Going quietly crazy the hard disk disappears if I shutdown

I am having yet another try at getting SL to run this is the third complete wipe and reinstall. I have a bog standard iMac which runs fine on 10.5.8. The only software I have installed is iWork 09, iLife 09 and Libronix (Bible) for Mac.
Everything is fine as long as I don't shut down the system.It will reboot OK but if I shut down I get the grey screen with Flashing question mark folder.
I have spent two hours getting it to boot into the OS.
I tried safe boot, control + option + p + r, I have unplugged it making sure that only the apple keyboard and mouse are attached. Nothing worked.
I tried about a dozen time to get it to boot from the DVD which it did eventually but then couldn't detect the Hard Disk. Kept on trying eventually did detect the HD ran repair disk reported no problems, repaired permissions and selected the HD to restart which it did now typing this on the machine.
What on earth is going on this machine is less than a year old and I have never had so much as a freeze using Leopard.
Can anyone help I am tearing my hair out!!
Thanks
PS: I came over from Vista which is beginning to look delightful.

Steven,
It looks and sounds like you are Savvy.....
You have helped others or you wouldn't have 2 bars under your name...
I assume you have backups or you wouldn't have done 3 complete wipe and reinstalls.
This is the bottom line for me and what I would suggest as long as you have backups...
1. Wipe the HD clean... erase it.... fresh start....
2. Insert the Snow Leopard disk and install Snow Leopard only...... Nothing else. Do Not Migrate, etc..
Then give Snow Leopard a try all by itself with nothing of your old stuff or anything else added...
Try shutting down. Try restarting... Try Safari... etc.....
If that works, then something is wrong with something in your prior system or prior files...
Start migrating things over until you find a problem...
I know this may sound like it takes a long time but not really.
Sometimes we need to be like *PIT BULLS*..... don't give up.....
I don't really have any problems at all with Snow Leopard on the computers I have or the ones I have helped my friends upgrade other than a few minor things....

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http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/50.12.0.html
http://www.powerbooktech.com/knowledge,name-Hard-Drive,type-6.htm
http://uk.geocities.com/ibookupgrade/
http://sterpin.net/uk/ddibookdualuk.htm
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fsug2 wrote:
i've backup my hard drive into my external hard disk using a time machine.
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Mountain Lion has broke the hard disk

I have a Macbook Pro 13' (Mid 2010) with LION which has always worked very properly.
-Wednesday 25th
On Wednesday 25th I've bought (16€) and instald Mac OS X Mountain Lion. The laptop seems too slow for me but I didn't mind at that moment, before going to sleep I shutted down the macbook pro.
-Thursday 26th
The next day, when I tried to turn on, it stayed at the white screen with the apple and thinking. I tried it for several times, and at one of them after 10 minutes the os started but it worked incredibly slow (It was imposible to shut down it normaly). I called to apple care, they told me to enter in recovery mode and verify the disk. I do it and all was ok. I restarted and as before the mac didn't started or at least started and worked very slow.
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I tried to turn on the laptop with the recovery mode, but I had no response of the macbook pro,it stayed with the white screen. I called again to apple care and after some times I could enter to the recovery mode, but this time the were important errors at verifing the disk and it was impossible to fix it.
So I went to apple premium reseller near to my home. They found all the hardware ok with their test but they told me to open the laptop and change the hard disk (paying 200€) to solve the problem. I sayed thank you very much and I took a quote at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store for the afternoon. They found all the hardware ok again but they weren't able to fix the problem by this moment. So they told my to leave the computer and they would reinstall mountain lion from 0, without any cost.
After 3 hours I've recevied a call from the Apple Store telling my that the hard disk was broken and I've to pay for a new one (150€).
They are not taking into account that the laptop was ok and by installing the new OS and making all the test and restarts that they told me to do are the cause of hard disk's rupture.
What can I do? What do you recomend to me?
Thank you very much.
P.S. : I've always loved my Macbook Pro and I haven't had any problem with it or with Apple, all have worked perfect until this moment and know I feel helpless.

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-Wednesday 25th
On Wednesday 25th I've bought (16€) and instald Mac OS X Mountain Lion. The laptop seems too slow for me but I didn't mind at that moment, before going to sleep I shutted down the macbook pro.
-Thursday 26th
The next day, when I tried to turn on, it stayed at the white screen with the apple and thinking. I tried it for several times, and at one of them after 10 minutes the os started but it worked incredibly slow (It was imposible to shut down it normaly). I called to apple care, they told me to enter in recovery mode and verify the disk. I do it and all was ok. I restarted and as before the mac didn't started or at least started and worked very slow.
-Friday 27th
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So I went to apple premium reseller near to my home. They found all the hardware ok with their test but they told me to open the laptop and change the hard disk (paying 200€) to solve the problem. I sayed thank you very much and I took a quote at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store for the afternoon. They found all the hardware ok again but they weren't able to fix the problem by this moment. So they told my to leave the computer and they would reinstall mountain lion from 0, without any cost.
After 3 hours I've recevied a call from the Apple Store telling my that the hard disk was broken and I've to pay for a new one (150€).
They are not taking into account that the laptop was ok and by installing the new OS and making all the test and restarts that they told me to do are the cause of hard disk's rupture.
What can I do? What do you recomend to me?
Thank you very much.
P.S. : I've always loved my Macbook Pro and I haven't had any problem with it or with Apple, all have worked perfect until this moment and know I feel helpless.

