Hard Drive Damaged (Input/Out Error etc)?

Initially my macbook (macbook pro 13 inch running lion) would not turn on (get past the apple logo and spinning cog). So I opened up in recovery mode and after trying a bunch of stuff (reinstalling; repairing; safe mode; verbose mode) installed lion on my external HD which I am currently using to do this. I decided that a lot of my files were not worth recovering so I did a zero erase of the internal HD thinking. I tried installing lion then and it still wouldn't work. It would download everything, get to the end of the downloading bar (I am not using a OS disk) and it would contiuously display ~2hrs left. The time would decrease but as soon as it got to around 5 minutes it would loop back to 2 hours. Anyway. Since then I bought mountain lion and have it installed on my external HD. I tried installing it on the internal and it said the disk is damaged. After another zero erase, it was still damaged. Before this I remember getting errors like Iput/Output Error and what not. What I am basically asking: Is my internal hard drive beyond repair and should I buy a new one and if I do, since I am under warranty, can I get this done for free at an apple retailer (or my university)?
Sorry for being so long winded. I'm writing everything because I don't understand what is actually wrong.

If you can get it to boot somehow and run Disk Utility, the definitive answer to "is the drive dead?" at the user level will be found at the bottom part of DU's window. If the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive device (not the volume) is anything different from VERIFIED, drive is kaput.
Of course, the Geniuses have heavier duty diagnostic software that can delve deeper into what went wrong, which we mortals don't normally have on hand.

Similar Messages

Hard Drive Damage

I've been having trouble with my refurbished G3 833 iBook, and I think it's physical damage to the hard drive. It sometimes makes this repeated brrr-tic-tic-tic sound when I open an app, and then it just freezes completely. I've read about other people having the same type of problem.
Does this sound like physical damage to you Mac geniuses out there? And if it is, is there anything I can do about it short of replacing the hard drive?
Thanks in advance.

Hello, Tyro.
I would advise you to back up important data if you have not done so already, just in case.
Boot from your OS installation disk, and from the menu, choose Disk Utility and repair the hard drive. If any errors come up that were shown as "fixed," run the repair again. If you get a message that there were errors that DU could not fix, then you may want to look into Disk Warrior.
There are other potential causes for application misbehavior, some of which include hardware problems. Dr. Smoke has a FAQ on Multiple applications quite unexpectedly or fail to launch and some trouble shooting steps.
Good luck.

IPod Classic: what causes hard drive damage?

I charged my iPod Classic (160GB) this morning, properly ejected the device, used it for a few minutes, then it just..... crashed. I've tried running tests and nothing happened. I've also tried reconnecting it to my laptop (Mac) but it indicated Error 1434/ said the device is not repairable/. Then went straight to restoring it via my iMac, but no luck (it detects the device, but it doesn't show up on iTunes -- so how can I restore?). I've done my research and ended up with this idea: my iPod is dead. Now I'm just wondering -- after almost a year and a half of taking care of my iPod (by taking care, I mean proper ejecting, not dropping it, etc), why the sudden hard drive damage?
Please enlighten me.

Hard drives do fail over time. Even solid state drives will fail one day.
However, I once had a problem with an iPod Classic that I belive was caused by using the iPod as an external hard drive and I ended up taking it to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. All the Genius did was plug it in to his computer and used some 3rd party application to force the iPod to restore again. And that was after I tried several things. So I suggest you take it to a Apple Genius if you can.
If you can't go to an Apple Store, I can look for that 3rd party Application.

Boot Problems- Hard Drive Damaged? Something Else?

