Hard drive issues...running out of ideas...opinions?

Hello everyone!
Let me start by saying that I love all of my Apple products. I've been able to use an iPod mini, another iPod, an iPhone, a Powerbook G4 and a MacBook with no daily or otherwise recurring issue; however, the reason I now have a MacBook is because the Powerbook G4's hard drive died. Sad, but after 3 1/2 years of problem-free use in college...I could justify the upgrade.
I purchased the MacBook from my university at a nice discount back in March of this year (this was right after the newest batch was released). I was comforted by the fact that I'd more than likely have another 3-4 years before a replacement would be needed. Now, I'm not so sure...
One day last week, a tab that was opened in Safari froze up, and a song playing in iTunes began to hang. I attempted a force quit of both, but with no luck. Eventually I had no other option but to shut the computer down. Afterwards, I began getting the infamous flashing question mark upon booting back up. I realized that I'd probably had some damaged files as a result of the forced shut down, so I began working with Disk Utility/First Aid to correct the problem. Luckily, I had no important files or programs to worry about, so I went for the Erase option and hoped I could just re-install the OS.
Unfortunately it was not that easy. Now my hard drive is not showing up as Verified under the S.M.A.R.T. status, and the volume "disk1s2" will not mount. I tried everything I could find on these boards, still with no luck. So, I went for Disk Warrior today and crossed my fingers. When the menu finally loaded, there were 2 options in the drop down menu: the disk warrior cd, and an Unknown Drive. When I chose the latter, this is what I was met with:
Directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-36,2268).
I'm almost convinced that I need a new hard drive. However, when I run the Apple Hardware Test, everything checks out fine. I ran it twice. Also, when I run a test on the hardware in Disk Warrior, I get this message:
This hard drive's built-in SMART diagnostics indicate the drive is functioning normally.
Now, with my old Powerbook G4, the hard drive doesn't even show up in Disk Utility. That I can understand. It needs to be replaced. But with this MacBook, all the tests indicate the hard drive is fine. The only blatent message about hardware failure I get is when I try rebuilding the directory with Disk Warrior. I know I'm probably just in denial, but when my computer is only 5 months old...I think I have the right.
So, what is your opinion? New hard drive for the 5 month old MacBook (grrr)? Or is there still hope left?

SMART diagnostics are by no means all-encompassing, so it's quite possible for a drive to pass SMART diagnostics but still be defective. My advice at this point would be to boot from the Installer, go to Disk Utility, and see if you can erase, or if that doesn't work re-partition (normally you'll choose to create a single partition) the drive. A badly corrupted disk catalog might not be reparable, but reformatting may work.
If that also fails, then the probability of the drive being defective is quite high and replacing it will probably be necessary. The tiny drives used in laptops are by nature of their very small components more prone to failure than are other drives, though as capacity and performance rise, even desktop drives are becoming more prone to breaking.
Hope this helps.

Similar Messages

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.

TM: When external hard drive space runs out, can I add another drive?

I am using an external hard drive 1TB to back-up my new iMac with TM. When the external drive space runs out, do I have to buy another drive with much more space (e.g. 2-3TB) and start over, or can I just add a second external hard drive 1TB (will TM recognize the second one as an addition)?
Thanks for any help.

First off you should know that when Time Machine runs out of space on an external drive, it deletes the oldest backup you have. So if you are running out of space you probably don't need to worry as Time Machine will handle it. Just make sure the Time Machine backup drive has a higher capacity than the amount of data you have on your internal drive and you'll be fine. However, if you'd like to keep a lot of backups over a period of time you may want to consider getting a whole new drive. The only way you can add more drives to back up to is by using RAID 0 which I wouldn't recommend unless you have to due to the fact that you'd be more likely to lose data. The easiest option would be to buy a 2TB drive and use it with Time Machine.

Hard drive space running out of space dangerously fast ...

I'm freakin' out! I am watching the available space on my hard drive decrease by half a gig at a time...! And I'm not doing anything!!! What's happening! Please help! I can't run out of space because I need it for a keynote presentation and it's getting dangeroulsy too low to even operate keynote without crashing...!
Also, I verified my hard drive and this is what I got:
I tried to repair it but in vain... I have the Snow Leopard dongle for my MacBook Air but I've upgraded to Lion... What should I do?
Thank you in advance for the help!

did you do as suggested and repair the disc?

