![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesLesson learned today: Next time I have to buy a desktop, I am springing for the more expensive Macs, instead of an iMac*, if only because iMacs are a pain and a half to take apart because all the bits are built into the monitor. Let me run you through the adventures of getting a new hard drive:
1. Take off the piece of glass covering the screen. It's held on by magnets, so you need special suction cups.
2. Unscrew the case and take the front off.
3. Remove the LCD screen itself (and the cables attaching it to the rest of the computer)
And now I can finally get at the hard drive and most of the rest of the computer innards. Things like RAM upgrades are easier, since Apple assumes that anyone can change RAM, but I think Apple assumes that all the hardcore computer nuts will get a higher-end computer, and the people who buy iMacs aren't the kind of people who do it themselves.
But, still, I triumphed, and right now my external drive is transferring the files back onto my iMac, which now has a working 2 TB drive. I feel nerdy, but also competent.
(Next project is converting my old Powerbook Laptop into an external hard drive -- which means levering off the keys on the keyboard to get into the laptop guts. At least with the laptop, since the backlight to the screen is broken, I don't care if it goes back in one piece -- I just figure a perfectly good hard drive shouldn't go to waste.)
* I could get a PC, except most of my software is Mac-stuff, and work stuff is better done on a Mac or Linux machine, and most of my play-stuff for which the OS matters** is art stuff, rather than gaming stuff, which lends itself to Mac.
** By which I mean, ignoring 'goofing off on the net' and 'writing' and 'watching DVDs'.
1. Take off the piece of glass covering the screen. It's held on by magnets, so you need special suction cups.
2. Unscrew the case and take the front off.
3. Remove the LCD screen itself (and the cables attaching it to the rest of the computer)
And now I can finally get at the hard drive and most of the rest of the computer innards. Things like RAM upgrades are easier, since Apple assumes that anyone can change RAM, but I think Apple assumes that all the hardcore computer nuts will get a higher-end computer, and the people who buy iMacs aren't the kind of people who do it themselves.
But, still, I triumphed, and right now my external drive is transferring the files back onto my iMac, which now has a working 2 TB drive. I feel nerdy, but also competent.
(Next project is converting my old Powerbook Laptop into an external hard drive -- which means levering off the keys on the keyboard to get into the laptop guts. At least with the laptop, since the backlight to the screen is broken, I don't care if it goes back in one piece -- I just figure a perfectly good hard drive shouldn't go to waste.)
* I could get a PC, except most of my software is Mac-stuff, and work stuff is better done on a Mac or Linux machine, and most of my play-stuff for which the OS matters** is art stuff, rather than gaming stuff, which lends itself to Mac.
** By which I mean, ignoring 'goofing off on the net' and 'writing' and 'watching DVDs'.
