Hard drive bad sectors?

Hello All,
I have a 15 inch MacBook pro, early 2011 model, with the Fujitsu 7200 rpm hard drive. I'm using the latest version of Yosemite. ( 10.10.2) My computer is loaded with maximum memory, the optional video card. I recently bought a program called Drive Genius 4 because my computer seemed slow and Safari was locking up. I then started getting frequent bad sector error messages from the programs resident hard drive module. It advised me to immediately reformat the hard drive with one pass of zeros, to mark off the bad sectors.
Testing with Mac's hard drive utility, with one of Apple's technician's on the phone, indicated that everything was alright. I decided to re-formated the hard drive using one pass of zeros to mark off the bad sectors. I used Mac's hard drive utility for this. I left one small partition intact because I thought it might have important information that identifies my computer as a real Macintosh product. I then did a clean re-instalation of Yosemite from a download I stored on a backup drive. I then restored my programs from a recent backup. However, I was using a third party backup program called "SuperDuper!" for Mac from Softonic. I used it because it is much faster than Mac's backup. Now, my computer is running much faster. I'm also having no trouble with Safari, except for last night. I got stuck into some internet code that looked like it was trying to get me to install malware by clicking "OK" in a box. I couldn't get out of the tab, even by trying to force quit Safari. So I closed down by using the shut down button. Strangely enough, the site reappeared after I rebooted my computer, even though I have "Safari opens with a new window" in the general Safari preferences. But this time I was able to close the bad window.
I can't get any information about the effectiveness of Drive Genius 4 from Mac tech support because they're not allowed to comment about third party software. But it has excellent reviews from users and Mac publications.
Question 1: Should I take Drive Genius 4s bad sector warnings seriously and replace the hard drive? I did a thorough physical drive test with "Drive Genius 4" immediately after my re-format and it tested alright. I just received a bad sector warning this morning from a module in Drive Genius 4 called "Drive Pulse." It's supposed to constantly monitor ones hard drive for failure. I have read many complaints about my Fujitsu hard drive failing. I've been using computers since the early DOS days and I never had a hard drive fail. I occasionally would develop bad sectors but I used a utily like "Norton" to mark off the bad sectors and move the data. Even though this would occasionally happen, I never had a catastrophic hard drive failure. But now, I'm reading recommendations all over the web to replace any hard drive with the first bad sector warning.
Question 2:, Should I try to reformat the drive again and include the small sector I left intact the last time? This time, I would use Mac's built in backup program, simply out of superstition. I have no knowledge whether any particular backup program is better than another. I don't completely trust Mac tech support because they are restricted by their company's proprietary regulations. (Sorry Mac, I was once a big fan, but your new note books, with their soldered in components, is a low blow. It's obviously made, IMHO, as a form of planned obsolescence.)
Question 3: I read several complaints from self installers who stripped screws to gain access to the had drive. Some people claimed that the screws are made from very soft metal. This actually happened to me with an older 13 inch Mac Notebook, when I added more memory. Luckily, the compartment stays closed with one bad screw.
I don't trust the local Apple's genius crew to do the installation. Why? After numerous visits, they couldn't even diagnose a simple iPhone problem. They were very unpleasant and arrogant, suggesting that my phone's problem didn't exist. I became so exasperated that I threatened to pay off my AT&T phone contract early if they didn't help me. They sent me a new phone if I would agree to leave a deposit until they received my old one. Now that's service!
Thanks in advance for any advise. I apologize for my lengthy letter.

I can't get any information about the effectiveness of Drive Genius 4 from Mac tech support because they're not allowed to comment about third party software. But it has excellent reviews from users and Mac publications.
I can comment about it. Drive Genius will report false positives and may be responsible for causing disk corruption. Get rid of it. It's junk your Mac does not need.
"Mac publications" that accept advertising are necessarily biased, and cannot be relied upon for accurate information. Do you really think they'll publish a negative review about a product from a company supplying the revenue they need to survive?
But now, I'm reading recommendations all over the web to replace any hard drive with the first bad sector warning.
You should. Hard disk drives are wear items. Fortunately, they are also inexpensive enough to have several backups. At the first sign of failure, plan to replace it ASAP. Having a backup plan such as Time Machine makes that a non-event.

