iMac Intel 24" EMC 2267 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.

remove the 8 screws (torx) that is holding the screen.

I actually had to use my 6H torx. my 4/5/6’s wouldn’t grab. Whether its from stripping or whatever the 6H worked fine.

I completely stripped one of the T6 screws. If you did too, they are M2 screws. An M2x6mm with a couple washers works fine.

When reassembling, it’s probably a smart move to reconnect this cable before putting the display-holding T8 screws in.

Make sure you reconnect the cable for the thermal display sensor during reassembly. If you don't, the fans will be running at max speed and you might think it is from the drive thermal sensor afterwards (which is an issue some users have and which can be fixed in software).

I had great success with just propping the top edge of the LCD display up with a box about 8" long. By doing so, I didn't have to remove the thermal sensor wire or the power cable.

The thermal sensor connection is more of a pain than it seems. It's a cramped area and it's not clear when it's properly plugged in during reassembly. It may *feel* like it's in, but then pops free at the slightest touch. I guarantee that if as soon as you start up, fans running max speed instantly is the indication this is the issue. If you're ok with that, then fine, but otherwise, you'll have to pull it apart again.

When putting this back together it can be extremely difficult to plug this cable back in without removing a guard that is held in by 2x T8 Torx screws just next to it.

I will suggest to remove the other end of the socket which is connected to the display panel. You can never imagine how difficult it will be to plug in on the main body, unless you know well about it.

I didn't realize these comments were HERE? Poor web design if you can't see comments in an obvious way. Step 10 will cause you the most trouble in reassembling the computer and I knew it as soon as I popped that connector out off the board. Its really f*cking hard to get that connector hooked back up in the way it should be and I have small hands. I managed to get it at least partly pushed in after several tries. Over all it took over half an hour to get it back in there right and scared the !@#$ out of me because I didn't think I could get it done. Those stupid little plastic things won't help you here, the connector really needs to be pushed hard to get it back in. I ended up using a big beefy screw driver for slotted screws, about a ten inch long screwdriver. I used the blade on each end of the connector and was able to give it a good hard push on one end, then pushed on the other end, slowly rocking the connector back into full flush contact. Be real careful you aren't pushing on the ribbon at all.

There is (what it looks like) a display ribbon cable attached that is hard to disconnect.

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?