It seems there is a workaround for this. One can buy an external Thunderbolt SSD, and set up a Fusion Drive. Since Thunderbolt is extremely fast, this is a low cost, low work solution that is very suitable for desktop machines like the iMac.
There are a lot of guides online on how to set up the disks.
It boils down to
- Backing up your machine using Time Machine
- Install OS X onto a third external drive.
- Boot from said drive.
- Create fusion drive over external SSD and internal HD.
- Reboot from fusion drive and re-install OS X, restore from Time Machine
Maybe one can skip the install to external HD, since newer Macs come with Internet Recovery. This would save quite a bit of work.
Once in recovery, you can see your disks using diskutil list. Let's say you see the disks disk1s2 (internal HD, OS X partition) and disk2 (clean SDD).
Now you can create the Fusion Drive:
sudo diskutil cs create [ArbitraryName] disk2 disk1s2
sudo diskutil cs createVolume [UUID] jhfs+ [ArbitraryName] 100%
The output of the first command results in a UUID which you use in the second command.
After this, you should be able re-install or restore OS X onto the Fusion Drive.
I haven't tried this yet, it is merely a summary of the linked article! So be careful and make backups!
You should try to boot your OS in verbose mode or safe mode to see whether you can fix it or not.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201573
If you really need to reinstall Mac OS X Yosemite, I'd suggest you run this script from any Mac, you need to have Yosemite downloaded in /Applications.
#!/bin/sh
# Mount the installer image
hdiutil attach /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_app
# Convert the boot image to a 8GB sparse bundle
hdiutil convert /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.dmg -format UDSP -o /tmp/Yosemite
hdiutil resize -size 8g /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage
# Mount the sparse bundle for package addition
hdiutil attach /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build
# Copy Packages and Base System files to the sparse bundle
rm /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/Packages
cp -rp /Volumes/install_app/Packages /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/
cp -p /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem* /Volumes/install_build/
# Unmount the installer image and sparse bundle
hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_app
hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_build
# Resize the partition in the sparse bundle to remove any free space
hdiutil resize -size `hdiutil resize -limits /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage | tail -n 1 | awk '{ print $1 }'`b /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage
# Convert the sparse bundle to ISO/CD master
hdiutil convert /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage -format UDTO -o /tmp/Yosemite
rm /tmp/Yosemite.sparseimage
mv /tmp/Yosemite.cdr ~/Desktop/Yosemite.iso
Credit goes to the person who wrote that script for Maverick
You can then restore the ISO using Disk Utility on a 8Gb USB Stick and it will be bootable.
Best Answer
Yes it is possible to diagnose and install macOS on an iMac with a broken LCD and missing hard drive.
The iMac all-in-ones from that vintage has a mini Display Port for a second display. It supports Leopard through El Capitan. Here’s what you’ll need at a minimum:
As for a keyboard, I’m assuming it comes with one, but if it doesn’t, you don’t need an Apple one; a cheap USB keyboard will work fine. Just remember, the “Windows” and “Alt” keys are the Command and Option keys, respectively.