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Hi All. Can someone pls help clarify the firmware situation for me pls? I have a 27 inch 5K late 2014 iMac and the 3TB fusion drive has failed. I have managed to determine that the conventional drive is the part at fault and I want to change it, but I am reading about custom firmware’s. Is this true? or am I able to just swap out for a new “off the shelf” Western Digital 3TB drive? If it is true about the firmware how do I get a compatible drive and how do i install the custom firmware. If I buy an identical drive to the 3TB Seagate drive, Can i just swap over the circuit board from the dead drive? Would that contain the custom firmware? Thank you for any advise you can offer.
When you use a non custom firmware HDD on iMac the HDD fan turns always high. To bypass that you can use OWC in-line sensor adapter sensor cable or MacFanControl software. Swapping the board could work if they are the same exact model (never done it so not a 100% sure it will work here) In addition to all of this you’ll need to recreate the Fusion Drive volume. On YouTube you’ll find a few vids on how to do it (English or French ), since putting in a new drive will not automatically restore your Fusion Drive. I don’t know a method to flash your HDD to be like Apple’s custom one.