Similar Messages

A135-S2326 replacing hard drive (bad sectors) Need advice and opinions Please

Hi, (note pic below of my computers actual specs from this morning)
I have a Satellite A135-S2326. It has the max memory at 2GB, it came with 512 and I upgraded to 2GB. It runs Windows Vista Home Edition...
Anyhow, it accidentally fell off my bed a few days ago (darn dogs) and damaged my hard drive. Boot problems, errors, bad sectors, etc. I have tried everything to fix and to no avail. While I am currently using it I know I need to replace the hard drive ASAP before I can't turn it on at all one day... I am now saving all my files and stuff I need off of it to an external drive. The laptop did not come with a windows Vista restore CD so I am using Acronis software to make an image of the hard disc, hopefully it will work and I won't have to purchase my own copy of windows Vista.
Some questions I have are:
1.) Is it possible to upgrade the hard drive to a faster one / better one when I replace?
     The hard drive that came preinstalled is a Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 80GB, which I believe from spec's documentation is a 5400RPM Serial- ATA ???
     What is the max size I can get for replacement and what is the max RPM, or do I HAVE to use a 5400RPM???
     What do you suggest?
2.) I have a copy of windows XP Professional w/SP2. Is it possible to put this windows XP Pro.w/SP2 on a fresh hard drive in the Satellite A135-S2326? If so, is there a different hard drive that I must have to do that? Also if an XP install is possible on a new hard drive, which drivers must I have for this laptop when I do it??
3.) And finally, could this laptop handle windows 7 business? Only asking because I can get a VERY cheap copy of windows 7 business from my school...I'm in college at DeVry and can get a copy of Windows 7 delivered to my door in 2 weeks for less then $30.00. So thought that MAY be an option....??? Not sure if my other spec's can handle it though???
4.) What would you suggest I do with the options I have, what is best thing to do in your opinion??
      Please see pic below of my actual computers specs from this morning, using Belarc Advisor...
Thank you in advance
Any help is GREATLY appreciated
Urgently waiting replies,
Tina from Florida
(tinafromflorida)
Computer Profile Summary
Computer Name:
Beanersputer (in MSHOME)
Profile Date:
Monday, September 21, 2009 9:29:54 AM
Advisor Version:
7.2x
Windows Logon:
nello
Operating System
System Model
Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
TOSHIBA Satellite A135 PSAD6U-01800D
System Serial Number: 37334232K
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Processor a
Main Circuit Board b
1.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron M 520
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: TOSHIBA IAYAA 1.00
BIOS: TOSHIBA V1.20 03/06/2007
Drives
Memory Modules c,d
78.45 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
13.51 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
MAT**bleep**A DVD-RAM UJ-850S ATA Device [CD-ROM drive]
Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n SB2204SGCULZ6E, rev SB2OC7DP, SMART Status: Healthy
1918 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'J401' is Empty
Slot 'J400' has 2048 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0)
78.45 GB
13.51 GB free
Network Drives
None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details)
Printers
local user accounts
last logon
nello
9/21/2009 9:17:22 AM
(admin)
local system accounts
    Administrator
9/1/2007 9:32:47 PM
(admin)
Guest
9/12/2009 1:14:34 AM
Marks a disabled account;   Marks a locked account
Adobe PDF Converter
on Documents\*.pdf
Microsoft XPS Document Writer
on XPSPort:
Send To Microsoft OneNote Driver
on Send To Microsoft OneNote Port:
Controllers
Display
IDE Channel [Controller] (4x)
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller (2x)
ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M Series [Display adapter]
Generic PnP Monitor (19.7"vis)
Bus Adapters
Multimedia
ENE CB1410 Cardbus Controller
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
ATI I/O Communications Processor USB 1.1 OHCI controller (2x)
ATI I/O Communications Processor USB 2.0 EHCI controller
Realtek High Definition Audio
Communications
Other Devices
TOSHIBA Software Modem
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
Atheros AR5006EG Wireless Network Adapter
isatap.domain_not_set.invalid
isatap.gateway.2wire.net
isatap.launchmodem.com
isatap.
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter #2
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter #3
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter #4
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter #5
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter #6
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #4
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #5
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #6
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #7
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Networking Dns Server:
Acronis Backup Archive Explorer
Microsoft AC Adapter
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
Logitech Driver Interface (2x)
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device (2x)
USB Human Interface Device (2x)
Standard PS/2 Keyboard
Logitech HID-compliant Cordless Mouse
Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad [Mouse]
USB Composite Device
USB Root Hub (3x)
Generic volume shadow copy

