I think my hard drive fan may be going or it could be my hard drive itself. Any input?

When I have my 21.5" iMac on for a little while or when playing games it just makes a loud spinning sound. I have a video which I will find a way to get on here. The video is mainly for the audio so people can base it off that. When I have my fans controlled by smc which I just tried now it goes away when I go full speed and is only faint when the HDD fan is set low. I have not tried it yet when it is fully happening.

If you've got AppleCare, you're still under warranty, and the Genius Bar might be able to help.
Sounds like you've already tried resetting the SMC, which I would normally advise in this situation.

Similar Messages

Strange problem. I have upgraded to OSX 10.9.1 but cant get wifi to work so forced to be hard wired. Any inputs appreciated.

Hi All,
Strange problem. I have upgraded to OSX 10.9.1 but cant get wifi to work so forced to be hard wired. Any inputs appreciated. Problem is I cant even reinstall it as I saw on a thread reason, it needs wifi to begin.

It only needs an internet connection - wired or wireless.
Fixing a Mavericks Installation Problem
How to manage a failed OS X Mavericks installation | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews.
Try these in order:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
    b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
     Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the
     COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and
     after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears.
     Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

I think my hard drive is broken and I need a backup - urgent!

Last night I updated my Mac's (Macbook Pro from January 2012) software for the first time in a few months. I had three updates, one of which was a security update from this month. Everything installed, though it took a bit longer than usual, then the computer rebooted. While rebooting, my screen froze with a spinning colour wheel and the pop-up from the update; the progress bar was about a quarter done and it said "writing files..." underneath. I quickly Googled on my phone if it was safe to force a shut down and read that it was. Then I went to bed thinking, "I'll start my computer in safe mode tomorrow morning and be sure to buy an external hard drive this week." (I know, I KNOW I am an idiot for not doing this sooner; my excuse is that I didn't have the money and I always forgot about it when I went out to run errands. I thought about just paying for extra Dropbox but I recently moved countries and don't have a credit card anymore. I've already been beating myself up over this for hours.) I have been looking up a LOT of things and have read so much that could be relevant to my situation, but there is always something that is slightly different so I thought I would explain my own situation in detail. (And sorry about the spelling mistakes, with my Mac shot I had to switch to a laptop I can't stand using.)
Well, I woke up the next day and started the Mac in safe mode. It took a long time, but a quick Google search showed that was normal too. I clicked around a bit, thought about opening Disk Utility, but didn't because the Apple article I was reading about safe mode didn't mention it. I opened Finder, clicked the Apple and hit and restart, and that is when the trouble began.
When trying to start normally, there was a progress bar under the grey apple. I had never seen it before for a normal start-up. Eventually the Mac just shut down. I tried starting it in safe mode again, it also shut down a fraction of the way into the progress bar.
Next I ran Disk Utility. When verifying my Macintosh HD, I got errors such as "incorrect number of threads when running" and something about an incorrect catalog. At the end of the verification, I got the prompt that Disk Utility needed to repair the files. I clicked Repair, it started to fix things, but eventually red errors still came up and got the message "Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
At this point I raced to the nearest electronics store, money be damned, and came home and attached my new hard drive to the Mac. It was recognized on the left side when I opened Disk Utility again. When I selected my hard drive and clicked "New Image" and selected the destination as my new hard drive, I very quickly got the error "Unable to create disk image using disk utility (error -61)".
After a brief mental breakdown I shut down the computer again and rebooted in single-user mode. I typed "fsck -fy", a few lines of text entered immediately, then I hit enter. It started searching until it ended with the error "The volume Macintosh HD could not be fully verified." Now I've turned the Mac off and don't plan on turning it back on until I have a solution.
One suggestion that I have read on all of these walk-throughs is to insert the installation disk that comes with your Mac. Well, I definitely never had one and now I can't get on my Mac to put OS X Recovery on a USB.
I am ordering DiskWarrior later today when I can borrow a credit card, it should get here in less than 48 hours according to the German company that sells it here. Will that be too late for my files? Is there anything else I can try for getting my data off my Mac? I tried to use Time Machine when I first got the Mac but for some reason didn't, either it was too complicated for me as a new user or there were monthly payments involved or something. In any case, when I tried to restore a backup using Time Machine, no options came up.
Is it possible this was caused by the software update or is it just a horrible coincidence? I have never had any problems with my Mac before so I just cannot believe these two things are unrelated.

