There are three methods here: IDE (ATA) drives are backward-compatible. You may as well buy an ATA-100 drive even if you only need ATA-66. You can always swap the drives back when you sell the iMac and use the bigger drive in your next computer.
1) Find a used drive. Upside: Save money and maybe never have a problem as long as you live. Downside: May have bad sectors, may have been jarred or banged around while the heads were on the media, etc. In other words, may be great or may be days from failure, or may be partly broken already (with the bad sectors formatted out). You takes your chances. 2) Buy a "retail box" drive. You can find them almost anywhere, you don't have to go to the Mac store or even a PC store (try Staples, Business Depot, etc). Upside: Fairly commonly sold, so you can shop around for the best deal. Comes with some kind of Manufacturer's Warranty. You can take it back to the retailer fairly easily if it is somehow no good right after installing it. Downside: Not much, but keep to proven brand names. Can cost a little more than the lowest prices you will see, more about that in option 3. I have had good luck with Maxtor (my G4/400 even had one with an Apple decal on it) but some others swear by the IBM XP(I think) drives. Check out accelerateyourmac.com for other's experiences. 3) Buy an "OEM" drive. This is a "HD in a bag" with probably a little scrap of paper inside with some gibberish about installing on a PC and (hopefully) some info for the jumper settings. These drives are a little cheaper than the retail box drives, but otherwise should be the same. I have used them without problems, but this is only an option if you don't need any hand-holding. I suggest buying locally and in person, and getting a written warranty or return/exchange option in case the drive is bad. Upside: You may save 50 bucks over the retail box version. Downside: A bad drive will cause you grief. Some of these drives (the ones with the super low prices on the net) come with no warranty whatsoever. They SHOULD have some kind of warranty from the manufacturer, but it will be limited and may require much hoop-jumping to get a replacement; thus the local store/exchange policy warning. You in all likelyhood will be buying from a store that speaks "PC Geek" only (look for a place that sells motherboards, fans, CPUs and cases to PC build-your-own-box types). Mere mention of Mac may send them into the back room never to appear again SO DON'T MENTION IT. Act like you know what you are doing. OEM parts: Are parts that are actually supposed to be sold to PC Manufacturers only, and not the general public. Thus the low prices and bulk packaging. Depending on exactly how they were ordered, they may have no warranty at all (PC mfr "eats" any bad parts in exchange for very lowest prices) or a very limited warranty (the only kind you should consider). The super-cheap parts you find on the net are always OEM versions. SOME vendors get these things from bankrupt PC makers, or otherwise Surplus means; hence no support from the drive maker and many angry customers. However, this is still a good way to save if you have a local dealer who will exchange bad units for an identical one (probably from the same bulk shipment, however). You need to set up the jumpers correctly (Master if you replace a drive with this one or Slave if you can install 2 drives on the same IDE bus). I understand opening an iMac's case can be tricky and I am going to annoy you with another warning: IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, NEVER OPEN A COMPUTER WITH A BUILT-IN MONITOR. If you think you can handle this, you are on your own. Video monitors require power supplies with many thousands of volts and some components in these power supplies will store energy for months. Just unplugging it is not enough to make it safe. Get good directions and follow them carefully. IT CAN KILL YOU. -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
