iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2805 Hard Drive Replacement

The wedge is an extremely tight fit for this model. I was worried that the amount of force needed to use it as shown might damage the stand, so I used it with the long side down instead. It worked fine that way and didn’t need anywhere near as much force to insert.

Here’s a good YouTube vid on upgrading the RAM: Can a Normal Person Upgrade the RAM in the 2017 21.5" iMac?

Here are a couple tips from me:

1) Expose the adhesive to extreme temperatures. I did this by transporting my iMac in my car, screen-down on a piece of cardboard on a cold February morning (in Chicago). When I went to pick up the iMac, the screen practically fell off the chassis. I would have been distraught by this if I hadn’t already planned this replacement. So it was a happy accident.

2) Remember to expell the residual power from the power supply by pushing the power button while the iMac is unplugged. This does NOT guarantee it’s safe to touch, but when I accidentally brushed the solder and exposed capacitors, I didn’t get shocked.

Instead of using the wedge, I placed the iMac faced up with the top side (web cam) facing me while I ran the pizza roller around. It worked out great!

“All iMacs also come with a traditional hard drive” mine doesn’t!! it’s HDD bay is completely empty, no SATA cable or anything. I guess I’ll have to upgrade the PCIe SSD instead.

There is no replacement glass for this model, it is part of the LCD and impossible to remove or replace- the entire LCD has to be replaced unfortunately if the glass is cracked or damaged. You will have to Google search for a replacement. Also be careful with some of the lock tight tork screws as I broke one of my screw mounts taking one out.

Don’t get too worried about starting exactly where the picture says. The glue is stronger in some parts so just start wherever is easier and then work slowly and patiently around in the direction shown.

As this guide doesn’t cover replacing the adhesive strips, I found referring to the following was useful (noting that it’s not for the same model of iMac, so the modification they mention wasn’t necessary): iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2544 Adhesive Strips Replacement

It is very easy to crack the glass in front of the LCD during this step. I used the guitar pick, maybe it was too thick… crack is just on the frame but anyway it is disappointing :(

Erreur de traduction: "de bas en haut" et non de" haut en bas" sur le côté gauche de l'écran

If re-opening a screen that was opened and re-attached using iFixit’s adhesive strips, I would strongly recommend heating it first with an iOpener, heat gun or hair dryer. 20 minutes after attaching with the iFixit adhesive I tried to open it again with the pizza slicer to fix something and cracked the screen on the left-hand side.

In this step can I cut along the display without make any damage to the front camera?

Hi! Actually - there is no need to cut the tape around the camera area - there is no tape to cut at all! And so, the way go is easy - just pass 10 mm to the left and to the right from camera and start cutting!

P.S. Just did the whole procedure to replace a RAM and to add SSD on PSIe an hour ago! Seems to be different reading the instructions... you know - 2/10 and so on. But it's really not that hard, trust me. I'll give it 5/10.

P.P.S. By the way there is one trick to pass the difficult steps. Any action which requires pulling smth (motherboard, speaker, power supply unit) from the narrow crack (or should i say - slit?) at the bottom of your Imac is really not so easy.

And the trick is to first remove a thin metal stripe with some kind of insulation on it which held by 5 small (very small!!) screws at the bottom of your Imac. After you done it - it's easy to pull everything! Pay attention to the fact that one of this 5 screws at the center are more shortly than others.

After doing the replacement the adhesive still sticks quite good enough to hold the screen in place. Maybe this isn't rock-solid, but enough for me.

You can add a SATA SSD if you already have a PCIe SSD Factory?

Yes, do it many times to loosen the adhesive.

this step is extremely important NOT to stick in the cards too far….. doing so, you risk a 600 euro replacement as I experienced………

I drew a 3/8” line on my cards with a marker first.

I’m reading this on the EU store, please change all measurements to cm/mm.

This part must be done very carefully or you can damage the flat cable from display, despite it was under a iron cover.

Does anyone know where to find a replacement display cable for the 2014?

PN: 923-00047

PBMedic is out of stock

Pay attention to this photo and where the fan is. It is 180° from where the previous step shows it is oriented to you.

During the reassembly process I found it very difficult to plug the power/data cable on to the new hard drive. On my machine it’s very short and the fact that the cable comes into the plug from below at 90 degrees means it’s hard to keep straight on to the drive. I found this process could be made much easier by undoing 2 x T10 screws and CAREFULLY (there are cables attached) moving the adjacent speaker assembly a little away from the drive, reattaching once done. Hope this helps

I found that there is one more torx screw underneath the hdd when you take it out. If you remove this it seems to be easier to reattach the SATA cable to the new drive.

Followed the instructions in this guide using the included tool that I got with the strips. Everything worked great. Put in a brand new Samsung 850 Evo 250GB Drive. The guide makes it sound a little bit more complicated but everything went pretty smooth. Just took it slow and easy.

About torx is this good or what should I buy? https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00CIIM...=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If replacing with an SSD, do you just use a mount? (I’ve don't this replacement in 27” models and the hard drive doesn’t have a silicone casing so I’m wondering how to get around this)

Great guide. I wanted to upgrade my late 2012 as much as I could to accommodate my large iTunes library. So with a little bit of cutting on the rubber hard drive cushion, I put a 15mm 5 TB hard drive and replaced the 120GB blade SSD with OWC’s 1 TB blade SSD. Now have 5.95 TB of fast usable space with my fusion drive.

No temperature sensor issues on this? I know the 27” needs a temperature sensor adapter.

I couldn’t get the SATA cable connected again with the rubber sleeve on. Luckily my iMac had it in two separate pieces to stick to the long sides only, so I plugged it in first and carefully attached the bumpers after.

What’s the trick to connect the SATA cable to the disk?? There’s very little play in the connector. Am unable to position it properly to get a connection. Maybe my fingers are too large.

Also, the photos are a bit misleading with regard to disconnecting the data display cable - show tweezers pulling on the distal end of the cable, which, is very fragile. Pictures should be improved and better description of that step added.

Success! For those contemplating this, it takes some persistence and a perfect diagonal positioning of the SATA cable connector to attach the hard drive. Geez - Apple always seems to make things so easy for us average joes and janes.