Possible hard drive problems...trying to backup.

I have recently been having problems with my iMac. It was acting very slow and would have frequent spinning beach balls while doing pretty much anything. I know that my hard drive has been getting pretty full lately (about 11.5GB left of 250GB HD). Anyway went to restart the computer a week or so ago and it got stuck on the blue screen. Tried again a few times and would get stuck on either gray or blue screen. I then started the computer up with the startup disk and and repaired the permissions and did a check of the HD which said that it didn't need any repairs. I then did an archive and install of the OS. I restarted the computer and it took awhile but it did start up. I was able to verify that my stuff was still on the HD. I tried transferring some of my files to an external HD and had some success. Seemed that it would transfer so much (700ish Mb) then stop and hang. I decided it was time to take it to the Mac Genius Bar and they were able to find and run disk utility on my HD with the same results. He told me to go home and use disk utility to create a disk image of the hard drive and save it to my external HD. I tried to do that twice now and it seems to work until just before the end of the progress bar. I get a message that says that it is unable to create the image file because of I/O errors (or something like that). Am I doing something wrong or am I just out of luck. I need to get some of the HD (hopefully) and was dumb enough to not make a backup sooner. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Something to try:
Open Disk Utility (Applications > Disk Utility)
Select your external HD on the left side of the Disk Utility window
Check the partition map scheme, near the bottom of the Disk Utility window
If it is not GUID (assuming you have an Intel iMac), consider repartitioning your HD to GUID. The Windows partition scheme on many external HDs. FAT 32, often has problems accepting large data transfers from Mac-partitioned hard drives.

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A205-S5000 won't boot. Says possible hard drive problem

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what about the product key? I will try to reinstall the bad drive and try a reboot to recovery mode but
I doubt that is going to work or complete. Idea was to get a new drive and try to install recovery disks.

Satellite A205-S5000
Recovery discs must be from an identical model. If you can't burn them from that computer, best to order them
Order Toshiba Recovery Media
The restored Windows is pre-activated.
-Jerry

IPod - Possible Hard Drive Problem

My iPod is no longer syncing, it comes up with erros when I try to sync.
I suspect the hard drive is bad.
I have done a restore (it didn't work until I formatted the disk in Windows), and this has not solved the problem. I ran the diag mode and it came up with this on the hard drive test (SMART):
Retracts:                     10
Reallocs:                    376
Pending Sectors:           0
PowerOn Hours:         2334
Start/Stops:              22405
Temp Current:             38C
Temp:                     Min 1C
Temp:                    Max 52C
Is my hard disk gone? Could I possibly fix it?
The start/stops number is high, but I have no idea what normal looks like.

Have you tried renaming you iPod. Perhaps Windows will see it as a new volume then?
If that doesn't work perhaps try restoring your iPod as doing so will reformat the hard drive. If Windows still asks after that, at least you know the iPod's not at fault.
You could also try reformatting your computer and completely reinstalling Windows if the error message still continues and is really bothers you.
Once you clear the message and you see iTunes freezing again, perhaps try restarting the computer rather then disconnecting the iPod.

Is this a (another) possible hard drive problem that's stopping my re-install?

I'm trying to revive our old Compaq Presario 2500 laptop; model# DS542U.
Running Windows XP Home.
It was, for a long time; un-bootable; so I succesfully created an XP boot cd (from the "howtohaven.com" website); a painstakingly time demanding procedure. But the disk came out successful.
I've been trying to reboot/start the laptop .. I was able to go ahead and re-format the hard drive, since we removed everything important long ago. The format went successful.
Then as the installation went forward I got the neassage:
Setup cannot copy the file: wininet.dll
I tried skipping the file, (it offered me that option) and that allowed the installation to proceed right along for a long time, but now it's stuck being able to go any further.
a blue screen lingers with the message: "Setup is being restarted"
The unit then goes into hard crash and keeps trying over again.
Question: might it by our hard drive? Even if the format operation (appears to have gone) successful?
Right now there's no OS onboard at all.
Or is there simply an issue of this mystery file that's missing?
If that's truly the case, how do I get that thing into the setup?
Thanks greatly for any help!
This forum (the one on desktop units) helped me greatly in the last two weeks getting our Media Center unit up and running) so I appreciate the feedback!
Michael