Yesterday my MacBook Pro went to the blue screen of death after freezing for a few minutes. When I restarted it, I couldn't get beyond the apple with the spinning graphic below it. I tried resetting the SMC and PRAM, archiving and reinstalling (which hung up every time), and ultimately backed up the files I could (many generated errors and could not be copied) using Target Disk. After backing up, I did an erase and reinstall, which was successful (mostly). After getting the system running again, I attempted to update from what I think is 10.4.5 to 10.4.11. At the end of the download, it crashed, and on restart would not boot again (apple logo with random flickerings of the "no" sign).
At first, I assumed hard drive damage for the following reasons:
-Something fell and landed right over the hard drive, putting a small dent in the open case
-The files that would not copy seemed like they could have been corrupted by physical disk damage
-The hangups seem like they could be caused by the same issue
The things that worry me about this diagnosis are the fact that the erase and reinstall worked, and that the problem seems confined to boot errors (it has only successfully booted once since the first crash).
1. Can I confidently call this a hard drive failure, order one from OWC tomorrow morning overnight, and consider it solved?
2. If not, are there any diagnostic tools I can use to help zero in on my problem?
3. What, if any additional information would he helpful?
Before today's successes/failures, I was all ready to pull the trigger on a new drive (Hitachi 7200RPM 200GB). However, now I'm not so sure. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for your advice.
At this point, I am amazed to say I have it up and running and was even able to upgrade to 10.4.11, which caused one of the recent crashes. I have in fact prepared my data for "the unthinkable" (which has now happened four times in the last forty-eight hours), but this whole "working" thing is pretty creepy. (I tried to pop the top to see if the hard drive has any physical damage from the dent, but apparently the only thing harder to find in this town than a FireWire cable is a Torx T-6. I guess I'll be ordering OWC's lame eleven-piece $17 tool kit. Oh well.).
Is this normal? Can I expect another crash soon?
I think I'm going to try copying some large files to see if I can't repeat my failure. Maybe I've just been really lucky this particular time.

I am trying to erase and reformat my old iMac, it has a 1Tb hard drive in it. Error pops up and I noticed it is saying that the hard drive is 8Tb.How do I correct this?

Iam trying to erase and reformat my old iMac, it has a 1Tb hard drive in it. Error pops up and I noticed it is saying that the hard drive is 8Tb.How do I correct this?

I found another forum that had a solution. Instead of using the recovery discs that came with the mac, use snow leopard to perform the actions that I needed to do. It worked. No input/output error and the software recognized the 1Tb hard drive.

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

That code is
-36
ioErr
I/O error (bummers)
Make sure the EHD is formatted OS X Extended (journaled) and run Disk Utilty on the EHD and repair the disk. If that fails to help I'd try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the external HD as the location of the newly rebild library.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Hard drive is running out of space!! HELP!!

I just purchased a new macbook pro with retina 4 days ago. I've noticed that the hard drive is almost out of space already. I removed all pics and music to external drive and still have "backups and other" that are taking up 75% of HD. How do I clean up these files? Thanks!!

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

I'm getting this problem when trying to update my iphone 3gs it says that the iphone software could not be contacted and I went on youtube got some advise to go into my hard drive to fix the error I have nothing in my host file please help me if you can

I'm getting this problem when trying to update my iphone 3gs it says that the iphone software could not be contacted and I went on youtube got some advise to go into my hard drive to fix the error I have nothing in my host file please help me if you can this is all new to me.

Read this: iOS 4: Updating your device to iOS 5 or later
... oh I think it is a 3gs or a 3
This makes a difference. What does it say in Settings > General > About?

I'm using a Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X 10.4.11. When installing the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable hard drive, I find an error in the logs - "dyld: Symbol not found: ___stack_chk_guard". How do I fix this? Thanks,

I'm using a Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X 10.4.11. When installing the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable hard drive, I find an error in the logs - "dyld: Symbol not found: ___stack_chk_guard"
Referenced from: /Volumes/Mac Installer/MacInstall.app/Contents/MacOS/MacInstall
Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
How do I fix this? Thanks,

OK, OSX can read that but not write, but...
A few options...
You could format that HDD as Fat32/MS-DOS, but you'd be limited to 4 GB Filesizes.
NTFS-3G Stable Read/Write Driver...
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
MacFUSE: Full Read-Write NTFS for Mac OS X, Among Others...
http://www.osnews.com/story/16930
MacDrive for the PCs... allows them to Read/Write HFS+...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

When i was partitioning my hard drive i ran out of power (so it closed in the middle of the process). now when i try to partition it says Couldn't modify partition map because file system verification failed.