Hard drive help running out of time!!!

hello, i have a ibook G4 and im all out of space on its tiny little hard drive. I went ahead and get a harddrive to ugrade it with which im familiar with doing on windows. Bu ton mac i dont know what program i can use to make an exact duplicate of whast on my original drive to my new drive. Im use to using ACRONIS true image to copy hard drive to hard drive. Will that program do the same for mac? if not what will.. please help i have to do this today

You can user SuperDuper:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
You can also use Carbon Copy Cloner:
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
I prefer SuperDuper.

Sometimes my computer takes too long to connect to new website. I am running a pretty powerful work program at same time, what is the best solution? Upgrading speed from cable network, is it a hard drive issue? do I need to "clean out" the computer?

Many times my computer takes too long to connect to new website. I have wireless internet (time capsule) and I am running a pretty powerful real time financial work program at same time, what is the best solution? Upgrading speed from cable network? is it a hard drive issue? do I only need to "clean out" the computer? Or all of the above...not to computer saavy. It is a Macbook Pro osx 10.6.8 (late 2010).

Almost certainly none of the above! Try each of the following in this order:
Select 'Reset Safari' from the Safari menu.
Close down Safari; move <home>/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db to the trash; restart Safari.
Change the DNS servers in your network settings to use the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
Turn off DNS pre-fetching by entering the following command in Terminal and restarting Safari:
defaults write com.apple.safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled -boolean false

System Crashes repeatedly - hard drive issue?

I've been using my G4 933MHz with 2 internal hard drives for quite some time. I started having issues with the system crashing, while the system drive made a binding or poer up/down sound repeatedly. The drives were stacked on top of one another, so I bought a new cable and separated the 2 drives so they are now side by side. I thought maybe it was happening because they were getting too hot or something. The system worked for a few weeks, but is now back to having the same problem.
I've run both the Apple Disk utility and Tech Tool Pro and neither really come up with any problems. The Apple disk utility used to have issues seeing the drives right after a crash. Now it either sees them and says no fix needed or it doesnt see either drive at all.
Tech Tool Pro used to see both drives and all tests ran successfully. Now, I pretty much get a hardware nor supprted message each time I run it. At first I thought my system drive was the problem, but now I'm not sure. The fact that neither drive shows up in the disk utility makes me wonder if there is not some bigger problem. Both drives work perfectly fine sometimes. If I boot up a few times, they eventually show up and everything works fine for about 10-15 minutes, but eventually it crashes again.
Has anyone encountered this problem before? Or have insight into what might be wrong and how I could fix it? Or are there any other tests I can run, besides the normal hard drive tests? I'd just hate to go spend the money on a new hard drive to find out that my drives are fine and it's the system itself that is the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated.
By the way, the second drive is almost identical to the drive that came with the computer. I bought it from a mac dealer and it is the same brand.
Thanks,
Wil

They're both on the same ide cable. It's been setup this way for quite some time. One drive is setup as a master, the other as a slave. Never had any problems for the past couple of years. Issue just started about a month ago. Don't recall anything that may have triggered it. Just one night when I was sitting there, the whole thing froze. Ever since then, it has been freezing sporatically. Now it's doing it about every 2 minutes from when I get it booted up...if I can even get it to boot. Most of the time it just sits on a grey screen, then goes to the blinking folder with the system face and question mark, then after about 20 seconds of that, it eventually boots into the system drive and freezes or boots to the cd. It's completely random from what I can tell, as to which happens.

Hard drive issues after update 10.10.3

Question also posted here:Hard Drive Issues (Both new and old)
I'm trapped in a HDD nightmare with my MacBook Pro mid-2012.
I updated to Yosemite 10.10.3 (with the Photos app). A couple of days after the update, I was watching a movie on my TV screen via HDMI. In the middle of the movie I removed the HDMI cable from the MacBook Pro and everything freezes. I forced shut down (Note: My HDD was encrypted). After I forced shut down, I tried to turn on and the loading screen would never stop loading - like, 14 hours stuck with the progress bar. Since I have backups, I decided to access DU and format my HDD. I tried everything. For real. Every command line I could type on Terminal to format, repair, erase and/or partition. I read almost every issue-related questions on the forums and stack exchange groups for a week (even posted my issue here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/181090/erasing-and-partitioning-hard-dr ive-from-internet-recovery?noredirect=1#comment215695_181090).
So, I decided that it was a HDD failure and bought a new one.
I bought the Seagate 1TB SSHD Hybrid - ST1000LM014. Installed the new fresh disk and guess what? All those same problems again. I´m not able to restore from Time Machine because it doesn't recognize the disk in the restore page. But the disk is recognized in the DU. When I try to erase or partition the new SSHD, the same old errors: File system formatter failed. Yes, I tired GUID Partition Table, all of the security options, etc.
Please. Any light that you can throw at this issue, I'll be very grateful for. BTW, the new SSHD is recognized and the SMART Status says: Verified.
Any ideas on *** is going on?
Thanks in advance!
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), i7, 8GB RAM

