Upgrading my iMac's hard disk

Today started with a quick breakfast before I started working on my iMac.

My goal for the day was to replace my (late 2009 27") iMac's hard disk with a model that:
1) Allows me to upgrade to the latest OS X Sierra.
2) Is faster
3) Gives me more space

This is not as easy as with any other desktop PC... First you have to remove the glass.

Then you have to undo 8 screws around the LCD. This is not too hard but I was scared that I'd drop them into the computer. Nowhere did I read the advice about using a magnetic screwdriver so be ware!

You also have to undo 4 cables and you need to be gentle.

And when the screen is out you can see the hard disk. Smack bang in the middle. That comes out after undoing 2 screws.

Leaving you with room for a new hard disk.

Old and new hard disk. I'm replacing the old one because the thermal sensor inside is fucked and returns an error. This makes OS X the drive is failing (it actually works fine!) and therefore it won't upgrade anymore. That's Apple for you. Oh well...

So I'm putting in a 2TB SSD/HDD hybrid. A bit more space and a bit more speed but most important I can use the latest OS again.

So after putting everything back in the moment of truth arrived; would everything still work? And yes it did!

Within moments I was installed the old OS X that came with my Mac when I bought it (Snow Leopard).

Silver came to assist me with.... something he obviously thought was crucial.

I had to first upgrade to Mavericks before I could upgrade to Sierra but every upgrade went well with zero problems. Now I have a computer that actually feels like it's new!

Very pleased!

And after all that hard work it was time for some relaxation...

Silver knows how to relax. He is the relaxation f*ck*ng master. He's the pro, the best, the KING! of relaxing

My new iMac has arrived!

I got THE phonecall today. My iMac arrived and was ready to be picked up. So I ran to the tramstop ;-) Of course the bridge was open...

I took it home in a taxi. Wasn't gonna carry 16 kilos around town. Nice discrete brown packaging...

Inside it was the gorgeous iMac box.

And inside the box was the even more gorgeous brand new iMac.

27" iMac, Intel i5 quad core, 4GB RAM and 1TB HD and an ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB video RAM.

Late arvo I walked into town. I was meeting Mic, Nantko and Marjolein for Thai dinner.

Nantko, Mic, Marjolein and I joined a table quiz at the pub that night. We didn't suck too much and it was fun.

And on the way home the bloody bridge was open AGAIN!

The big ass blog entry!

The street that ours comes out onto - Main North Road - is known for it's many carsellers. Cars are incredibly cheap here. A small one is available from AUD 3999. That's about EUR 2666.

On todays trip we first stopped to fill up our car.

The predictions were true for once. We did get rain indeed. It has been raining on and off all day long. Tomorrow it seems we're going to be in for some bad weather with a temperature of max. 20C.

Fuel prices are quite low here I believe. Well, compared to prices in The Netherlands.

Traffic can be crazy...

Crazy indeed.

After dropping unused clothes off at the Salvation army we drove to Rundle mall where I had to hop in and out of Next Byte, the shop where I bought my iMac.

I had to pick up my copy of Parallels. That's software that enables me to run Microsoft Windows (and MS-DOS and Linux and OS/2 etc.) on my iMac.

We then proceeded to the local IKEA. The boys and girls from Sweden have come a long way it seems. We were primarily looking for a new bed but they didn't have anything interesting.

They did have Nicole's favourite herring though! Oh, and also VERY BAD Christmas songs (in English).

After all this hard work we went to Henley beach for lunch. Pictured is the Henley beach jetty.

We bought fish and chips and soon we were making big friends with the locals.

And the local's friends...

We threw chips in the air for them and some were quite capable of catching a chip in mid air!

But inevitably we ran out of chips and the disappointment and disbelief was great...

We also walked up the jetty a bit and sat down watching over the beach for a while. It's a hard life being unemployed.

Also I spotted a few funny licenseplates. This one spells "TERMIN8" (terminate).

Chloe also passed us.

And Jaras, obviously with polish roots.

And finally someone drives around with the message "No shit" for a certain "J". The plate reads "2JNOSHT". Very creative.

Walking into the mall I got one of the biggest shocks in my life. While passing the local cd store I found Andre bloody Rieu staring at me from a cd rack with all his cd's. I wonder now, HOW FAR does one have to move away to never see this dude again? I guess only the moon is safe...

In the Coles supermarket Christmas has also started.

There is always Dutch cheese to be found somewhere.

And now to make some Apple Mac users cry: I have installed Microsoft Windows Vista ON MY IMAC! ;-P Fair enough, this is virtualized, but still!

The new iMac

We did quite a lot today but unfortunately I forgot or wasn't able to make any pictures of those events myself. I pulled the phoneline into the flat together with Tony, Nic's dad, very happy to get that done. And in the evening we had a very nice and relaxed evening at the Daniel O'Connel Irish pub down town with Gianna, her mom Anna and Stephen, Caroline and Lachlan (pronounced "Lochlan" ;-)

Check out Nicole's blog here for pictures of the mentioned events!

Today I picked up my new computer. It's a brandnew iMac. The photo isn't showing because of my shit camera but it's a beautifull machine! For the geeks: 24" / 2.8GHz Dual Core Extreme / 2GB / 500GB. However, when we fired it up at home it wouldn't start. Aparently the 1GB extra RAM that was put in was faulty, after we took it out it worked fine. The shop will replace my faulty RAM tomorrow. It was a bit scary though...

OS X, the operating system that apple machines use is kinda new to me. I'm getting familiar with it rather quick though. It has some really cool features like the backup tool "Time machine" and also "Spaces" which enables a max. of 25 or even 36 different desktops. A feature that Linux/Unix has had for ages but I don't know if MS Windows now has this in Vista.

I'll probably write more about my iMac during the next days. I still have to get Parallels. This is virtualization software so I can run several versions of MS Windows on the iMac.

When we went to our car I noticed a little flying friend had used it as a landingspot.