2TB fusion hard drive dead...Replace with internal or ...?

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iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display (Mid 2017)

Model A1419 / EMC 3070 / Mid 2017 / 3.4, 3.5 or 3.8 GHz Core i5 or 4.2 GHz Core i7 Kaby Lake Processor (ID iMac18,3) / Retina 5K display. Refer to the older iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display (Late 2014 & 2015) guides as the system is very similar.

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Terry Carrigan @terrycarrigan

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Gepost: 18 uur geleden31 jan. 2026

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2TB fusion hard drive dead...Replace with internal or ...?

So my iMac hard drive is dead, will not boot up. Should I open the computer or is there a way to simply use an EXTERNAL SSD? If So, how do I boot up from it if my internal hard drive is dead? Which external SSD should I use? or should I just swap out the internal dead one with an SSD. I also hear the the existing Fusion hard drive might have some other thing inside that I have to replace.

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DanJ @danj Rep: 497,7k Self employed contract worker 35 339 975 · Answer 1 · 2026-01-31T11:43:06-07:00

Any external drive HDD or SSD that is setup as a bootable drive will allow you to at least test the system drive. Here is a bit weird as the HDD drive is the 2TB that is actually holding you files, the small Blade SSD hidden on the back side of the logic board is a Cache drive to the HHD hence where the Fusion Drive comes from.

So you'll need to create a bootable drive to start things off. Frankly I would just grab a 32GB thumb drive to use here. Do you have access to a second Mac as that makes things easier. From it reformat the thumb drive with a GUID Journaled file system so you have a clean drive. Then download to it from the Apple Store the same version your iMac is using. Copy the file to to the drive and then convert it into a bootable image following this guide Create a bootable installer for macOS

Then with it plugged in it should boot-up! Now go to the menu bar to open disk Utilities and run Disk first aid on the top level point did it run through cleanly?

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display (Mid 2017)

2TB fusion hard drive dead...Replace with internal or ...?

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