After reading your post, all I can say is "WOW!". Where to start... well, I guess I'll address each one of my concerns below...
I'm a bit of a novice at this. I just had my iMac HD die yesterday and am functioning at the moment off a 2 year old SimpleTech-Simple Drive back-up External HD that I had last backed up on Dec 12 with SuperDuper. I am running Tiger and am in no position to get a whole new system forcing an upgrade to Lion (and thus all my other software, plus learning curve for everything new!)
How do you know the drive is dead? Just because the machine doesn't boot from the drive doesn't mean that it's failed (physically). A Seagate drive from 2 years ago should have a 3-5 year warranty. So, you definitely don't need to buy a new one.
And if it hasn't truly failed, there may be some simple processes you can run to recover your data and/or repair the issue.
I'm thinking that rather than spring for a new iMac and have to upgrade all my software, that it would be cheaper and just as well for now to get 2 new Western Digital MyBook for Mac External HDs, copy over all my data from the current SimpleTech and use one as a new Back-Up and use the other as my actual "new HD."
Is this possible? What is the difference between a HD that is being used as an "external back-up" and an internal one?
The difference is that the external drive is in a plastic box with a USB-to-SATA adapter built into it. Otherwise, the two drives are mostly the same.
I had this same HD failure happen 2 years ago, and the only Mac guy we have in my small town installed an internal Seagate 500MB HD (which cost $100), while he charged me $500-600 to do this and transfer the data.
Still trying to stop choking over this. He charged you HOW much?
He is unquestionably fleecing you. For half of what he charged you, you could have packed it up and shipped it to a repair company and had it back to your doorstep in a couple of days.
This is a 1 hour job for someone who isn't particularly handy. If he truly is a "Mac guy", then it should have been 30 minutes, tops. The drive costs between $50-75 from most online retailers (at the time). So, if you paid $500, then $425 was for an hour's worth of his time (max). The cost for the data transfer should have been nominal since all he needed to do was run the right tool and watched it do its thing.
Then he had me go to Best Buy and get the SimpleTech $100 external 500MB HD to use as the backup (which is what I'm running off of this moment.)
So, he couldn't even bundle a $100 external hard drive in at his rate of $500-600? And he sent you to (gulp) Best Buy so that you could pay FULL RETAIL for what you could have gotten anywhere else on the web at 50% of the cost.
I know it seems harsh, but this guy saw you coming and took FULL advantage.
In speaking with him yesterday, he wants me to buy a new iMac and pay him to transfer all my stuff into the upgraded Lion (plus I'd of course have to buy all new software, etc.)
Please, if you take nothing else away from this post, PLEASE just don't ever speak to this thief again. And make sure that all of your friends and family know that this guy is a complete con artist.
Guys like this make those of us who are true professionals look bad.
I do not see what the difference is between a $100 internal and a $100 external - it just seems like a racket to scare me into paying unnecessarily for all this work to have the HD sitting inside my iMac.
Although they are just hard drives, one being inside of a plastic box and the other being inside your Mac, there is a functional difference. Because the speed of the connection is much slower connected via USB, you're going to take a huge performance hit overall on your iMac.
I realize eventually I will have to upgrade, but I'm in no position to do that this moment and need to understand if I can indeed just use a new WesternDigital External HD as my "main" HD while backing up to another one as a safety.
Am I wrong? Can my idea work?
Thanks in advance for your input & advice!
It can, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off the internal drive. Run this tool:
Volitans Software- Makers of SMART Utility for the Mac
...to get an accurate assessment of what's going on with the drive. If it has truly failed, you should be able to file a warranty claim with Seagate and get it replaced. But don't be so quick to write it off.
As far as cracking open the iMac to swap it, that's going to be more complicated since you don't have someone you can trust.
How handy are you with a screw driver?