Hi, one further detail to ask help on:
I've been trying for the last hour to remove the existing hard drive; I've followed all the outlined steps on HP's website (and other sites) for this model; removed the appropriate screws; and I cannot, with even the greatest force I am willing to take a chance on exerting, able to pry this thing out. It comes out about an eigth of an inch ...
Whew! Is there some other trick I might have missed?
Wow, there must be some other fasteners holding this thing in, but no information is offered anywhere.
Thanks greatly,
Michael

Hp lalptop # QE334UA#ABA START UP PROBLEM POSSIBLE HARD DRIVE PROBLEM

COMPUTER willl not start up it has an error or failure ID UCQ9AC-5SC7AD-MFKR5G-609603. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THIS CODE MEANS?

2000-329WM is the common model name.
Yes, that is a hard drive failure and means you need a replacement.
Post back with more questions and how you wish to proceed. If you wish to procure and install and configure a new hard drive let us know what country you live in and whether you have recovery disks.

Possible hard drive problem with MacBook Pro? PLEASE HELP!!!

MacBook Pro loads to login screen with my personal account (which shows a grey silhouette) my student account(shows custom pic) and guest account(same grey silhouette) there is no feedback when I click on anything. I have restarted it multiple times & don't get anywhere with it. I just updated stuff on the macbook prior to this incident. I need help because I have all of my business, school, and personal things on this machine. What could be the cause of this? Why is it happening? I need it fixed ASAP as I have work that needs to be completed
P.S. I am unsure of the exact operating system but it was the Mountain Lion that it came with. I was planning on upgrading to Mavericks tonight until this problem arose

"Any drive can fail at any time."
Don't update anything until you have a large-ish external drive and Time Machine or other backup working.
You dodged a bullet this time. Next time, maybe you will not be so lucky.

Possible Hard Drive Problem?

Ok I have a MAC PRO with different drives for BOOT and DATA.
My data drive is actually a RAID stripe of 3 of the 4 internal drives. It's worked fine for nearly the year I've had the machine.
All of a sudden when playing music with ITUNES songs will randomly be interuppted (stop playing) for a short period of time. Occasionally the spinning beach ball occurs at same time.
Everything else is working normal. Could this be a problem with one of the drives???? What could cause this?
Thanks for any advice!

WEll, start with good backups, maintenance, Disk Warrior, etc.
I rebuild any array when I upgrade the OS.
A scan for bad or weak sectors might be in order too.
When did you last reformat your boot drive also? when you went to 10.6? say backup and then format, and then clean install; or restore and update install - so you have 10.5.8 on backup.
And, are the drives identical? sounds like they probably are, they should be, and "RAID" or Enterprise as well.
Boot from an external emergency boot drive and run Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro (or another like DG2+) along with Apple First Aid -- for starters.
I'd consider rebuilding, and testing each drive even.

Is it possible to use more than one external hard drive for Time Machine backups?

I want to use two hard drives for Time Machine backups.
Bigger one keep at home and be sure it is safe.
Second one (very small pocket size) keep with me for travels.
I want to backup to both drives to be sure I can restore everywhere and to be sure if something bad happened with my small travel disk I can restore from home backup.
Is there any problem with listed schema? Is it normal for Time Machine to handle backups for different drivers and keep everything consistent and smooth?

I really need some help! I have been using an Iomega NAS 1TB HD for the past year. And I received an error message. I believe I have ran out of memory on this drive.
Then recently in the last couple of months I got a ReadyNAS Duo 2TB with 2TB RAID. Should I switch my back ups to this one and delete the other back up file or keep the old back up image file on the Iomega?
Can I transfer the old image back up to this new ReadyNAS? How do I do this?
I appreciate any help.