You can use ANY 2.5" SATA hard drive of any size in that system. I would recommend one of the Western Digital Scorpio BLue's as they are reliable and offer good performance.
If it runs Vista it will run Windows 7. I would wait a bit before trying Win7 though as Toshiba hasn't released all of the Windows 7 drivers yet.
As for Windows XP, while it is possible to install XP on that system (and quite easily for that matter) Toshiba doesn't provide any of the XP drivers needed to get it to run properly. You could determine all of the various chipsets the system uses and go to each chipsat manufacturer's support site to see if they provide an XP driver to get it working, but I don't guarantee that they have all of the needed drivers. If you do decide to go ahead with this let me know and I'll post the directions for installing XP onto a SATA hard drive that doesn't ahve a floppy drive.
Right now your best choice is to replace the old hard drive and restore the system from your Acronis image. When ALL of the Windows 7 drivers become available you could install it in a dual boot configuration to determine if you prefer it or not. It is both a step up and a step back from Windows Vista. Some people will like it while others won't. Only you will be able to determine which you prefer.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

Brand New Hard Drive-Bad Already?

I had my hard drive replaced about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and if I move the computer AT ALL while I'm using it, it makes the ominous clicking sound. I have been extremely careful not to tip the computer before it is all the way off, especially since the first hard drive crashed only 6 months after I bought the computer. Is this new hard drive bad already? And if it is, will Apple replace a second one for free?

If it is making the noise only when you move it, I would say it is the Sudden Motion Sensor. This is a sensor designed specifically to lock the hard drive head when your computer is moved to prevent damaging the drive. Some drives are louder than others when parking the drive head. You can confirm this by disabling the sudden motion sensor per Apple's instructions here (be sure to follow the right set of instructions):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934
Just be sure to re-enable it after you confirm that is what is causing the noise.

Hard disk bad sectors gone after reset to factory defaults.

Hi,
I have HP DV6 6c19tx. a couple of days ago i noticed extreme slow startup time in my laptop; like 20 minutes. Once logged in it took another 20-30 minutes to let me click anything. I openned the task manager but no process was taking extra ordnary memory or processor. I openned HP Support assistant to troubleshoot and it showd me errors in SMART Check. which means my HDD is dying but to bad sectors. I ran the Seagate tool for HDD analysis and it also showed errors in SDST. which confirmed me that my HDD is about to die. I took the laptop to the retaler as my laptop is still in warranty. from the BIOS diagnostics he tried to run the HDD tests and it failed showing some error numer 303 or 305. He asked me to take ackup of all the data so that he can order a replacement for HDD.
I took the laptop back to home to take the backup. after copying all the data, i wanted to remove all personal contents from the laptop so i thought y not to reset it to factory defauls. I reset it t fatory defaults and unexpectedly the system started working perfectly fine. I ran all the test that previously showed error, they all were passed; no HDD error.
Now am confused what happened here, some one please suggest me if i still need to give it to the retailer to claim the warranty. was is some kind of virus that got removed after reseting the sestem or what.

I know it's been a while since you posted your question, but I've recently had an issue with some SMART software claiming that my hard drive was going to fail. After doing some research, I discovered that there's a virus that will do this to your computer. It eventually causes you to lose access to all of your files and you'll be unable to use your hard drive.
My question on this is why in the world would this program exist? There's nothing to be gained from creating a virus that just causes your hard drive to poop out. I'd be willing to bet that it's something the manufacturer has created that forces either a new computer purchase or a new hard drive purchase. It also could possibly be just some dirty butt psycho dreaming of ways to cause problems for people instead of getting a real life.
In any case, it's a virus. Your hard drive is probably fine now. Re-initializing the hard drive most likely wiped it out.

