So you may have noticed I had to take a bit of an extended hiatus recently? Just like years ago, mid-way through Book 2, my computer decided it was time to die. This time it was an error-ridden hard drive that kept slowing down and down until I couldn’t open a program without the computer crashing.

I looked into the cost of a replacement, but some friends convinced me to give something new a try: namely, cutting open my late-2012 iMac and replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive and upgrading the RAM while I’m at it. I figured, if it works, I’ll save a lot of money in the short-term and try something new, so why not?

Here are some shots of the process:

The operating table. Not pictured: a very shaky computer surgeon, how-to videos at the ready.

After cutting the adhesive from the screen, I had to take out… almost literally everything. This is only partway through and doesn’t fully capture how absolutely terrifying this was. (The RAM was underneath the motherboard to the right, for reference.)





A couple hours into the process, after all the natural light was long gone, I had it all pieced back together. RAM doubled to 16GB, 1TB SSD in place. Just had to reconnect the screen and apply new adhesive.

And then… the moment of truth:

Whew.