I was trying to sync my 120GB iPod Classic earlier and it said it couldn't sync as the iPod disk could not be "read" or "written to". I now can't get anything onto my iPod, and I was wondering if it is a hard drive problem? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

I was trying to sync my 120GB iPod Classic earlier, and it said it couldn't sync as the iPod disk could not be "read" or "written to." I now can't get anything onto my iPod, and I was wondering if it is a hard drive problem? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Did you go into iTunes to change the location of your media files? if not you will need to go into iTunes and click on preference and select the advance tab then click the iTunes Media folder location. Select the location of your on external hard drive.

Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?

Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?

I am using an external drive in the exact way that you described. You just keep it plugged in to the computer when you want to access the movies and files. In order to put files on it, just go to finder open up the drive under devices and drag and drop files onto the drive. It is just like using a usb drive with a terabyte of space.

I have a 2007 Macbookpro and it started up with gray checkered boxes ann across the screen I tried to re load OSX and it work 1 day and started again is this a hard drive problem or Video? Now as it starts to load a screen comes up saying to restart

I have a 2007 Macbookpro and it started up with gray checkered boxes and across the screen I tried to re load OSX and it work 1 day and started again is this a hard drive problem or Video? Now as it starts to load a screen comes up saying to restart over and over again

I'd suspect this known issue:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
if you have a late 2007 MBP.
The only testing you can do at home is to attach an external monitor and see if the defects repeat on the external. If so, get to an Apple store. If the computer's video chipset fails a test the Apple Store will perform, you get a free logic board replacement. Turnaround is usually one day to one week--not bad at all.
If the defects do NOT repeat on an external monitor, then the problem is not covered by the above Repair Extension Program
The issue is heat-triggered. Be certain that you control heat once you get it fixed. Don't use the computer in your lap without a lapboard; don't block the vents under the display hinge; don't us in clamshell mode, etc.

I have lost my info for my ipod due to hard drive problem. Can I upload the info on my ipod to my computer. I don't want to lose what is on my ipod.

Lost ipod info on computer due to hard drive problem. Can I upload info on ipod back to my computer and how do i do it.

- Transfer iTunes purchases by:
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer
- Transfer othe music by using a third-party program like one of those discussed here:
Best iPod to PC
- Create a backup of the iPod by connecting the iPod to the computer. Right click on the iPod under Devices in iTunes and select Back Up.
- Restore the iPod from thzt backup and sync a necessary.

Internal iMac hard drive keeps trying to power down without my consent

How do you stop an internal hard drive from shutting down when you didn't ask it to?
Background:
I use Missing Sync for Palm to sync my Palm handheld with my iMac. My Palm has a SD card slot it in and the sync software came with a program that allows me to mount the
SD card as an external drive on my iMac. From there, I can add podcasts, music or whatever I want directly to the card. I have used this software since March with no problems.
Also, when you put my computer to sleep or shut it down, there is a click and then the internal hard drive shuts down.
Last night, I activated the program to mount the SD card to my iMac and instead of it mounting, the iMac's internal hard drive started trying to shut down.
I have used this program many, many times to mount the SD card to my iMac with absolutely no problem. It was weird this time because I kept hearing that clicking noise. The computer became extremely sluggish. To me, it appeared that the internal hard drive was trying to shut down. After about 4-5 clicks, it succeeded and the computer froze.
Since that time, shortly after you turn the iMac on, you hear that clicking noise trying to power down the hard drive. Sometimes, it just takes a few clicks and the hard drive shuts off. Sometimes the computer will boot all the way up, I can log in and launch a program before it shuts off and the computer freezes. While I can't check the drive with First Aid or Diskwarrior because it shuts off before I can scan it, I assume the data and the drive are ok because I have been able to successfully boot from it and log into my account but shortly after I log in, the hard drive shuts down and the computer is stuck.
Any ideas? Any help would be wonderful!