In case anyone comes across this thread while having similar problems, here is how the rest of the situation played out:
Alsoft did not get in touch by the time I had my Apple store appointment. At the Genius Bar, the Genius who was helping me tried Target Disk Mode as well as a few other tests to determine if it was the cable attaching the hard drive or the hard drive itself that was broken. It turns out the hard drive was the problem and there was nothing that could be done to recover the files. I asked if I could keep the hard drive and, being under Apple Care, I could buy it for 157 euros (about $225), which I agreed to do before I left.
By the end of the day I had heard from Alsoft, who said it's usually possible to "rent" the hard drive from Apple with a deposit and then return it to them after a few days. It is then possible to attach the old hard drive to your fixed Mac, run DiskWarrior, and make a report that can determine the state of your files (I think - didn't get a lot of details). In any case, the guy that emailed me from Alsoft said it was probable that the files could be retrieved despite everyone at the Apple store trying not to let me get my hopes up.
In any case, it all turned out wonderfully in the end - I went to pick up my Macbook a week later and Apple had been able to transfer everything (except a few pieces of music) from the old hard drive onto the new one! I didn't have to pay to keep the old drive either. And of course, the first thing I did when I started using my Mac again was make a backup using Time Machine. (And since then I've realised that I'm actually running Lion instead of Mountain Lion, oops.)
So if you find yourself in a similar situation, be sure to contact Alsoft as it seems like there are still other ways to retrieve your files.

Help! I think my hard drive is about to kick it.

Hello everyone,
My G4 (MDD) started to make a loud clicking noise after I completed the May 11 Security and Quicktime Updates. I'm not sure if these two things are connected or just coincedence. Whenever the hard drive (120 GB Ultra ATA/100; 7200 RPM) starts working, say when an applicaton is opened, there is a loud "clicking" or "grinding" noise. That said, it leads me to believe its the HD making the unnerving noise. I used Disk Utility to check the S.M.A.R.T. status and it is verified, however I started backing up files anyway. Not sure how else to check the hard drive. Any recomendations as to replacing the HD (ie; best brand, size options, and necessary steps or important things to look out for, things I should know when doing this task) would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

UPDATE:
I was able to repair the disk by using Disk Utility. First, checked disk verification again, came back "this disk needs to be repaired" in red. Then used the repair button and it worked. No more "clicking / grinding" noise!
Just to be safe, I bought two (2) new Seagate Ultra ATA/100; 120 GB; 7200 RPM; 8MB cache Barracudas (Model: ST3120026A-RK). They were on sale at Best Buy.
Moved the OEM 120 (IBM) to the ATA/66 in front along with one of the new drives. One for backup drive and one for itunes, movies, documents etc. The other new drive is the boot drive on the ATA/100. This was an easy process, just followed directions in Setup & Expansion Manual that came with my Mac.
Purchased SuperDuper! (macupdate.com) or (www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html) to do all the copying, backup of files and such. There is a FREE version however you don't get all the options. I highly recommend this product. Works like a charm and is EXTREMELY easy. If I can do it anyone can.
Thanks to all the other discussions, after looking around for a while, I was able to find the answers to my questions. Especially MAJORDADUSMA. His replies / advise in other posts were well detailed (specifically for a rookie) and very helpful. So thanks again everybody!

I recently had a kernel panic in which I think my hard drive only had so much space left after I ran a bunch of drivers I thought I needed. I uninstalled all and moved files. For some odd reason I'm not getting sound of of my hdtv/monitor.HELP?

I recently had a kernel panic in which I think my hard drive only had so much space left after I ran a bunch of drivers I thought I needed. I uninstalled all and moved files. For some odd reason I'm not getting sound of of my hdtv/monitor.HELP? I uninstalled all the drives and apps I download. I moived files either to trash if not needed, and others to other external drives. I went into disk utility and did a repair disk permission and verify disk. Clean out junk files. Now my hdtv/monitor does not give me any sound, nor does my mac mini. Can someone please tell me what to do?

What drivers?

Help! I think my hard drive just bit the dust

Hello all. Hopefully someone will be able to help me answer this so i can stop bashing my face against the keyboard.
My parents own a Macbook Pro 13" from about 6 years ago. They told me that one day they turned it on and all it would do is come to the grey loading screen with the apple logo and load and never reach the desktop. I put my snow leopard disk in, booted it from the disk to get to the disk utility options. I did a repair disk to see if it was corrupted and sure enough it was. I erased the partition they had on there to make a new one to start fresh. only problem is now i cant format the hard drive and create a new partition to install OS.
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6806_zpse9915621.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6807_zps9bc0abd7.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6808_zps378a9e2d.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6809_zpsb47ba830.jpg
Any help would be appreciated...
To me, I think the hard drive is hooped but I don't really know. Like I said, the computer is 6 years old, nothing has been modified all original hardware.

