Anyone tried to DIY upgrade the HDD for the Alum iMAC early 2008 model ?

I manage to 'kill' it via Disk Utility yesterday morning when I found "Invalid Node Structure". It was verifying the HDD when it hit much errors and the HDD refuses to mount. The partition seems to have disappeared. I then loaded DiskWarrior, it could not repair the issues. It reports that it was a hardware failure that causes it unable to replace the new recovered data or something. I still manage to remove much of my data uncorrupted via preview

So I'm thinking what the heck, lets give it an upgrade while we are at it. Then I saw the online tutorials. Its like doing surgery, anyone tried it before?

Cheers~

yes your right. I was doing much research on it past few days. A lot of care has to be done, but not entirely impossible.    Still I do not have the "sucker" so cant remove the front glass.
Agreed.
=) I dont think we have those in Kuching. Or maybe have, I have no idea. Switch can upgrade for me ?
Initially I got the Invalid node structure, and Invalid sibling link error. Found via Disk Utility (boot from DVD). Then I could not select / mount / access the HDD. After much dismay I loaded DiscWarrior which found heaps of errors and tried to repair, and gave me result saying could not save due to hardware error.  I was like, is this for real ? Maybe it was failing and I manage to provoke it. 

So I moved out some data which I still have not back up to my external drives via Preview. Then Rebooted again to OSX DVD. Back to Disk Utility and found that I can click the HDD again (no more grey out) ! So quickly I formatted it, and remounted it. 

Did another reboot, just in case and loaded the 10.6 DVD =) (I was still on 10.5 before the Invalid's came along) By the time I was done installing it was 3.40 am this morning. So far.. So good. Did few more disc utility test. and it says the drive is healthy and functioning properly. 

Anyways I'll be monitoring the HDD for now, hopefully its not an hardware error, else I really need to do surgery on it. Lucky I have my MBP to entertain me when my Imac was out!

@dvlzplayground
I did post the hdapm workaround last time but dare not try myself as it change the Apple Power Management and make the HD spins and spins. I'm afraid it will cause more problem than solving it.

@tarvalslain87
Wahhh just 2 month only bought ... already mau kaput ka? Not all clicking sound means HD want to kaput. There are type of clicking that indicate the HD want to kaput. This 'click' is the sound when the HD head is parked. It affect a bit on the HD performance when the 'click' happens. Infact, from my previous googling on this, I found mix reaction from MB/MBP user that use WD Scorpio Blue. Some will have the 'clicks' and some don't. Dunno why that happens but from wht I've read here ... dvlzplayground, me and another forumer (that tried the hdapm) did encounter this 'clicking' issue.

Since there's other alternatives to WD and SG, might try it later and see if it solve this problem. Mmmm ... now going to have another external HD for me to use.

Last time i've always trust IBM travelstar. I think hitachi already taken over the travelstar HD. I still have 2 IBM travelstar thats already reaching 10 years, taken from my very old laptop (RIP) and still can be used up till today.

Aisey, now Seagate has already come out with hybrid drives already. The Momentus XT. 4GB SSD + Hard drive spinning at 7200RPM. Think it'll be good for our macs?

As for the most reliable drives list for macs, I think...

1. Hitachi
2. Seagate / Toshiba
3.
4.
5. WD (Most problematic)

u also have to remember that WD is the most problematic also because it's the most widely available. kinda like why there are more ppl complaining about streamyx rather than P1 ;p

any experiences with samsung drives?

Yeap SSD definitely is a whole new level of time saving when it comes to booting up your comp or applications... Many people have commented that they are very satisfied and worth every money spent on their SSD...

But I guess i still can bear the waiting of apps to boot as I dont have a budget to get one =(... I guess ill be one of those people who will wait till it hit mainstream price haha which is maybe a few years down the road..

I'm asking this question cause getting the FB-DIMM directly from Apple will cause me a bomb, further mine still covered by ACPP. So need someone that have experience on this. If no one can answer this then later I'll ask wei or eithanius.

lol, mine is still okay. my scorpio blue 640GB just install last week. still working as per normal.
i guess im just lucky. maybee (still monitoring for any click)

i'll wait until SSDs are at least rm2 per GB

Hmmm..who said the cheapest intel is rm 800 ?? Check out the 40gb intel ssd for rm 413.

before you upgrade anything, upgrade to ssd first, the different is night and day.

I would actually allocate at least 60-100GB for my Windows for my window files and games... That should be more than enough for a windows partition... Maybe put some songs etc also...

looking at ur sig...why the hell are you doing video encoding on ur MBW?

assuming u're talking about bootcamp lah

Hmm Im not into video editting and stuff... The reason im going bootcamp is to be able to play some games that arent compatible with mac and also some word processing... Others will be done on Mac OSX =) Oh I do run CCleaner to clean up those unused cache, temporary files etc...

^ i've always thought water cooling is scary

Im not a hardcore gamer and I do have a core i7 desktop with gtx260 which can play most of the current games with high settings... Just that some light gaming on the Mac would be enough for me...

@dvlz & feins Yea Im also quite paranoid with water cooling system for my PC... Always have the feeling that someday it will shoot water all over my PC and blow it up.. LOL

guys, i'm planning to upgrade my MacBook 2.16GHz's RAM from 2GB to 3GB.

question, is it okay for me to use two different RAM brands? (value RAM only) I've searched the forum but seems like not many people are doing that.

FYI, my machine can only support 3GB max. anything more than that will be wasted except for the dual-channel thingy but from wat I understand it won't affect the performance much.

Furthermore, some users faced problem with KVR according to this thread (eg. kernel panic)

I'm currently on 1GB+1GB so I just need to get a 2GB then can dy. Or maybe I should just forget about it, tahan a bit longer then get a new comp?

Hey guys, I'm trying to apply the "Security Update 2010-004" update. It's been showing me the rainbow spinner for the past 2+ hours. Is this normal? Or what should I do about it...