On Dec 1, 2010, at 6:09 PM, Tom wrote:
I bought a 500-gig drive for her from OWC and intended to replace the old one with the new. Then on searching for instructions to swap out the drive online, I find numerous warnings that this is not a Mac intended for owners to open up.
I just replaced a HD in an eMac and I was impressed with the quality of the construction. Since the eMac was the final CRT Mac, and Apple is the highest quality AIO manufacturer, it would seem that the eMac may represent the pinnacle of an era in computing that has now past us by forever.
It wasn't too difficult to replace the HD in an eMac, and not too dangerous in my opinion. The disassembly is in units, and the number of screws for each unit is small, usually 4 or less, so you can get to the HD with less than 20 screws total, and it's relatively simple. Once I understood how it was assembled, I could get to the HD in less than 10 minutes, and a total HD replacement would be less than 30 minutes for me.
These old eMacs evidently overclock well, and also can be quieted down with a fan controller. I'd strongly recommend you max out the RAM if you're going to use one of these old eMacs. Personally I'd never use an eMac, I get bad headaches with CRTs, and the cost of electricity for running a CRT means the break-even payback period for a more energy efficient LCD is only 3 years, which is one reason you won't see any CRTs in businesses any longer, they cost too much money in electricity to run compared to LCDs.
One thing you might want to check is the HD type. Most 500GB drives are SATA drives, and the eMac takes an older PATA HD. It'd be a real bummer to open it up only to find you've got the wrong HD.
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