Can I use a WD10EZEX 1TB HDD with this iMac?

Hello experts,

I bought a 1TB WD drive WD10EZEX for my 2009 iMac.

Only after installation (and non-recognition) did the penny drop that it’s a SATA3 drive in a SATA2 iMac.

After a lot of reading and problem solving I found WD’s instructions regarding jumpers, these being used to limit the drive to 3GB/s.

Applying the jumper made no difference regarding boot up visibility.

The strange thing is that when the new drive is installed and the machine is booted from an external HDD via USB, the new drive is visible through Disk Utility, able to be formatted etc.

I then thought I had it sorted so used Carbon Copy to clone the old drive, and tried booting again from the new drive, no luck. In fact I can’t even get the machine to boot to any of the recovery options.

I’ve run though some problem solving options, including the internal power supply, and the internal SATA cable. I’ve searched for WD info and any data from the manufacturer assures me the drive can be jumpered to 3GB/s and is compatible.

Realising I may simply have hit a brick wall I’d none-the-less be grateful for any ideas or insights others may have.

For those who like full details of the kit involved, the iMac s/n is YM9212A00TF, and it is running 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM.

The Western Digital drive is a WD10EZEX “WDBlue PC Hard Drive.