When i was partitioning my hard drive i ran out of power (so it closed in the middle of the process). now when i try to partition it says Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed.

You'll have to select the entire external hard drive by the hardware name itself and then apply a new partition table to it under the Partition tab of Disk Utility. Erase and format the drive.
GUID for OS X.

I recently used an external hard drive to back up photos etc from my mac, I didn't do a full system back up. Since then a finder window titled 'client node' keeps popping up every time i hit the spacebar. Can anyone help me please stop this happening?

I recently used an external hard drive to back up photos etc from my mac, I didn't do a full system back up. Since then a finder window titled 'client node' keeps popping up every time i hit the spacebar. Can anyone help me please stop this happening?

Click on it, choose Get Info from the File menu, and check the format.
If it's formatted as NTFS, reformat it as MS-DOS, exFAT, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as desired, or install software such as Paragon NTFS on the computer.
If it's formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, use the Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on it; this may also happen for a flash drive which is about to fail.
If it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, click Authenticate and provide your administrator password, or change the permissions on that specific folder in its Get Info window.
(109318)

2TB Ext. Hard Drive is corrupted?, error code -50 and then error code -35 when i try to empty out my trash

okay so a few days ago i received and email for one of my colleagues to do some final editing to a music video. the folder contained 2 videos a rough chops and the main which was about 2-3GB which i dragged on to my external hard drive . and at the time i was trying to install a trial version of parallel lines and me being a newbie to the software i didn't know i need windows installments for it to run lol but yeah... so i was just getting frustrated with the software i kept installing it uninstalling it and then i was thinking my the problem might be because my MacHD space is low (less then 40GBs on my MacHD), so.. i installed it on my hard drive where all my important files are (I'm a graphic designer and do light video editing) video projects and many photoshop projects form 2007 and logs and just a bunch of important files in my hard drive. so because i was so frustrated with the software i wasn't thinking and i installed it on my external 2TB hard drive. and when i realized parallel wasn't working i gave up, uninstalled the program form the hard drive and for some reason when i did that and i tried opening the video my friend had email to me and for some reason it did load up but a few seconds maybe about 10sec in the video is froze and closed my media app (VLC) and when i tried opening other video files it would freeze every few minutes but those specific files i had drag in last were not playing after at least 5 secs and eventually didn't open at all so i restart my computer login and now i get scared i see that my MacBook Pro isn't reading my external hard drive so i search threw forums... i unplug from the wall plug my external hard drive back in my computer and it loaded up but when i opened my external hard drive all my files had that plank white paper icon on my folders (because i have everything organized but subject when you open then drive folder. so... i go in to my projects and nothing, i open my edited photos and nothing... my hart feels like its about to drop and i keep opening files and there is nothing in them, but in "get info" of my drive it shows that there is filled so i go to "disk utility"... i "verify disk" passes ..."repair disk" doesn't past.... i look it up in forums... so i reboot my computer and go to the safe recovery menu. go threw the same ting "disk utility"... verify, pass... repair, pass... so now i feel relieved. i login files in the ext. hard drive load up i tried again to open the files and same thing happens... so now I'm thinking its the files i drag the files to the trash and try to empty and its gone i reboot the computer and my drive didn't load up so i tried unplugin it and back in... drive comes up i notice theres trash.. i tried emptying it and i get the error code -50. and no files are popping up on my external drive and i try to repair/unmount disk and the verify disk doesn't pass and when i click repair disk it doesn't past and another error code pops up -35.... so i felt my drive alone for a few days and yesterday i go the files deleted from the trash and now I'm not getting any codes but when i try to unmount.verify/repair the disk. keeps letting my tits need to be repaired so i click the repair button another error unable to unmount volume to repair...
what do i do? my files still don't show up. and I'm very sorry for the long paragraph but i have to be detailed for you to understand my situation

Read this.

