Replace Optical With Hard Drive?

The operating system on the hard drive is corrupted, or the hard drive is not available. The procedure for starting from the startup disk varies a bit depending on the model of iMac. On the oldest ones (CRT iMac) and some of the early display-on-a-dome models, hold down the "C" key while starting the computer. This will force the computer to bypass the hard drive and boot directly from the startup optical disk. (If the C key doesn't work, restart and follow the option key procedure in the next paragraph.)

On newer Macs, hold down the option key while pressing the power button until you see that the boot loader is running. You should see an icon for at least one drive on the screen, perhaps followed by another. One of these is for the optical drive. It may take several tens of seconds for the optical drive icon to appear, particularly on older iMacs. Use the arrow or tab keys to select that one, then press return to start loading the system on that disk. If you only see the optical drive icon, that confirms there is a problem with the hard drive. Try Disk Utility anyway; if it can find the hard drive, there is some possibility of recovering it, or reformatting and loading from your backup. If the hard drive icon appears in the startup option screen, Disk Utility may be able to repair the problem if it is a file system issue affecting system loading. If a fundamental system file is corrupted, you will likely have to reinstall the OS.

In the worst case, the hard drive has a physical problem. Most of the time this is mechanical (sometimes announced with repeated, regular clicking noises as the drive vainly hunts for its starting position). Rattling noises (like the head has separated from its arm and is bouncing around) are also most unwelcome. Occasionally, the problem is with the controller board on the hard drive. In this case, if you can find another drive of the same model, you can swap controller boards (doing so successfully requires observing electrostatic discharge safety procedures to prevent zapping the drive, and properly identifying and operating the latch mechanism for the ribbon cable connector that connects the board to the drive mechanism). Generally, however, you have to replace the hard drive. Once in a while, the problem is with the cable between the hard drive and the logic board. On the old Macs with IDE drives (40-line ribbon cable connecting both optical drive and hard drive on some, two such cables on other models), there may be a bad connection on one wire because the wire is not properly seated in its two-tined fork inside the connector. To reseat the wires, gently push the cable down right at the connector shell (towards the surface of the connector shell that is pushed onto the pins of the drive or logic board). Do not put a crease bend on the cable there; you're just trying to make sure the wire is in the bottom of its fork. Repeat on the other side of the connector with the end of the cable (use a fingernail to catch the edge of the cable end).

It is not connected properly. Try reseating. Check hard drive if possible and was recently removed. Then check BIOS to verify drive was picked by laptop.

Desktop motherboards usually have two IDE controller connections, a Primary one and a Secondary one.
The hard drive is attached to the Primary IDE connector and the hard drive has the jumper set to Master and the hard drive is normally connected to the last connector on the IDE data cable. There is a second connector on the same cable and if a optical drive is connected to this cable then the jumper on this optical MUST be set as a Slave drive.
If you connect the second optical on an IDE cable that is connected to the Secondary IDE controller and it is the only drive on this cable then the jumper on the optical drive can be set to either Master or Slave. If there is another drive on this IDE cable the they cannot be set with the same setting.

Hi,go to bios setting first boot would be the hard disk and the second booth would be the optical drive.thanks

Hi das4real! These are the things to consider.

• Operating system disk - Try to test your Installation CD to other computer. If it doesn't work then you need to replace the disk

• Optical Drive (CD/DVD Drive) - If Installation disk works then try to clean your Optical drive lens as it may be having a hard time reading the disk. Your Optical drive is working since you're able to format and able to start the installation. Cleaning the drive lens may do the trick.

• Hard Drive - If Installation CD and Optical drive is clean. Then the last thing you need is to replace the Hard Drive. You Hard Drive might need replacement due to some bad sectors and the installation couldn't write anything on the drive that causes to freeze during installation.

I hope this helps you.

Go to your BIOS by pressing F2 key and check if Hard drive and Optical drive is detected. Go to boot option and check if the Optical Drive is in the first option and Hard drive second, so that you can RUN OPERATING SYSTEM SETUP form Optical drive if there's no OPERATING SYSTEM INSTALLED.

you probaly got to many virus and got hard drive faliure

I see this as one of 2 possible failures.

1. Optical drive failing. Take out the Hard drive, see if the recovery disk, or another bootable disk will boot. If no change, replace the optical drive.
2. Hard Drive failing. If the system will boot to a CD with the HDD out or if replacing the optical drive has no change, then the HDD is the next logical failure point.

Reseat both the Hard Drive and Optical drive and see if they detect. If they do not, then a HDD failure is most likely. The I8000 is quirky in that if the HDD fails, the Optical drive will not work.

If reseating doesn't resolve, Replace the HDD and the optical drive should work. (Controller is a serial design and neither drive will function if the other fails)

I assume you are talking about the optical drive being a bit dodgey.
Just purchase an external optical drive and set your BIOS to boot from USB. First, check to make sure your computer supports that. If not, then just replace the drive?