Replacing the Hard Drive in a 27 inch iMac

[David S]

I have a 27 inch iMac. Disk Utility is reporting that the drive is about to fail. Should be easy to replace the drive, right? Apparently not. Something about a thermal sensor.

OWC sells a kit that includes a stick-on thermal sensor, allowing the use of any drive. However, I assume that if I use a compatible Seagate drive, then I won’t need the external sensor. Right?

Does anyone have specific knowledge about this? Anyone know a specific 1TB or 2TB drive that will work? I need to do this tonight which is why I can’t wait for an OWC shipment. Microcenter and Staples are nearby.

Thanks


The specifics:
Late 2009 27 inch 2.8 GHz Core i7 iMac.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac11,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
Drive: Seagate ST31000528ASQ

S.M.A.R.T. Status : Failing