After I erase the hard drive (I assume one pass of writing zeros is good enough, 7 passes not needed?) do I turn off the laptop, then turn on and insert the Install Disk? Will there be a prompt telling me when to put in the disk? Or do I put in the disc right after erasing?
One pass is fine. If you've previously backed up your hard drive to an external hard drive using SuperDuper!, which is what I use and recommend, or another program, if it created a bootable drive, you want to boot off of it, bring up SuperDuper! and copy the drive back to the internal hard drive. SuperDuper also makes the drive bootable. When done, reboot, and you should be all set. If you're using Time Machine, you'll want to install the operating system, then restore the Time Machine backup. SuperDuper! is available from http://www.shirt-pocket.com/superduper/superduperdescription.html
Finally- should I update the OS? Is there a problem with the newest update that caused this crash, or was it just a spurious glitch/bad luck?
I've been running 10.5.8 for awhile with no issues, and would recommend moving to it.

Incredibly slow MacBook, Internal Hard Drive issues...

Good morning everybody! I'm apologize if this post is extremely wordy...
I am extremely baffled by a particular issue with a MacBook 2.0GHz C2D which belongs to a friend of mine. The warranty is expired.
_Brief history:_
Several months ago, this MacBook could not find a bootable volume. The drive would not mount when booting from an external FireWire hard drive. It would not mount when the MacBook was put in Target Disk Mode and connected to another Mac. When booting from an external USB hard drive or with my MacBook Pro connected to the MacBook via Target Disk Mode, the MacBook booted up quickly. I came to the conclusion that the internal hard drive must have failed and needed to be replaced. Ultimately, the data was not recoverable from this drive.
I then proceeded to swap out the defective Apple OEM Seagate hard drive with a known working Apple OEM Fujitsu hard drive. When booting from the Leopard Install DVD, the MacBook would boot incredibly slow, but would finally reach the Installer Language screen. When proceeding to install Leopard, the drive would take a very long time to have data written to it, and ultimately the install failed. I removed the new hard drive from the MacBook and placed it in an external USB enclosure, attached it to the MacBook and booted from the Leopard Install DVD. Leopard would install successfully. I removed the hard drive from the enclosure and reinstalled it the MacBook. When booting from the freshly installed OS, the MacBook would take a very long time to boot. The MacBook is extremely slow!!!
I checked the Activity Monitor to ensure CPU & System Memory Usage was not going crazy. All Processes where normal with adequate CPU & Memory headroom.
I took the MacBook apart thinking that the SATA Controller Cable might be loose. No, it was firmly in place. I reassembled the MacBook and booted it up again. Still incredibly slow!
Finally, after several reboot attempts, the MacBook would book up quickly and operation was perfect. I applied all updates and continued testing the MacBook with great success. Gave my friend his MacBook back and he was grateful.
_Now for the kicker..._
My friend brought me his MacBook a week ago complaining that the MacBook was operating extremely slow (much like when I was initially testing it before). I verified the MacBook was slow when I tried using it. I tried several reboots and then it would get stuck on the gray Apple with spinning gear.
I tried booting into Single User Mode, but it gets stuck on "Waiting for root device"
I put the MacBook in Target Disk Mode and connected it to my G5 2.0GHz Dual Core. The hard drive would mount quickly on the G5 and I used Disk Utility to create a Restore Image. The disk operation would perform normally and the image would be created successfully.
I then partitioned the MacBook's hard drive when connected to the G5, ejected and proceeded to attempt OS reinstall. No dice! The hard drive is not even detected by the Disk Utility on the Leopard Install DVD.
Finally after several reattempts, the hard drive is recognized, but is extremely slow when trying to reinstall...and again, ultimately install fails. Using Disk Utility from Leopard Install DVD, the hard drive fails to unmount when I try formatting.
I don't have Apple Hardware Test disc for the MacBook or Apple Service Diagnostics disc for this model. Running TechTool Pro shows hardware to be okay, disk controller onboard the Fujitsu drive is okay, but running SMART & Surface Scan takes a long, long time (which I'm certain will ultimately error out). Running Drive Genius takes a long, long time as well.
Conclusion:
I think the SATA Controller Cable is defective. I can't think of anything else that would cause disk errors or performance issues like this. Your input is truly appreciated!