PB G3 Pismo-Stalls, Hard Disk Disappears

[NOTE - This message originally posted in Older Hardware discussion group. One response appears at end of original message.]
PB G3 firewire (Pismo)
OS 10.4.2
Fastmac G4 550 processor
576 mb RAM
Western Digital 60 MB HD (replacing Toshiba 40 mb HD that I thought was problem)
DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
The computer starts and works fine for a while until, without any discernible trigger (except maybe physically moving the PB), the PB stalls (twirling rainbow colored disk). Sometimes it first stalls in one application (so I can switch to other apps or the finder using the Command-Tab keys), but eventually it stalls in all apps. Force Quit option (keyboard or menu-activated) does not function. The only option is to shut down and restart. Sometimes it restarts, other times just a flashing question mark in the floppy disk icon.
If I happen to be in Word when the stall occurs (or is about to occur), I first get a dialague box telling me Word can't read from or write to the open file, saying there must be a bad network or floppy disk connection. I can usually quit Word when that dialogue appears, but restarting Word does nothing to fix the problem. Instead, I have to restart the PB.
With the flashing "?," I can hear the HD trying to start spinning again and again, but nothing happens. As noted below, starting with Diskwarrior has at least once resulted in Diskwarrior not being able to find the HD.
ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS
Run the latest version of Diskwarrior. Does not solve the problem. Sometimes, Diskwarrior cannot even find the hard disk.
Replace the HD - did that switching the Toshiba for the Western Digital drive. The Toshiba works fine in a Firewire HD case. The problem can't be HD.
Reinstall OS X and applications - done multiple times, both archive and clean installs.
Make sure RAM is properly seated.
Reset PRAM.
WHAT'S WRONG?
I think the problem is hardware related (other than HD).
Any suggestions for what to look at and in what order? For example: G4 processor bad; RAM bad (but symptoms don't seem consistent with that); power/charge card bad; something with the heat sink; something with the cable that attaches to the HD.
Is there a way of checking these short of replacing them one by one?
Appreciate any help I can get.
Ken
On 12:04pm Sep 15, 2005 CDT, jpl wrote:
Subject: RE: PB G3 Pismo-Stalls, Hard Disk Disappears
Ken,
Welcome to the discussions!
A very good description of the problem! You obviously have covered a lot of territory troubleshooting this issue and it certainly appears to be a hardware-related.
I think you have fairly well isolated the problem as I see it:
- stall (spinning beach ball) that eventually occurs in all apps;
- a restart that produces the flashing '?';
- DiskWarrior's occasional failure to find the HD.
I would suggest you have a bad HD ribbon cable or a bad HD IDE bridge on the logic board (or some other issue on the logic board) that develops with heat.
Since you have a FireWire HD with a known-good HD, why don't you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HD on the FW HD, then boot to the FW HD and run from it and see if the same issue develops.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
On 12:41pm Sep 15, 2005 CDT, Ken H wrote:
Subject: RE: PB G3 Pismo-Stalls, Hard Disk Disappears
Thanks for the quick response. I will try what you suggested.
I also was thinking that this may be a heat-related problem, and wonder if maybe I did not put enough - or too much - heat sink compound between the heat exchanger and the processor board. Could it be that simple?
One item I omitted from my original post: before I replaced the Toshiba HD, I noted, when I turned the sleeping PB on its end to carry in my laptop bag), the PB would almost always be stalled when I woke it from sleep, requiring a restart (and too often a directory rebuild using Diskwarrior or an archive

Rebuilt the directory using Diskwarrior, but on the last step received the following error message:
A disk malfunction occurred while writing the replacement directory to the disk. Rebuild this disk again."
Also, this rebuild showed a large number of repairs. When I ran Diskwarrior this morning, it showed there would be no changes to the directory. I've barely used the PB since this morning's rebuild.

I want to give away or sell a 6500/250 running 7.6.1. How can the hard disk be erased so that the data are gone, not recoverable? thanks, LifeisRich

I want to give away or sell a 6500/250 running 7.6.1. How can the hard disk be erased so that the data are gone, not recoverable? thanks, LifeisRich