IMac 27" late 2012 3TB hard drive bad blocks

Hi Guys,
I just received the new iMac 27" late 2012 with 3TB hard drive and as soon as I run Drive Genius version 3.2.2 I saw that the drive has 8 bad blocks.
I tried to deleted the logical volume and reinstall the OS X 10.8.2 and after a scan I got the same 8 bad blocks. I give it another try and erase the entire 3 TB volu except the recovery partition and installed Mountain Lion and after running another Drive Genius SCAN for almost 12 hours I got 8 bad blocks again.
Called Apple Support and they are clueless about what is going on as they are not even aware that the late 2012 iMac 27" is not even in stores yet.
I was told that as long as I do not have errors within the OS X I should not worry about as he HDD is fine. I do not believe it since from my experience when you have a bad block you also have a physical damage on you disk surface.
I called Apple Support again and I was told to go to Genius Bar and have them to replace the HDD to a unit not even a week old. I think that I am going to return the unit, maybe I got a lemon and the unit got dropped during the shipping process or who knows.
I hope that this thread will help other owners to have them to run a check disk or scan disk just to make sure that they do not have a bad hard drive on their new iMac late 2012.
Again I have nothing against to anyone as I just hope that someone from Apple will find this thread and try to prevent this from happening to a large scale.
Thank you.

Colos2012 wrote:
... soon as I run Drive Genius version 3.2.2 I saw that the drive has 8 bad blocks.
Drive Genius will report bad blocks when none are present. It may even be responsible for disk corruption.
See: DriveGenius = Problem
Get rid of Drive Genius. Do not install such junk on a Mac.

Lightroom .lrcat file on external hard drive = bad?

True or False: Adobe engineers recommend against running one's LR catalog off an external hard drive (the .lrcat file, not the pictures), with the preferred method being to use a catalog (.lrcat file) that exists on the computer on which the application software is installed; the reason being that one is more likely to experience database corruption and diminishing performance if running it off a hard drive.
as background to this simple True/False: I teach in a lab setting and in past when I had students create the LR catalogs on their external hard drives I always had several corrupted catalogs and crashed drives during the semester; since implementing a workflow of students creating catalogs on the lab's computers (and copying the folder w/ the .lrcat file to their external hard drives at the end of the class for backup/home use) I've had no such incidences.
I thought I had read a post regarding this on John Nack's blog but cannot locate any reference to it. if someone can point me to some documentation in a white paper or on the web about this recommendation from Adobe's engineers it would help me convince my academic colleagues!
thank you very much in advance for any response.

Back a quite while ago there was an issue with OSX (I'm sorry but can't remember if it was specific to Tiger or Leopard) and external USB drives causing catalog corruption. If I remember correctly it had something to do with a timing problem between the OS and hardware. By chance is your lab running an older version of the OS and are the problems mostly on USB?
If not, I would agree with the other poster that improperly dismounting drives is a likely culprit. I'm in an academic environment where we're running LR on hundreds of OSX machines with very few problems (with LRCAT on the externals). Almost always it can be traced back to either bad cables, improper dismount (LR is still running), or drives that are in marginal condition. But having said that, the catalog can be fragile and students have a way of bringing that out...

Reformat external hard drive - "bad superblock", "magic number wrong" error

i was just given a brand new 300GB USB hard drive, however, as it came NTFS-formatted, immediately after plugging it in for the first time, i fired up Disk Utility, and attempted to format it with UFS.
The problem arose when the progress bar just sat there for an hour at a constant 5%. Assuming the program had stalled (it hadn't...though it would have sat there indefinitely), i quit Disk Utility, opened it back up, and again attempted to format the drive--only this time, almost immediately the program output:
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? yes
SEARCH FOR ALTERNATE SUPER-BLOCK FAILED. YOU MUST USE THE
-b OPTION TO FSCK TO SPECIFY THE LOCATION OF AN ALTERNATE
SUPER-BLOCK TO SUPPLY NEEDED INFORMATION; SEE fsck(8).
i opened up Terminal and tried manually to find an alternate superblock, to no avail.
fsck -b32 /dev/disk2s3
i've been unable to find any solutions to this issue online, but i'd really like to use my drive i've heard that this problem has to do with hardware that's about to fail, however, this is a brand new drive, and i'm quite certain the error is as a result of the aborted reformat operation.
Does anyone know how to remedy this? Thanks in advance.

