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fonzbear2000
Premium Member
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN

fonzbear2000

Premium Member

What if the harddrive crashes on new iMac?

Since the newest iMac doesn't have a superdrive and doesn't include a copy of the OS along with it, what would you do if your harddrive crashes and you have to buy a new HDD to replace the old one with? How would you install the OS onto the new HDD?

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

1 edit

skeechan

Premium Member

Click for full size
The firmware can run ethernet or wireless along with a GUI for redownloading the OS. I've done it in other Macs a bunch of times (rather than cloning the old drive). Apple calls it "OS X Internet Recovery".

fonzbear2000
Premium Member
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN

fonzbear2000

Premium Member

Oh wow! That's pretty sweet and amazing!

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

Note that it takes a long time to download....

I tried it on a relatively fast 28meg cable connection, and it took over 2 hours to download... i guess it depends on whatever ISP and their connection/routing to the Apple servers.
Riamen
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Calgary

Riamen

Premium Member

It's never taken more than 15-20 minutes for me.
daveinpoway
Premium Member
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA

daveinpoway to fonzbear2000

Premium Member

to fonzbear2000
When everything is working properly, you could use SuperDuper! (or some other cloning program) to copy the contents of the hard drive over to an external drive. If the iMac's hard drive needs replacing in the future, you could then clone the external drive's contents to the replacement.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan to Riamen

Premium Member

to Riamen
For the entire OS or just the recovery tools? It downloads and executes the recovery tools first, then if you want to do a full reinstall it downloads the OS or you can do the other stuff like restore from TM. I have a 50Mb connection and it didn't DL the recovery tools and the OS in 30 minutes. It took a long time.
Riamen
Premium Member
join:2002-11-04
Calgary

Riamen

Premium Member

I was referring to the OS download. I've done it 3 times now and it has never taken anywhere close to 2 hours.

haroldo
join:2004-01-16
USA

haroldo to fonzbear2000

Member

to fonzbear2000
The friendly local Apple Store can restore it for you, too.

fonzbear2000
Premium Member
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN
·Verizon Wireless

fonzbear2000

Premium Member

said by haroldo:

The friendly local Apple Store can restore it for you, too.

For free even if you don't have Apple care?

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

If it is labor only I have no problems getting out of warranty help. If you call, they want money, but no problem for me at the bar.

haroldo
join:2004-01-16
USA

haroldo to fonzbear2000

Member

to fonzbear2000
said by fonzbear2000:

said by haroldo:

The friendly local Apple Store can restore it for you, too.

For free even if you don't have Apple care?

i believe so. They've never charged for out of warranty software issues. Last week they reformatted and reinstalled an out of warranty MacBook for me.

Count Zero
Premium Member
join:2007-01-18
Milton, FL

Count Zero to fonzbear2000

Premium Member

to fonzbear2000
With regards to "at the store" - I am quite sure they have a local copy of everything on their servers at the store so if you are using their wifi network I bet the data just comes straight off their servers. After all they have to do so many restores a day for hardware they're fixing it wouldn't make sense not to.

dellsweig
Extreme Aerobatics
MVM
join:2003-12-10
Campbell Hall, NY

dellsweig to fonzbear2000

MVM

to fonzbear2000
While OTA backup/restore is a good thing - you cant beat properly done local TimeMachine backup...

I have a 2TB IoSafe Fireproof/waterproof external drive (about 200$). My Time machine lives there as well as backups from other machines and any other file I cannot loose.

I also do Mozy online backups of everything except my music library (too big)..

Cheap insurance policy when your entire digital life is on a hard drive

kerriskandie
join:2001-10-09
Coram, NY

kerriskandie to fonzbear2000

Member

to fonzbear2000
I don't trust T Machine............not for 'mission critical'...

All my Macs are backed up to Ext ( sometimes networked) HD using CCC ( carbon Copy Cloner)......about once a fortnight/month at most.........

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

I agree, CCC or Superduper is a better final solution to guarantee you will be back up and running in short order, especially since you can boot right off the backup volume. TM is great for incrementals.