I'd recommend that you check for Mac User Group(s) in Orange County. That's where you'd likely find a diehard Mac fanatic who might want to add your 6500 to his/her collection. Even if you got nothing for it, it would be better than e-cycling it. I upgraded my 6500/275 with what was a "large" hard drive at the time (15 GBs), maxed the memory at 128 MBs, installed the 512K L2 cache card, a better ATI Rage Pro PCI graphics card, a USB PCI card, and an internal 56K modem. With it running OS 9.1, it did all of the pre-OS X stuff I needed it to do. As I previously mentioned, it's a nice-sounding MP3 player. Internet Explorer 5.1.7 (the final release from 2001) kept it useful for surfing the web up until 2005, when it became too outdated/incompatible with many web sites. Unfortunately, the demands of the internet and the need for a modern browser, as well as faster processing to digest it all, are what retired many older Macs from active duty. So my (2) 6500s and (3) 6400s (same tower design) sit in storage. There is one concern that I'll pass along: The motherboard has a 4.5-volt alkaline battery, that's a small, black plastic cube, secured in place by velcro. If your 6500 has been disconnected from electricity for a long time, the battery will undoubtedly be dead. Unlike the many Apple computers that used a small ½AA lithium battery (that I've never seen leak when completely dead), the 6500's battery can and usually does start leaking. Because the motherboard sits vertically oriented on its side edge when installed, the leaking battery will drip alkaline solution down the board, corroding any components in it path. I've seen motherboards ruined from this. If you're going to give it away or sell it, you might want to pull the motherboard (remove the two machine screws on the rear I/O panel, next to the pull tabs). Slide out the board and unplug the battery's small connector (has red & black wires), then lift up on the battery, while holding down the "toothed" velcro mount with something non-conductive, like a popsicle stick. Once it's free, dispose of the battery. If you're interested, a replacement can be purchased for about $5-$7 from battery specialty retailers - it's a Rayovac 870 or 871. Even if you don't replace it, removing one that will eventually leak is a good idea, (hopefully) before any damage is done.

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this was the result that l got but the problem is that the file did not come from the hard disk into the flash memory the second time. I waited for at least 30mins and nothing happened. On top of the hyper terminal was the Transfer field which l used send and receive files sub at different times but the files do not transfer into the flash memory again. Pls could you advise me what more can l do, thanks.
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Do not start the sending program yet...
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Sleep Question when "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep" is unchecked

In the Energy Saver options, I unchecked the "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible" option ... what happens if I close the lid? Does that option get overridden and the hard drive goes to sleep?
Will I be safe to move my mbp around in my backpack when I travel? Or do I have to shut it down totally? I tried finding the answer but couldn't find a real response.
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> what happens if I close the lid? Does that option get overridden and the hard drive goes to sleep?
Yes, it's over-ridden, the heads park and you can move it around happily
Make sure it does actually go to sleep and not hang up on some run-away (BootCamp) process or similar ... you can tell by the noise. If it's not silent within 10 seconds of the lid closing open it up again and check Activity Monitor.

"Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible": How to Exempt One Drive?

I have a Mac Pro with 4 internal hard drives, 2 external hard drives, the built-in SuperDrive, and a new Pioneer BDR-205 internal Blu-ray drive. Here's the problem: If the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option is enabled, when the system puts the BDR-205 to sleep, it will never wake up unless the computer is shut down and restarted. (Basically, it disappears from the System Profiler and can no longer be accessed.)
If I turn off the Energy Saver "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option, then the BDR-205 never has a problem -- but then none of my other drives ever go to sleep, either.
Does anyone know of a way to exempt a specific drive (or drives) from being put to sleep by the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" feature? I've found where the settings for this feature are stored, in \Library\Preferences\SystemConfiguration\com.apple.PowerManagement.plist (the setting is Disk Sleep Timer -- 0 = never sleep, any other number = how many minutes before a drive is put to sleep), but I can't find where there might be some undocumented option to allow us to say, "Don't put THIS drive to sleep". It seems silly that this option is an all-or-nothing proposition.
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I am having the same difficulty. A way to exempt a specific drive from sleep would be most useful.

Does "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible) work with external drive

I have an external backup drive which I use for doing daily backups. I have set an iCal alarm daily to remind me to turn the hdd on at the right time.
When Time Machine comes along in a couple weeks, I am going to be leaving this drive on all the time while I'm working on my computer but was wondering if the energy savings mode of putting the hard drive to sleep applies to external USB drives as well? Would be nice to know that when I put my computer to sleep at the end of the day that my external drive also goes to sleep. I'm not sure if this has to be a function of the external box or if OS X can shut off the drive.
Any wisdom?

You can test this very easily:
The "Put the hard disk(S) to sleep when possible" default time is 10 minutes of inactivity.
Just leave your Mac alone for 10 minutes: you should hear both drives spinning down. If the external noise was not clear enough, you can then "wake it up" by double-clicking its icon on the desktop:
If it was spun down, you'll have to wait a couple of seconds or so, with the spinning colored beachball, while it is spinning up again.
Note that if you're performing a task that uses only you Mac's internal HD, the external should spin down while you're using your Mac. Then if double-clicking its icon shows the colored spinning beachball stalling, it's very clear it goes to sleep as intended.
Most of the external hard drives should be able to spin down, at least all my LaCie do it with no problem.

How do I return my mid 2011 MacBook Air to Factory Specifications? Can I use the built in Lion recovery and wipe my data from the hard disk by reformatting it?

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Click here and follow the instructions.
(124038)

Going quietly crazy the hard disk disappears if I shutdown

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