Hello TheRedWino, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Hmmm, what kind of Case/Chipset does it have?
Have you tried erasing it with Zeros one Pass?
"Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the Erase tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume, then choose MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Partition tab.
6. Click Erase & look for Security Options. choose Zero 1 pass."
Formatting & Partitioning a Hard Drive in OS X - Tiger and Leopard...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/partitioningtiger.html

Hard drive bad?

One day my computer froze while transferring a file from one partition to another. When I rebooted I got a generic filesystem error, but I could still log in. When I tried to back up my latest changes, my computer froze again. This time it displayed the error in the link below. I put FreeBSD on it for awhile and it worked well, but I decided to come back to Arch. I reinstalled everything but the same thing happened a second time.
I tested the hdd with SMART a few times and it always said it was fine. fsck also stated that everything was clean. My question is this: Based on the image, is the hard drive itself bad or something else?
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8448 … 603876.png

I'd say that it might be a loose/bad cable or a power supply going bad. But just in case backup all you can using any OS that will still work and then test the disk with the smart self test and badblocks.

Hard drive bad, cannot redo lion

My hard drive went bad, lost lion operating system, completely. Using outside firewire 800 LaCie 1 TB for now. How can I get Lion without paying again at App Store? -Steve.

I'm using same iMac, but using device, outside La Cie hard drive with firewire 800 connection. Best thing is to replace hard drive inside, & ask repairer about getting back Lion. Thanks!

Is the hard drive bad on my (mid) 2009 macbook pro?

First, the problem started when my macbook was stuck on the spinning wheel. I restarted the computer, but the grey apple logo page would appear with a loading bar at the bottom. Once the loading bar got to a certain point, the macbook would automatically turn off. I did some reading on here and tried some things that I thought would help. I erased and partitioned the hard drive, reset PRAM, and then tried to reinstall mountain lion. It successfully downloaded mountain lion, but it wouldn't begin to install it. Then, I tried to install snow leopard from the disc. It seemed to be working until about halfway through when I received an error message that read something about the disk being damaged and not repairable. I then verified the disk and it said HD appeared to be ok. Now, when I restart my computer without the snow leopard disc all that shows up is a grey screen with a folder and question mark. I can't bring up the disk utility page because the command+r isn't working nor holding down the option key. Also, safe mode would never come up before and after I did the erasing and partitioning. Any ideas on what's wrong?

Your HDD or the internal connection cable may have failed. If you have a HDD enclosure, take the internal HHD out and install it into the enclosure. Use the original install disk and see if you can install the OS. If not, the HDD is probably dead and will have to be replaced. If it will accept the OS, then the internal cable is faulty and will have to be replaced.
Ciao.

IMac DV SE 400 chimes, gives flashing question mark. Hard drive bad?

My G3 iMac DV SE 400 will not start up. This is what happens:
1. Startup chime
2. Hard drive starts to spin
3. Hard drive "clicks" once
4. Flashing question mark on screen
I tried resetting the PRAM and disconnecting everything like it says in the manual. I have booted up from CD and used Disk Utility (OS X) and Disk First Aid (OS 9) to find out if the computer "sees" the hard drive. No luck with either one - the drive does not mount. I have also tried System Profiler and the computer does not recognize the presence of any hard drive there either.
Is the hard drive really "dead?" Can it be resurrected - at least to the point where I can retrieve my files, pictures, etc.? I'm confident that the drive is receiving power because it actually starts to spin up (see #2 above). Am I overlooking something easy here? Could it be as simple as replacing the battery? I haven't tried that because the hard drive does "attempt" to start up.
Failing all else, is it possible to retrieve the data using my other Mac even though the hard drive will not boot?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Well if it spins up you might be able to salvage your data with Data Rescue II (free demo) or Disk Warrior. You could also try Target mode but if disk utility didn't see it then that's probably not going to be any better.
If those two don't see it then your only option is data retrieval via a pro company but that will be very expensive.
Richard

How many pin connector/2nd hard drive recoomendations?