You are right. It is failing. I took my Mac into the Apple Store and talked with a genius. Although the hard drive would not do what it had at home (typical when you're trying to get something diagnosed) I shut it down so he could hear the noise I do.
Sure enough, he said the noise I heard was the drive read head hitting its start position. When a hard drive shuts down, the drive head moves out of the way since the "hard disk" is actually a thin floppy magnetic disc. The noise I kept hearing was indeed the drive trying to shut down.
Fortunately, I did make a clone of my internal drive to that external drive 6 months ago so I was (eventually) able to copy over all the important files, update the external clone and boot off of it.
Sure enough, tonight, I opened Disk Utility and it said in plain red letters that the drive had reported a hardware failure and should be replaced.
Since my iMac is Summer 2001, the Mac Genius said they no longer carry parts for it so he gave me the name of a local place that would be glad to fix it up. I called them and luck would have it that they were completely out of the internal drives used by my model iMac. So I have to check next week to see if they have received more in yet.
The good news is I can get a slightly larger interal hard drive since I was down to 10GB of a 60GB factory drive. So far, I hear I can go as high as 160GB but the RPM must be lower since my iMac has no fans.
Thanks for your help! As much as I didn't want to believe it, you hit the problem right on.

MacBook Hard Drive Problems?

I've used this MacBook for a few years without any issues. It has always had very snappy response and very few problems. Earlier this week, I noticed that it takes about 4 minutes to boot up now as opposed to the 30 seconds it used to take just a week ago. Once running, Safari also tends to be unresponsive at times and slow to load. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that during boot up, I can HEAR the hard drive give off some "clicks" and faint "beeps" (for lack of a more technical description). In my experience with Windows machines, this is often a sign of hard drive problems.
With Vista, I can run a CHKDSK and fix the drive by taking the bad sectors out of the mix. I am trying to figure out how to best diagnose and repair my drive on this Mac. I tried booting from the Snow Leopard DVD and running Disk Utility/First Aid to find the problem, but this utility reports that everything is fine and dandy. I am not sure I agree.
Can someone tell me of a more powerful tool for the Mac that will fully diagnose any hardware or software problems on this machine so I can get it back to tip top performance. Is there a diagnostic utility provided by Apple? Other utilities built in to Snow Leopard? Third party applications?
As I have never had problems with a Mac before, I am in uncharted waters with regard to diagnostics so if anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!

domtrump wrote:
In addition to OSX (Leopard) I have two (2) "MacBook Mac OSX Install" discs. Does anyone know which one is bootable and contains the AHT utility?
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.........
For Intel-based Apple computers shipping with Mac OS X v10.5.4 or earlier, Apple Hardware Test is located on the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 and should be included with your computer.
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.
Here's another AHT faq.
DALE

Help! folder icon w/ exclamation point - hard drive problem?

I live in the philippines and the store which i called up said the only solution is to show the receipt and they will send it to singapore but i still have to buy a new one. it's like they're not giving me choices at all. i know my iPod is not yet "dead", why do i have to buy a new one? how can i have this repaired?! it hasn't been a year yet, but around 10 months already and i don't have the receipt anymore.
here's what happened...
for the past week my iPod has been skipping songs, going to the next ones but doesn't play at all. sometimes it even freezes. and i hear this whirring sound at the back.
so i decided to connect it to the computer and erase all my songs first coz i thought maybe the problem was with the files. but iTunes didn't recognize the device. so i decided to reset it (so that the songs and my factory settings will be erased) by pressing menu and select at the same time. then after i did this the "do not disconnect" message kept on showing up and eventually it just stayed there. so i tried resetting again. the apple logo shows up but after a while the folder icon with exclamation point shows up. then it would turn off.
I tried restoring it with updater but it says it could not mount the ipod. so this might be a hard drive problem already. how can i solve this?
please help!

Try calling their toll free number <probably charges apply when you're calling outside the US>, 1-800-827-0685.
Usually, they will send your machine to the nearest repair station. I think in SEAsia, repair stations are in Malaysia.
Your iPod comes with a universal warranty, so you could definitely have that repaired even without the receipt. <Im from the Philippines too. I what you mean...>
good luck!=D

Possible hard drive problems...trying to backup.

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