mindstormer398 Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 I recently obtained a 20", revision A iMac G5 for free. It boots, but sits with a blinking folder icon with a question mark on it. From my research this means that the HDD is probably bad (sort of confirmed by the fact that I can't install Ubuntu on it). I have also opened it up and noticed some bulging and leaking capacitors which is apparently a really common problem, I know how to get replacements and do that repair. I am having trouble finding a suitable replacement hard drive. From what I can tell, the logic board in this iMac only supports SATA 1.5gb/s transfer protocol, but I can't find any new mainstream drives on Amazon or Newegg that support this, they all have 3.0 or 6.0 gb/s transfer now. Does anyone know where I could get such a drive? I am looking for anywhere from 120 gb to 500 gb and want to stay on a decent budget, taking into account that I got this for free so I don't really want to put money into it as I am unsure how many more problems it has. I also need to find an apple keyboard that has option and command keys, etc. that I can use to boot with alternate devices. +-------------------------+| . . . . Pure F2P . . . .|+-------------------------+| || 73 74 73 75 70 86 65 80 || || 85 80 80 80 80 80 80 65 |+-------------------------+| Combat: 092 Total: 1235 |+-------------------------+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeky16 Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 I'm pretty sure all SATA are backwards compatible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Diddy Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 Im up to 95% sure that any SATA drive will work, it will be clocked at slower speeds due to the motherboard to 1.5 g/s. The 5% uncertainty is because it is a Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindstormer398 Posted May 28, 2011 Author Share Posted May 28, 2011 After your replies I looked up SATA backwards compatibility and it seems that 3gb/s are compatible with 1.5gb/s boards. But I can't find anything that says 6gb/s drives are backwards compatible 2 generations. I guess I should just get a 3gb/s drive? +-------------------------+| . . . . Pure F2P . . . .|+-------------------------+| || 73 74 73 75 70 86 65 80 || || 85 80 80 80 80 80 80 65 |+-------------------------+| Combat: 092 Total: 1235 |+-------------------------+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasignhagj Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 Id just get a 3.0gb/s drive, there's no point paying more for SATA III if you can't use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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