I have a dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 Mac that I got maybe 2-3 years ago, probably closer to the latter.
I am getting into HiDef video editing and will be adding a 400 Gig SATA hard drive to the internal bay at the back of the top inside of the computer.
There appears to be 2 female ribbon connectors below the top hard drive on the outboard edge closest to the removable side aluminum door panel.
One female pin connectors is longer, the other shorter.
I am trying to figure out whether I need a 7 pin connector hard drive or a 21 pin.....I will be getting a Seagate hard drive.
Anyone have a definitive answer compared to a guess?
Also, what hard drive of this size would be a plug and play sorta thing without having to do all sorts of whizbang stuff.....I hear Western Digitial has some 10,000 rmp drives, but I need a high sustained transfer rate fast drive to handle realtime editing using Final Cut Express. Suggestions?
Thanks.

Ok, I got the same box as you.
I am getting into HiDef video editing and will be adding a 400 Gig SATA hard drive to the internal bay at the back of the top inside of the computer.
Ok HiDef really, really, REALLY, takes up drive space. Especially in uncompressed formats. If your doing this on any regular basis your going to have to seriously consider speed and data redundancy with something like Apple's X-RAID and a Fiberchannel PCI card with a RAID 5 setup and a lot of drives.
Obviously your going to have to learn all about RAID. Sure you could slap a 400GB drive in and go, but as that beast fills up it's going to crawl and your going to have problems as the speed drops considerably as the drive fills up.
You could roll your own external RAID O with a SATA PCI card and a SATA drive enclosure as a working disk for speed, but don't get a whole lot of storage. Backup the finished files to the 400GB internal SATA at night with auto-backup software. But I think of you do this regularly your going to eat up that 400GB in no time flat.
Depends how involved you get, how much money you got to spend.
There appears to be 2 female ribbon connectors below the top hard drive on the outboard edge closest to the removable side aluminum door panel.
One female pin connectors is longer, the other shorter.
One is a SATA connection the other is the power supply for the drive.
I am trying to figure out whether I need a 7 pin connector hard drive or a 21 pin.....I will be getting a Seagate hard drive.
All you need to know is SATA or Serial ATA. Plug it in and Mac OS X will take you right to Disk Utility to format it. Do a Erase w/Zero, format HFS+(journaled) The "Zeroing" will rewrite the drives bad sector map and make your writes considerably more reliable, it takes some time, but boy is it worth it! You can't do this later without completely erasing the drive. Video needs a good write source as they are very large files.
Also, what hard drive of this size would be a plug and play sorta thing without having to do all sorts of whizbang stuff.....I hear Western Digital has some 10,000 rmp drives, but I need a high sustained transfer rate fast drive to handle realtime editing using Final Cut Express. Suggestions?
SATA drives are plug n' play. Just what your G5 needs.
However if your doing a lot of video I suggest a Apple Fiberchannel PCI card and a X-RAID. Because you need large storage space, redundancy of data and speed for lots of HD video. This comes at the price of a lot of drives and a very fast interface.
The Raptors are fast, but they don't have a lot of storage space. The largest one at 10K RPM's has only 150GB of space and you need a Firmtek SATA PCI card to hook them up to G5's (excluding the Quad supposedly). So they make great boot drives and small storage drives.
Of course it's possible to get a 8 bay external SATA enclosure, a FirmTex 8 port SATA PCI card and eight 150GB Raptors and have a total of 1200 GB of drive space. Which you could roll 4 drives as a RAID O (striped) for 600GB as a working disk and the other 4 drives as combined into one for 600GB of backup storage.
Of course you can also use other larger drives with 16MB caches in the external enclosure but they run at 7,200 RPM's which would be fast enough if you striped them for a working disk.
Everything depends upon how much GB's of data you intend to be using daily, and if time = money then speed is a big factor, and if a lot of files then storage space and for backup. Plus how much you can spend.
If you need consulting services for a professional installation then your going to need someone to help you make the right decisions.
Apple's X-RAID is pretty easy and they will help you get set up, but it costs considerable amount of money. If you knew a bit more of what you can reasonable expect you would be doing with HD, also if you knew a bit more about the technology, you could do things yourself.
So you can either go through a couple year learning curve, hire somebody, or spend the money for a Apple X-RAID and have them walk you through the installation.
Here is some resources.
HDforIndies.com, Barefeats.com, Accelerate your Mac, MacGurus.com
There are also a lot of Pro Mac video sites which you can google for and start learning. You could also ask in the Apple pro video forums what would be a good hardware configuration for your particular needs.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/1eve4/
Also searching for a local Mac user group my yield someone who can get a set up working for you.
http://www.apple.com/usergroups/find/