Even though no one responded to my post, I thought I'd share the resolution with the entire Apple community. I hope this information will be helpful to some of you with MacBooks or MacBook Pros that may be running painfully slow or may be exhibiting hard drive issues because your machine won't recognize the boot drive or fails to properly boot on a perfectly healthy S.M.A.R.T. verified hard drive. It just might be the hard drive connector/cable. Here it goes...
I visited my local Apple Retail Store and asked a "Genius" at the Genius Bar about this issue and told him my thoughts about a possible failed hard drive connector/cable. First, he didn't even know what a hard drive connector was! Then, he arrogantly stated that he never heard of such a thing and that these cables never fail. Finally, he blatantly dispelled this as a possibility.
On the contrary with my experience, I have had many failed PATA controller cables that required replacement when supporting the desktop PC's at work. I have personally owned and supported many Apple manufactured laptops and desktops and have never encountered this issue on a Mac...until this MacBook!
So, after looking at the Service Manual for the MacBook, I went over to my local Apple Authorized Service Provider and purchased the Hard Drive Connector Apple Part #922-7579. I replaced the original cable, reassembled and proceeded to boot the MacBook with the Leopard DVD installer. The Fujitsu drive was immediately recognized and was able to be formatted and Leopard installed without incident. The MacBook boots off the internal hard drive as normal again and works nice and fast again.
Thank you all for your time!
:D

Permissions Issue, Colour Wheel, Hard Drive Issue??

Hi!
I have had issues with my mid 2009 MBP recently and I'm wondering what the best way to fix them would be.
First off, I have some major permissions issues with my accounts. I am using 3 different users regualrly on the same machine and needed to access files from the home folder so I changed them a long time ago, and am not sure how to fix that. I have repaired the permissions countless times in the disk utility and it seems like there's always loads more to do each time. When I varify the disk, it says its all okay.
Secondly, I have had the machine freeze on me several times while doing very little on it. This happened awhile ago, and thought that it was just the permisions thing and so I did that again, and it started working better, for awhile. It would go a few days or weeks before doing the same thing, sometimes not even getting past the apple logo on startup before freezing. This makes me think it may be a hard drive issue???????
This morning, I tried dozens of times to boot, with no success at all..... until about the 25th time when it miraculasly booted. I have run permissions repair a few more times and it seems to be working okay at the moment, but the problem seems to be happening more often over time.
To complicate matters, I am traveling at the moment and will not be home for several months. I purchased an external harddrive last night and was able to successfully back up my data.
Question 1: Is it the permissions that are causing these problems, or is it related to something else. The computer seems to work fine when its working, and then once in awhile, decides its not going to do anything.
Question 2: Would upgrading to Lion (currently running 10.6.8) fix the permissions issues or just carry them forward? I would like to consolidate the 3 users into one, if that would solve it. Does the migration utility preserve permissions or does it give you a brand new start?
Question 3: If neither solving the permissions or the OS upgrade would fix the problem and it does need a new harddrive, is it possible to buy one and install it myself? I do not have apple care left on this machine and am on a very tight budget. I am used to taking things apart and all that as part of my job and it seems simple enough. Where can you buy a replacement??
Hopefully someone out there will be able to help me out on this one.
Cheers!!!!
Brian

