, and it peels off clean without leaving any glue from the screen.

for me one household plunger did the trick!

Another approach that worked for us was to get 4 small plastic wedges (the kind used in iphone screen replacements). Working one corner at a time you can use a cheap suction cup to pry just that corner up enough to slide the wedge in. Then proceed to the next then next, etc. Once all 4 have the wedges under them the glass should be away from the body all the way around, then just carefully lift it the rest of the way up.

I would strongly suggest taping the screws down on a piece of paper towel or cloth in the same order you take them out, as there are different lengths in no particular order and they don't all fit into just any hole. Unless you keep track of which hole each screw belongs, there is no other way of knowing. I stress taping because I didn't tape mine down and after bumping the table I was working on they scattered, leaving me to guess.

Even better, use an ice cube tray to keep the screws from each step together.

how about using the magnets near the screws to keep their positions?

Contrary to the pictures, to lift the front bezel off, start at top of the computer screen lifting up while apply a little bit of pressure to the foam in the upper corners of the screen. This will give you the leverage needed to get the bezel to lift up. Be careful to not pull to fast, as the camera cable is still attached.

you'll need to add this step in all the other tutorials about iMac 20" EMC 2210, where it is missing ; they all jump from step 5 to step 6, which is a little annoying...

Easy way to remove bezel, insert the longest screws a quarter turn into the two top most edge screw slots. Use the screws as anchors to press against as you pull the bezel toward you. Then a simple twist to remove the screws, and the rest of the bezel comes off easy.

During reinstallation of the LCD panel, be sure that the iSight microphone cable does not become trapped behind the panel.

I actually didn't have to remove the cable. With the iMac laying on its back, just rotate the front bezel (bottom edge rotating around top edge) so that it's laying upside down, above the iMac. When reassembling, just rotate back into place.

I found this to be the most frustrating thing to remove out of everything under the hood. I had to have my wife use her skinny, smaller fingers to jimmy it up, but the tape kept pulling up and separating from the connector. I was worried that I was pulling in the wrong direction (what do I know about logic boards?) and that the tab was going to come off as it is slick tape. She eventually got it, but she did have to use some force. If you don't have a set of skinny fingers, just be patient and use a little force. I think the instructions should tell you to pull straight UP on the black tab, rather than 'away from the logic board', for those of us that don't really understand the technical components/guts of a computer. Honestly, my wife knows less than I do, but she could have done this as easily as me.

Some extra tools I found to be invaluable in this whole process was canned air (used for keyboards and office dust), a microfiber cloth (preferably the one that came with your iMac if you still have it, but you can get these almost anywhere these days)and one of those soft foam monitor covers to put over the monitor while your friend is holding it up (a soft sheet or towel might work too). If your computer is a few years old like mine, there will be a considerable amount of dust that you will want to clear out (and will fly everywhere anyway). Once you cleared that out and replace the hard drive, wait until you've got the bezel and screws back on before using the canned air and microfiber cloth to make sure all dust and lint is clear of the monitor. This is where the second person will come in handy again. They can wipe while you spray. Get your glass top with suction cups still attached ready and wipe that with the cloth and air as well. While your friend does one last wipe of the glass and then the monitor, put the glass on as soon as possible so no more lint or dust falls onto the monitor. I did this and the monitor looks as beautiful and clear as the day I bought the iMac. It is truly a brilliant and beautiful design by Apple and LG.

In this step, as I lifted the display, there was also a small cord in the front, near the fan, that was connected from the display to the inside panel. As I lifted, it unplugged. Anyone know what this is and where it goes when I put it all back together? Pic of the cord I'm referring to: http://i68.tinypic.com/keubkg.jpg

As Marijn said, there are no disconnectable inverter cables on the 24" iMac, just a single thick cable in the middle of the back that is heavily taped with black electrical tape. I imagine you could remove that and retape, but it seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth. There is definitely enough clearance for someone else to hold the monitor up and away from the hard drive. For this reason, I would not attempt to replace the hard drive on a 24" without another person to help. The monitor is not heavy, and it doesn't take a ton of time to remove the old hard drive. It would also help if one of you has skinny fingers ;-).

Mark them before unplugging so you can reconnect them the right way when reinstalling!

Prying the plastic bar that locks the HDD into place was probably the most difficult part of the operation, for me. It just didn't want to let go, and until you've actually removed one, it's not exactly clear how it's holding on. The left side basically has a thin wedge on the back that wedges in between the rubber grommet and the mounting bracket

Thank you for this tutorial. I tried and tried and could not get the drive out. Found this tutorial and this comment too and it was a tremendous help! My iMac 24 (March 2009) hard drive was quite stubborn to remove but I finally got it!