Hard drive passes all tests but extremely high response times causing major performance issues.

I have a HP Compaq Presario CQ62-360TX pre-loaded with Windows 7 home premium (64-bit) that I purchased just under a year ago.
Recently my experience has been interrupted by stuttering that ranges from annoying in general use to a major headache when playing music or videos from the hard drive.
The problem appears to be being caused by extremely hard drive high response times (up to 10 seconds). As far as I know I didn't install anything that might have caused the problems before this happened, and I can't find anything of note looking back through event viewer.
In response to this I've run multiple hard drive scans for problems (chkdsk, scandsk, test through BIOS, test through HP software and others) all of which have passed with no problems. The only thing of any note is a caution on crystaldiskinfo due to the reallocated sector count but as none of the other tests have reported bad sectors I'm unsure as to whether this is causing the problem. I've also updated drivers for my Intel 5 Series 4 Port SATA AHCI Controller from the Intel website and my BIOS from HP as well as various other drivers (sound, video etc), as far as I can tell there are none available for my hard drive directly. I've also wanted to mess with the hard drive settings in the BIOS but it appears those options are not available to me even in the latest version.
System Specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU P6100 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series
Sound Card: ASUS Xonar U3 Audio Device or Realtek High Definition Audio (both have problem)
Hard Drive: Toshiba MK5065GSK
Any ideas?
Edit: The drive is nowhere near full, it's not badly fragmented and as far as I can tell there's no virus or malware.

Sounds like failing sectors are being replaced with good spares sucessfully so far, this is done on the fly and will not show in any test, you have a failing drive, I would back up your data and replace the hard drive.
Sector replacement on the fly explains the poor performance also, replacing sectors with spares is normal if it is just a few over many years, but crystal is warning you there are too many, a sign of drive failure is around the corner.

Hard Drive has Broke on my 30g Video - Can I ugrade to 6og / 8og?

After taking my iPod G5 Video to the Genius Bar in Shefffield, they told me that I would need to replace my hard drive, bad news, but it wont be that bad if I can buy a bigger hard drive to put in it.
Is the physical size too big?
Can I even fit a Classic iPod hard drive, meaning that I can have cover flow??
Or do I have to settle for replacing it like for like with another 30gb iPod Video hard drive?
I believe I can buy these from ebay?
Has any one else had this problem?
(This all spanned from my disk being in recovery mode and asking me to restore it, rig it up to iTunes to restore it and iPod is busy - endless circle. Bought it into the Apple store and they confirmed that the Hard Drive had broke. All happenned over night)

You'll need to find a drive that will fit your 5th gen and mate with the connector in your iPod. Go to http://www.ifixit.com to see a video/photos that will show you what is involved in putting in a new disk drive.
To get cover flow you will have to replace the screen, logic board with all firmware, and the hard drive. Not hardly worth it.
You can send it to http://www.iresq.com to be diagnosed and get an estimate of what it would cost to fix it.

Macbook Pro Hard Drive not repairable

Using Oracle Virtual Box partitioned 512 GB hard drive into sectors A & B. Sector A was Mac software. Sector B was windows 7. Have not been backing up computer. All has been well till I could not boot into Mac. Utility check said Mac sector A not repairable but sector B works fine. I cloned/copied Windows side but cant get to Mac data. Is this a hard drive replace, a reformat or what can be done at minimal cost.

robertfromjunction,
you can try reformatting the Mac side. You might want to purchase an external hard drive to start making Time Machine backups of your Mac data, so that future disk problems can be recovered through restoration from a backup.

Hard drive bad sectors?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for