bgroot422 wrote:
First off, I have some major permissions issues with my accounts. I am using 3 different users regularly on the same machine and needed to access files from the home folder so I changed them a long time ago, and am not sure how to fix that. I have repaired the permissions countless times in the disk utility and it seems like there's always loads more to do each time. When I verify the disk, it says its all okay.
Disk Utility permissions are separate from User account permissions.
This link is how to fix them
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2181549?start=0&tstart=0
Disk Utility will always show something to be needing repair, but that's ok
Apple supoort doc.
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448?locale=da_DK
Verify Disk is good, that's a good thing.
To complicate matters, I am traveling at the moment and will not be home for several months. I purchased an external hard drive last night and was able to successfully back up my data.
Your data is backed up, hopefully not with TimeMachine alone, but if you did, then get another drive and backup data manually to that as well. If the TM drive gets messed up, it's a pain to get your data off of it.
Question 1: Is it the permissions that are causing these problems, or is it related to something else. The computer seems to work fine when its working, and then once in awhile, decides its not going to do anything.
Well you could call Apple for replacement 10.6.x disks, and just reinstall 10.6 and bundled programs, but this can kick out kext files out of the /System/Library/Extensions folder installed by some third party software.
This method fixes OS X, but doesn't touch your files or most programs.
Nor will this method fix your Users accounts if the issue is in there.
A creation of a new user, then deletion of the others, return files from backup (set permissions) will fix User folder issues if the above user permissions fix doesn't work.
(Of course you could wipe the drive from the 10.6 disk, but you have to install all software again)
Would upgrading to Lion (currently running 10.6.8) fix the permissions issues or just carry them forward?
No, you don't want to install Lion, it won't fix those issues in User folders, not only that Lion has it's own issues and doesn't work with a lot of older software etc. No use clusterfscking a already bad situtation when it's seems it's only localized to the User accounts.
I would like to consolidate the 3 users into one, if that would solve it.
Yes that could very nicely and tidy up things in the process.
What you do is transfer all files to one regular powered storage hard drive.
(Don't use/disconnect the TimeMachine drive for this as it preserves the users seperated and you don't want all those users back restoring with Migration Assistant)
Create the New User on the machine as Admin, log into it and delete all the other Users, transfer all your files back from the regular storage drive, changing all the permissions to yourself before placing them into their respective folders as they will have three different permissions.
Notes:
If you have a extensive iTunes playlists on one User (say #1), then create the new user with that same name (will require some work, create User 4, delete Users 1-3, reboot, create User 1, delete User 4) then transfer your iTunes folder to Music of that User 1 (same name as before). This will preserve the pathnames of your song locations and your playlists will be preserved.
(before you ask, no you can't combine playlists)
Also if you have photo's in iPhoto Library, you have to right click on it and "show package contents" inside is a folder called Originals, copy them out and import into the iPhoto of the User #1.
Does the migration utility preserve permissions or does it give you a brand new start?
Yes it preserves user permissions, no it doesn't give you a brand new start. Only a fresh install, creation of new users and then just transferring of files does that.
Nothing about TimeMachine or Migration Assistant gives one a "fresh start", it's if hosed, so is your restore.
If you want that sort of pristine protection, you need to clone your ideal boot partition/drive using Carbon Copy Cloner (free/donationware) occasionally as a hold the option key bootable drive, then you can erase and reverse clone the pristine saved clone.
One can also update the clone on occasion, this way keeping the clone pristine.
I maintain 3 clones time dated, even have my boot drive partitioned 50/50 and auto-cloned, this way I have two boot partitions on the road and two externals at home.
I never use TimeMachine, it's not bootable (well it is on 10.7.2 only to restore though)

Logic Board or Hard Drive Issue?

Recently my PowerBook G4 failed to boot from the internal hard drive. Gray Apple screen, spinning wheel and after a couple of minutes restart is all I get. What happened initially was the computer froze not allowing Safari to quit for restart. I had to manually shut down after all other means did not work (Force Quit, etc.). I have been able to get it to boot from an external Firewire drive running 10.4, but it will not recognize a USB drive, though the USB ports work for a printer and scanner. I was also able to get it to boot from a 10.5 Install DVD that came with my wife's MacBook. Since I bought this PowerBook used, it had no disks included, but did have 10.5 installed. The other thing is the lower RAM slot has not worked from the day I got it. When I run Disk Utility the drive checks out, though there were some Permission repairs. SMART checks verified. I seem to be able to access the internal disk when booted from the external. Reset PMU & PRAM, no difference. Should I try replacing the hard drive or do I have another issue here?

First up, PowerPC-based Macs can't boot up from a USB external drive (per se... there is a workaround and "hack"). Only Intel-based Macs can do that.
Second, since you say it works and boots up when connected to a FireWire external drive, I believe it is a hard drive issue. S.M.A.R.T. status is not ("not") always a reliable indicator from what I've heard. It may say it's verified, but really it's failing. By the same token, it may say failed, but really it's fine.
That is not always the case however. 95% of the time, S.M.A.R.T. status is highly accurate.
If you are so inclined, you can open up your PowerBook, take out the hard drive, and place a new one in there and see what happens. If it works, you're in business. And you only spent a $100 or less on a new drive (which you might end up needing anyway if your current drive is indeed broken).
(If your drive isn't broken, then you have a backup drive ).
If the new drive installed doesn't work, then it is a logic board issue or something else. But since you say it works fine and boots up from a Leopard install DVD, I think it may just be the hard drive. And a new logic board usually starts at $300 so think about that as well. (You could get a new used one for a bit more and sell that one for parts).

