Hard Drive Problems or Virus?

I was working on my four-year-old MacBook Pro with an external keyboard (Logitech), when it suddenly began typing in capital letters. I pushed the CAPS LOCK button, but that didn't fix it. When I used my external mouse (also Logitech) to insert my cursor in some text, it automatically highlighted a block of text.
I then tried typing with the MacBook Pro's keyboard, and it worked fine. However, my computer is serious scr*wed up. When I reboot it, it opens up a "Safe Boot" screen.
I can't connect to the Internet because the little WiFi icon that's supposed to appear at the top right is gone. Nor can I connect with my Verizon modem. When I click the Verizon Manager icon, the VAAccess manager window opens, but the button I'm supposed to click to connect to the Internet never becomes active.
So I'm thoroughly confused. My computer has been acting a little odd for the last few weeks or months. It seems to be a little sluggish. Dreamweaver, especially, frequently freezes up for a long time when I'm working with it.
On several occasions, my entire computer froze. I couldn't move the cursor, and it didn't respond to any key or combination of keys I pushed on my keyboard. I have no choice but manually turn it off.
I generally use Opera or Chrome browsers, often with lots of tabs open. I think these are the biggest drains on my computer's memory. I sometimes get some sort of error message on Chrome, which invites me to open a new tab to some resource that's supposed to fix it. The only way to close the error message is to open the new tab, which I then close. I don't know if this might be related to my problem or not.
Anyway, does anyone have a clue what's going on? Is there a simple test I can do to determine whether the problem is related to the hard drive or a virus?
Thank you.
II

Hi
+"Anyway, does anyone have a clue what's going on? Is there a simple test I can do to determine whether the problem is related to the hard drive or a virus?"+
Highly unlikely it would be a virus as Barry says. A simple 'test' could be creating another admin account, logging in with it and seeing if the sluggishness you've noticed in your other account is still there. If things appear to be improved odds are confused/corrupted caches and/or damaged/corrupted preferences or plists are the culprits. Then again this could be an indication of a failing hard drive? As a matter of course you should boot from the Installer DVD that came with your laptop and use Disk Utility to repair the disk and/or Repair privileges and permissions. Although you can repair P/P normally when logged in. There are hundreds of threads on these boards detailing what can be thrown away in terms of caches etc.
You say you've had the laptop for 4 years? Presumably you've never 'serviced' it in all that time? What constitutes a 'service' varies from person to person. But what I normally do is every 18-24 months is backup (something you should be doing anyway), reformat/reinstall and migrate everything back again. Depending on usage you may want to either shorten or lengthen that period. Then again you could boot from a Drive/Directory Repair Utility such as DiskWarrior. For some people that works equally as well. No need for a reinstall that way.
My 2p.
Tony

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Been having Hard Drive Problems

I've been experiencing hard drive problems recently and this started 2 weeks ago. I'm not an expert in the hardware department (bare with me) but I own a 2.26ghz 2009 MBP and the hard drive has been fine up until recently. Not gonna lie, it's performance has decreased significantly over the years and Mountain Lion slowed it even futher.
Anyway I noticed it lagged after waking it from sleep; to the point where it wouldn't respond for longer than 10mins. I had to force shutdown several times, and was afraid of putting it to sleep in fear of encoutering the same problem over and over again.There was one day, where this happened , and it just died on me. Upon bootup, a logo appeared (circle with a cross through it, something to do with startup files?) so I force shutdown again, but everytime afterwards, I'd just get the grey screen of death.
At first I thought it was a virus, but then I took it into an Apple servicing store (I live in NZ, we don't have any apple stores) and they said it was the HDD. Long story short, I got a new HDD, plugged it in and proceeded to reinstall Snow Leopard. When I went to disk utility, it wouldn't even recognise the new HDD. I had the same problem when I tried to reinstall Snow Leopard to my old HDD (before I figured it was a dying hard drive).
My new drive is a WD Scorpio Blue, brand new. It should have no problems with being recognised right?
I've come to the conclusion that it has to be the SATA cable right now, but does anyone have any suggestions? If it is the cable, is there a specific one I should be looking out for? I'm still in HS so money is a bit of a problem. I just need this fixed so I can do my design work

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Well, yes, data does get corrupted sometimes.
The trick is finding what data.
By 'cleaned' are you therefor meaning that the drive has been erased and the system re-installed?
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Restoring iTunes files after hard drive problems