Do you recall answering a question about letting iTunes manage your music library the first time you started iTunes? It's probably now copying (not converting) or moving all the files to the iTunes Music directory based on their ID3 tags.

Nothing works on iPod, I think my hard drive is shot on my 120g classic. Help?

Okay, so I purchased the iPod at Target in April of 2010. I didn't save the receipt or buy any sort of warranty plan or anything because I didn't anticipate any problems and frankly didn't have the cash. I also never registered the iPod with Apple or anything like that. I know this was a bad plan. But anyway, about 4 months after using the iPod it started getting...screwy. Some songs lost their album artwork or some of the album artworks got switched, for example Radiohead songs all had Killers album covers and Pink album covers instead of their originals. It was weird but nothing else seemed to be wrong. Later I noticed that some songs would only play for a minute or so and then skip to the next song in the playlist or album. And some songs wouldn't play at all. I could still listen to some of my music just fine so I ignored it in hopes it would go away. It didn't so I tried the 5 R's on the troubleshooting page and it didn't really help anything. It only made it worse. It made it so I couldn't listen to ANY song. I could go to any song in my library and once I clicked play, the little play triangle icon would show up at the top bar of the screen but the slider was stuck at 0.00 and no music would play. No music worked, but I was able to watch my podcasts, view photos, and watch most of my one movie. About 15 minutes from the end of the movie, though, it froze and went to the apple logo. After a month or so I noticed that when I plugged the iPod into my computer it made iTunes completely unresponsive no matter what I did. As soon as I disconnected the iPod it became responsive again. I searched through internet forums for help and found little to no help. I reinstalled iTunes about 3 times before giving up and putting the broken iPod on a shelf. Today I found it and thought I could possibly make it work again, and so I plugged it into my laptop (I hadn't used it before with the laptop) and nothing had changed versus the desktop; it still rendered iTunes unresponsive. So I did some research and found a couple new things. I first tried putting it into disk mode (hadn't tried that before) and it seemed to work just fine! I plugged it in and my iTunes remained the same. I renamed it just to differentiate it from my iPod Nano, and hit the sync button. While it was syncing I listened to some music and sometimes it would make the music skip just a bit or delay playing the next song, but it never completely stopped anything. I waited for it to sync my 23 gb of music, and after an hour or so I looked at it and it said something about being unable to sync because of an error (-50) or something to that effect. Later tonight I found out the diagnostic test and performed it. I couldn't get all the way through the auto test because I don't and never have had a firewire adapter, but I poked around the hard drive test and this is what I came up with:
Retracts: 21
Reallocs: 16376
Pending Sectors: 0
PowerOn Hours: 230
Start/Stops: 7686
Temp: Current 33c
Temp: Min 19c
Temp: Max 49c.
I read somewhere that the higher numbers of the reallocs and the pending sectors are bad.... And my reallocs number is astronomically high. So I'm thinking my hard drive is fried. Is it worth it to jump through all the hoops to fix it, and possibly not even be able to since I have no warranty or proof of purchase, or should I just invest in a new iPod?

Thank you for a delightful and very detailed descripton of your problem. Delight because you have tried everything that this forum can offer you, and you are quite right in stating your hardisk is dying (fried). You can try Apple, but if they wont replace the Hardisk at your acceptable price, then try 3rd Party vendors near your area.
If you need max 32GB of space for music, perhaps, try a 3rd Party vendor, who can replace your hardisk with a 32GB SSD, these definitely wont give you hardisk problems.
If you are a video junkie, then junk this idea, even a 64GB SSD can set you back a few hundreds.
Have a nice day.
PS: SSD are Solid State Drive, some use Compact Flash Memory, there are not new, been in used for some years by Apple.

I think my hard drive is failing but would appreciate other's opinions

I had a problem where my system was more frequently getting beach balls of death, freezing, etc. after an upgrade to Snow Leopard. It finally got to the point that it would no longer boot up.
I tried everything I could think of from disk utility to running single user and manually running fsck. Finally, I broke down and got a copy of Diskwarrior. DW was able to rebuilt the directory and I was able to get my data onto my external HD. By the way, DW was not able to replace the damaged directory with the rebuilt one because it indicated there was a disk malfunction (hardware problem not software).
After I took off my data, I used my Leopard install disk to erase the hard drive and then install. However, I did not use the zero out data function, just simple erase. I then reinstalled Leopard.
After the install was complete, it said it would restart, which it did. Unfortunately, once it restarted and went through the welcome screen, it asked to set up. At the point I was setting up my account picture, it just froze again with the beachball of death. I couldn't get it to unlock to did a reset/restart.
Once it came back, after a very long boot time, I ran disk utility and asked it to verify the disk. It then gave an error of invalid index key along with the volume macintosh hd needs to be repaired and Error:Filesystem verify or repair failed.
Oh one last thing, I did let the installation dvd does through its own verification before installation and it reported no problems.
So, my feeling is that it's not a good sign when a fresh clean installation has problems from the start. As a result, I think that my HD is starting to bite the dust and needs to be replaced.
Any other opinions out there? Has anyone had really bad problems with their system where an initial fresh install didn't solve things but it turns out HD was fine?
Don't really want to buy a new HD, but on the other hand don't want to install to a damaged HD and have to go through all this again in a few weeks.
Opinions??
Thanks in advance,
Dan