Z68A GD80 G3 Hard Drive issue

My hard drives keep disappearing. Everytime I boot one of them is gone. Maybe 1 out of 10 boots will show both drives. The DVD drive seems to always show up but not both hard drives. I have tried ide, ahci and raid mode. Option rom doesn't always show up when set to raid mode. Even with 1 drive installed it would list it in the boot order but in the system status it would list as not present.
Tried multiple Bios from latest stable to latest beta. Always reset bios afterwards with removing power cable and battery. Went out and bought new sata cables. Moved from sata 3 to sata 2 ports and it happens no matter what.
I have 1 western digital caviar blue 640gb and 1 OCZ vertex 2 60gb. I initially tried to do SRT but whenever I rebooted it would be disabled. Logging into windows after removing the acceleration would work and then I could log into Intel RST and it would say the drive was missing (even though I just booted from it).
Is there an update somewhere or something. Is this normal behavior? Is this a common problem? I have seen people talk about it on other motherboard manufaturer forums.

Something is wrong with the motherboard. I got windows reinstalled on the new hard drive I bought and there are too many issues going on. Seatools lists both driver's as failing the short drive self test. Devices will randomly be found by Windows. After sitting here for 2 hours it just popped up that it found some thermal sensor. Internet explorer will randomly go unresponsive and need to be force closed. every time I try to shut down windows it hangs on the exit windows sound which needs to be force closed. Intel SRT sets up fine then disables at reboot saying that the SSD is missing but when I go into the option ROM it says in sync and lists it as a caching drive.
BTW Aida64 lists the 5v as 5.003v I know the on board sensor isn't as precise as a digital multimeter but that is well within tolerances.
Unless someone has any idea what it could be I am going to request a replacement from Newegg tomorrow.

I currently have a MAC Mini, which has 1 Firewire 800 port. I have a 1TB external hard disk that runs at Firewire 400. Can I insert another external hard drive that runs at Firewire 800?

Here's the deal. Currently running SL 10.6.8 on a MAC Mini. Planning for eventual upgrade to ML. Have a 1TB external hard drive partitioned into two volumes, one volume for Time Machine and one volume for SL which I periodically update using Superduper. Thus I always have a point-in-time bootable backup on the external hard drive.
The MAC Mini supports Firewire 800. However, booting from my current external hard disk is pretty slow, since it only supports Firewire 400. I am considering buying an Iomega MiniMax which supports Firewire 800. Then, I would use the MiniMax as my bootable backup volume, and relegate the older hard drive to Time Machine.
So, question #1 is, can I daisychain the new MiniMax between the MAC Mini and my existing external hard drive? My expectation is that the new Mini Max would run using Firewire 800 and that the existing hard drive would run at Firewire 400 speed as it does today. If it doesn't (e.g., daisychaining in the Firewire 400 external disk with the MiniMax Firewire 800 external disk ends up running the whole leg at 400), my resolution will be to run the existing hard disk off an available USB port and have just the MiniMax running at Firewire 800.
Why am I going to all this trouble? That's question #2. I don't trust upgrades; they always break something. When I upgraded from 10.5.x to 10.6.x, the web directories got renamed, and all of my web apps 403'd until I figured out what happened. Plus, I have accounts for other family members, and in order to ensure their ability to use the computer during my upgrade process, I need to have the ability to fall-back quickly to a known-stable version of OSX. So what I'm trying to do is insulate myself from problems by partitioning the MiniMax into two volumes, taking a Superduper image of my current installation on the Mac Mini to MiniMax external drive volume 1, then upgrading to ML on the MAC Mini, and take a SuperDuper image of that to MiniMax external drive volume 2. Then, if the upgrade results in problems I can't resolve immediately, I can simply reimage the MAC Mini from MiniMax volume 1. BUT ...
... I've read that the ML installation creates a "service and support" partition that is different than the startup disk. I'm concerned that I won't be able to reimage the hard disk in the MAC Mini once I upgrade it to ML because of the partitioning changes it introduces on the startup disk. Theoretically, I +should+ be able to use the disk utility on my SL system to repartition the disk in the MAC Mini prior to reimaging it from my backup, but I'm considering the possibility that the new partition may be of a type that the SL disk utility cannot identify, and might therefore be unable to delete or even detect. So I'm hoping someone else has been down this road and can advise me. Even at Firewire 800 speeds, booting from an external disk is still going to be slow, so I want to be able to restore my SL image to the MAC Mini hard disk.
A little background on me. I work for a major disaster recovery provider. I used to have a Mac PRO G5, which I got used, and the first thing I did with it was install a second hard disk, SuperDupe an image from the first disk to the second, and made sure I could boot from the second. THEN I started using and customizing the MAC. I really feel vulnerable with the MAC Mini, since it only has the single internal hard drive - sort of like going out in public dressed only in a long T-shirt. So my whole thing is, I ABSOLUTELY MUST BE ABLE TO PUT THINGS BACK THE WAY THEY WERE before I do the migration to ML.
Obsessive-cumpulsive? Yep. Anal? You got it. That's why I'm in the DR business.