HI.
I recently had hard drive problems and since the recovery of the data I have lost all my files from iTunes. The sogs I have put on to the Mac via CD's are all still there but all the iTunes downloads have disapeared. This is probably because I didn't back up!
I also have numerous duplications, which I eventually removed from itunes but I know the majority of which will return if I drag my music folder across.
This will be a hige taks again to remove the duplications.
I want to use this unfortunate incident to my advantage though and now have a clear out of my unwanted files and keep my iTunes nicely organised.
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[Zevoneer's detailed instructions on getting music off an iPod|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9053179#9053179]
[Wired's How To: Get Your Music Off of Your iPod|http://howto.wired.com/wiki/GetYour_Music_Off_of_YouriPod]
[http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/5-ways-to-copy-music-off-your-ipod-windo ws-mac-os-x>
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domtrump wrote:
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You have to determine what version of Leopard shipped with your Mac. It might say on the disk. If not, put in the leopard disk and see which version it is. As stated in the link I gave you.........
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For Intel-based Apple computers shipping with Mac OS X v10.5.5 or later, Apple Hardware Test is located on the Applications Install Disc 2 and should be included with your computer.
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Try calling their toll free number <probably charges apply when you're calling outside the US>, 1-800-827-0685.
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My MBP is going back to the Geniuses for a HD problem for the 3rd time tomorrow, since I bought it in July. I am confused about exactly what is happening, and I would like any advice anyone might have about salvaging any of my data.
(The first two times, I brought it in because the HD died. The first time, they told me they had replaced the HD, though they hadn't. They ran diagnostics, decided it did not need to be replaced after erasing my data, and then gave it back to me. I brought it back the next day [t died that night as I was reinstalling] and they replaced the HD in about a day.)
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This is the chronology:
I have had this hard drive for 3 weeks, installed at the local apple store to replace my factory-installed dead hard drive.
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On Saturday, my iTunes said it couldn't read my iPod, so I restored my iPod, erasing all of my data (music, calendars, contacts, important documents). I continued to get the same error message.
Today, I restored it again, but I still couldn't get iTunes to write more than 2 gb of information (of the 20 gb of data). At that point, I decided I would have to send my iPod in for repairs and stopped trying.
8 hours later, I got an error message that said the iTunes index was corrupted. I started to put the music back in to iTunes, but the MBP kept kept freezing.
I restarted the machine and received the blinking questionmark. I put in my system installation disks to run disk utility and, if need be, reinstall my system software.
This is where it gets interesting:
Disk Utility can see the topline Disk Description and the SMART status is verified. But the name of the disk itself is wrong and the mount point says it is unmounted. The capacity is correct, but under everything from owners enabled to number of files and space available, there is just a dash.
Unlike my previous hard drive problem, there is no clunking, and the hard drive appears to be working. Disk Utility found the following: Invalid B-tree node size. The volume needs to be repaired. Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit. 1 HFS volume checked: volume needs repair. And that's it.
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1. What is happening to my hard drive?
2. Is it dead or is there any way to fix it?
3. Is there any way to salvage my data? (Because of my iPod failure, I lost my calendars, contacts, important data from my last big back up 3 weeks ago, not to mention my carefully curated music collection. I have my documents backed up to gmail, but not my notes, which were on my iPod.)
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MacBook Pro 2.16 ghz Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

In case anyone receives a series of index problems which escalate into apparent hard drive failure and blinking question mark of doom . . .
the Geniuses fixed the computer by doing a complete wipe of my hard drive.
They said that the directory error may have existed from before my last hard drive was installed, but I am not certain how such a thing could exist.
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I'd suspect this known issue:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
if you have a late 2007 MBP.
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MacBook Pro 15" Hard Drive Problem.

Hello ... I have a MacBook Pro 15" which recently died on me. When I turn it on, on the "gray" screen there is a blinking folder in the middle. Snow Leopard never boots up. I thought that my hard drive died, bought a new one for it. Replaced it and when I boot it from leopard to install it on the new drive, when I was asked to select the volume in which I want it the new OS, there was no drive that I could select. Therefore, I am stuck in that step. I used an external enclosure to see if the drive was faulty, but it came up on my iMac. I also placed the old hard drive on an enclosure, and it came up fine on the iMac. So, looks like it is not a hard drive problem, any ideas on what I can try or might be ... ? Thanks!!

Did you use the disk utility on the Snow Leopard installation disk to partition the new disk. If you don't do this the installer does not see the disk.

Hard Drive Problems or Virus?

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