Hard Drive damaged, error trying to Transfer Activation for CS2

The hard drive on my laptop is performing erratically and CHKDSK can't fix it, so it's time for a new drive. In preparation for the new drive, I tried to transfer activation of Photoshop CS2. I get the following error dialogue box message:
"The application or DLL C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Activation\en_US\almuirsc.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette."
The only choice for this box is to click the OK button. When I do, I get the following message:
"Sorry, a serious error has been detected. To continue using Adobe Photoshop, please reinstall the appliation."
Any thoughts on what to do? Perhaps try re-installing and hoping that I can then use the Transfer Activation feature properly?

I wouldn't even worry about it. Get the new drive, install CS2 and try
to activate it. If it's denied call Adobe and explain the crashed drive.
They'll get you running again.
Bob

Old hard drive damaged; how to upload from iPod to new computer

The hard drive on my old computer was damaged. I had not backed up all of my iTunes library to either a DVD or external drive. My iPod classic has about 6,300 songs. I just purchased a new computer. Is it possible to upload all of the songs on my iPod to the new iTunes library on the new computer? I assume I will get a message telling me that the computer is not authorized. I am not all that tech savvy, so I don't want to hit "sync" and lose all my non-Apple purchased music. Thanks.

Hey there again, here's another answer.
Be very careful when connecting an iPod full of music to an empty iTunes library.There is very real risk of permanently losing all the music.
To prevent auto sync, before you connect the iPod go to the iTunes preferences and select "devices", then select "disable automatic syncing for iPhones and iPods".
An alternative method is to connect the iPod whilst holding down the 'control+shift' keys and do not let them go until your iPod appears in iTunes.
If you see a message that your iPod is associated with a different library and asks if you want to link to a new one, make sure you press "Cancel".
If you should click on "Erase and Sync" will erase all the content currently on your iPod and it will be replaced with the content of the iTunes library you just connected to.
When you've pressed cancel your iPod should appear in the iTunes source list under "devices" and allow you to change the update setting to manage the iPod content manually, and that will let you use your iPod for the time being without the risk of accidentally erasing the contents.
Then do any of the following to transfer your music from iPod back to the computer/iTunes.
For iTunes version 7 or later, then you can transfer purchased iTunes store music from the iPod to an authorized computer by using the "file/transfer purchases from iPod" menu. Note that the maximum of 5 authorized computers applies here.
Find out how to do that here.
How to copy iTunes purchases from an iPod or iPhone to a computer.
For all other non purchased content (your own CDs etc), check out the instructions/suggestions here.
Music from iPod to computer (using option 2). This a manual method using "hidden folders" and although it works, it is a little more involved than other methods.
Much easier ways are to use one of the many 3rd party programs that copy music from the iPod to the computer.
One of the most recommended is Yamipod. This is a free program that transfers music from iPod back to the computer. However, it does not transfer playcounts/ratings etc.
Other free programs are Pod Player, SharePod and Floola and iDump and iPodRobot.
If you want to recover just the structure of playlists from the iPod (and not the actual song files themselves), there's iRepo for Windows. which I understand has this feature along with all the standard features for these programs.
iPodRip also has the feature enabling you to reconstruct playlists.
There is also CopyTrans. This does preserve ratings/playcounts etc if those are important to you but this program is not free. It also supports video transfer.
More information is contained here.
Copying content from your iPod to your computer - The Definitive Guide.

Can't back-up MBP hard drive to external, getting errors

I am trying to back up my hard drive to an external (WD My Passport Essential SE) in Disk Utilities (after booting failed). Was getting error-61 until I changed the external format to Mac OS X compatible. But now I am getting an input/output error.
I'm probably going to need to erase my HD and reinstall Lion, so I HAVE to back-up. I really could use some guidance.

RoobeeLee wrote:
Well, FYI: turns out that it was all due to a bad hard drive (wouldn't mount?). So the HD was replaced, and a valuable lesson was learned: Back-Up before you have a problem! Thanks for your input.
Murphy, that infamous foe, does have the habit of showing up at the most inopportune of moments.
ds store wrote:
Use a powered USB hub with port powered drives.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents
Or use FW drives while you still can. MUCH better performance and since the FW bus has 1.5A available for the peripheral, vs the USB's 0.5A, can handle a wider range of buspowered drives, especially the terabyte monsters.

Hard Drive Damaged (Input/Out Error etc)?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for