You may have overloaded the port, following the instructions below it should reset:
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).+
+3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.+
+4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.+
+5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.+
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US

What are the symptons of macbook pro hard drive not running fast enough

what are the symptons of the hard drive not running fast enough

Physically the drive will be as fast as any other of its class, and if not then it's experiencing a mechanical issue that should prompt a warning or two in the system, especially if you use a drive management tool like Disk Utility that checks the drive's built-in "S.M.A.R.T." diagnostics.
As for "logical speed," if there are bad blocks on the drive where sectors cannot be read or written to because of a breakdown of the storage medium, then this can result in a program or the entire system crashing or hanging (generally the latter is the case), where it usually pauses for a number of seconds at a time. This is usually accompanied by messages that state "I/O Error" or other similar warning in the OS X Console (in the Applications > Utilities folder).
Beyond this, drive formatting errors such as might happen after a crash or power outage can result in similar hang-like behavior, though this is usually not as distinct of a hanging behavior as is seen with bad blocks.
Finally, if the drive is simply full of files or highly fragmented (not as much of a problem in OS X, but it can happen), then this can reduce access time for reading and writing files, and prevent the system from optimizing the use of RAM, which can result in overall slowdowns. Heavy drive use can also cause similar bottlenecks, but this is ususally only an intermittent issue during a time when you are performing a heavy file transfer or copying process, or other task that occupies access to the drive's index and formatting (e.g., if you check it for errors with Disk Utility, then you may see the system pause or slow down during the check).

Hard drive is running very hard and warm

I recently had a hard drive issue with my mac book pro and basically had to erase everything and then restore all my files from Carbonite. I have now restored all of my files and I think Carbonite is now rebacking those up, but in the mean time my hard drive is running very hard and causing my lap top to get very warm. Is this normal? Is it because of the back up/restore? Or is there something wrong with my fan or hard drive?

Install iStat pro (from the Internet) and open it. It will show you the internal temperatures of your MBP and the fan speeds. Also open Activity Monitor to compare the internal CPU activity with the iStat pro data. Post both for an evaluation.
Since you have suspicions regarding your HDD, make certain that you do have backups. You might open Disk Utility>First Aid and 'Verify Disk'.
Ciao.

Hard drive constantly running and ruining battery life

Hello,
I recently got an x200s from a legit ebay lenovo seller that came with an upgraded 500gb 7200rpm hard drive.
The problem is that the hard drive is running at All times. I can tell from the sound as well as slight vibration. Even with the lowest power settings, and just letting it idle, it runs. I tried playing with the power manager, and having the hard drive stop activity after 30 seconds of inactivity, it keeps running. I turned off indexing on the c as well as the lenovo back up drive, its still running. The hard drive activity light is only flickering, and the processes seem totally normal. What is up?
I'd say this also has to be the reason i'm only getting like 2 hours with the 4 cell and very low power settings, which is unacceptable.
Any thoughts?
Thanks guys

Nah...if you choose a less-than-sensible setting in BIOS, an arm holding a hammer will come out of the LCD and smack you...that's a part of ThinkVantage that only a few people know about...
How many processes do you have running on a freshly booted machine?
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

Hard drive issues...running out of ideas...opinions?

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