Actually this step is quite easy, provided you follow exactly the instructions presented here. :)

If there is some clear tape holding the excess play in the HDD thermal sensor wire, against the body back, peel it up to free the wire and give yourself as much free play as possible. When reassembling, tape back to the body.

Mine was completely different. There was some black foam with the sensor underneath, held in with a plastic bracket that is attached (glued?) to the hard drive.

I found it was not necessary to do this step if you do step 20 first - i.e disconnect the temperature sensor cable from the hard drive, but not the logic board

As HBloomfield said, you do NOT have to remove the sensor from the iMac body. Instead, remove the sensor from the HDD while it is still connected to the body.

If the sensor is covered with a 4mm black foam square, use your index fingernail to scrape off one of the corners where there is adhesive. If you pull on just the foam part, it will tear the foam.

I honestly didn't find the spudger to be necessary for most of this replacement. It is a nice little tool that makes one or two steps easier, but it is far from necessary. I imagine an old stylus you may have laying around would do just as good a job. I would definitely suggest putting the iMac on it's stand straight up to remove the hard drive bracket from it's post, as it sits very tightly in there. I found it popped out a LOT easier on it's stand than laying down, which was next to impossible. You do have to do some careful manuevering with your partner in order to accomplish this, but it's worth it. Take it slow.

I have stopped using brackets for most SSD replacements. I bought some circular hook and loop dots with strong adhesive and merely velcro the drive to the case. The cables are long enough to allow the drive to sit flat against the case if you turn the drive upside down after attaching it. Otherwise, the data cable is too short. SSDs are so light that there is no reason for over-engineering the attachment. Most tape is not strong enough but two velcro dots work great.

replacing the 3.5” hard-drive with a 2.5” ssd - needed to use a 2.5 to 3.5 chassis and discovered that the existing sata cables are too short (in particular the sata data cable). purchased an 8” extension ($7) and squirreled the excess behind the chassis. worked fine.

One of the screws came out easily but the other took a great deal of convincing. To get it out I tightly wrapped a medium-thick rubber band around it to improve grip. I then applied downward pressure with my palm, and with my other hand, rotated the screwdriver. If at first you don’t succeed, try taking a break for a few minutes to let your grip strength return. You’ll get it eventually!

There was no tape on the drive you sent me...

Quote from andymcdonell:

There was no tape on the drive you sent me...

Transfer the piece of foam tape from the old drive to your new drive. If it is no longer sticky, it is fine to use a strip of electrical or duct tape to hold the foam tape down against the drive.

I found these instructions to be a little unclear. What you are looking at after removing the foam, is a bracket that is basically holding down the thermal sensor at the end of those wires coming out(which you can't see because it's UNDER the bracket). I found the bracket to be fairly easy to just pull up and off. The spudger (or even a tiny flathead screwdriver) can easily accomplish this if it's glued on tight. Once the bracket comes off, the thermal sensor is freed, and in my case fell away from the bracket. Just try to keep those pieces together in the order they came off. Fortunately, as easy as the bracket came off, it was easily pushed back onto the new hard drive with no trouble at all. The foam was pretty sticky still as well, although I had to double tape one side of it to secure it over the bracket.

Make sure you don't forget this step! I forgot this step, got everything back together, then had to take it all apart again to affix this! Not fun. That said, the second time went MUCH faster, and I found myself appreciating this design a lot more. It is much less daunting now, and is much easier than upgrading the RAM in a Mac Mini.

I followed this to replace hard disk with an SSD. These instructions and comments pretty much cover it. Only had to disconnect #7 cable and a little cable near the center of the system board; flipping/rotating bezel/screen avoided other disconnects. I used a permanent marker to label bezel holes "L" and "VL" (long and very long) to put those screws back properly.

My main problem: I expected a 2.5" hard disk but found a 3.5". Micro Center talked me into an IcyDock 2.5" --> 3.5" adapter, defective (ended up just taping the SSD down). Between that and not loading OS on the SSD before installing (basically: attach SSD via USB, boot while pressing command-R) meant I got to do this disassembly/assembly several times.

Worth it to buy a bottle of air to blow out dust, a 3.5" external enclosure (for the former internal hard disk), and maybe a CR2032? coin battery while you're at it. Group permissions on the hard disk's user files will be broken afterwards, easily fixed.

i can not install osx on the new disk

don't assume the usb pen i have to install the osx can you help me?