Checking the RAM is a great idea. I'll give that a try and see what happens.
I've downloaded a SMART utility but the problem with SMART is that most of the time is doesn't detect an actual pending drive failure until the drive is completely dead. Right now, SMART says all is well, but clearly something is wrong.
Update: I completely scrubbed the HD last night, installed Leopard, and installed updates. After the updates were installed, I went to close the finder window that automatically appears on the desktop after installation. Well, as you might guess, instead of closing the window, beachball of death! Only thing I could do was shutdown via power switch.
I'll test the RAM and see what that says. If RAM checks out, it's time to get a new HD. Really miss Newegg over here in these parts!

Hi guys i have an macbook 13 late 2007 and does not work when i start it up all u can see is blank white screen and after that its keep bepping high peech tone 3 times i was thinking the hard drive but im not too sure please guys help.

Hi guys i have an macbook 13 late 2007 and does not work when i start it up all u can see is blank white screen and after that its keep bepping high peech tone 3 times i was thinking the hard drive but im not too sure please guys help.

Try to reset the PRAM first then go from there.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

IBook making weird noise - think it's the fan

Hi, I've had this iBook for just over two years now, and lately it's been making a weird noise. Every so often something inside - I think it's the fan - will start making this sort of high whining whirring sound, then quiet down after a few minutes. It's not particularly tied to anything I'm doing, and will sometimes happen when I'm not doing anything. Also, I am using the computer on a normal desk, not in any situation which could lead to overheating, and the computer doesn't feel any hotter than usual.
I think the problem is getting more frequent over the past few months. I originally had 10.2 and I installed 10.4 when it came out, but I think the noise had already happened once before then, so I can't directly blame that. The computer has been running a little slower since I installed, though, and the trackpad has stopped working a few times lately.
Anyone have any suggestions what could be causing this, and is it just a nuisance or is it the first sign of the computer breaking down? If it needs repairing, where do I start? I'm very ignorant about hardware, so please try to explain simply! I do have a friend who can help me if at-home repairs are all that's needed, though.

Esther,
Have you ever done an Archive and Install of your OS? If so, you may have a Previous System folder on your hard drive taking up a lot of space. This can safely be deleted.
Some folks delete files regularly, but forget to empty the trash. It isn't gone (and doesn't free up space) until you empty the trash.
You may want to download Monolingual, which will allow you to remove unnecessary languages and foreign fonts. Most people recommend keeping around 5 gigs free to allow for smooth operating in Tiger.
Try booting into Safe Mode. This will take awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
You will see your normal desktop. Once completely started up, restart normally, and go to Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and repair permissions on the hard drive, as Barry has instructed above. (After repairing my hard drive via Safe Mode, I always repair permissions, even if I have done so recently.)
Hope you are on your way to a happier, quieter hard drive.

Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013. I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013. I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

rtilghman wrote:
telling me to buy a new router is NOT a solution.
And why not? Apple is selling these things like BigMacs. They can't make enough of them. You've been suffering since May because you refuse to get a decent router.
Can you imagine if a company that makes a refrigerator told me that I needed to upgrade my electrical system to rectify a problem with their device? What kind of response IS that?!?!
What if the problem with their device is that it requires a new-fangled "grounded" outlet and your circa 1890 house doesn't have grounded outlets. Would you refuse to purchase a $ 25 adapter on principle?

My 2010 imac does not recognise my time machine since I had the Seagate replacement hard drive. Any thought from anyone? The External hard drive is a 1 TB seagate

My iMac (2010 intel model) does not recognise or communicate with my external seagate drive as a time machine for back ups since I had the 1TB Seagate replacement hard drive as part of the replacement prgram with OSX LION 10.5.8 installed.
Is this because I need to update the time machine drive itself?

This excellent Support article may help you solve that TM problem:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4.

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4. The OS compatibility is much newer on the data. Totally confused. Not a computer person.

I haven't checked reviews recently but there's a difference between bare drives and drives with enclosures. Western Digital made some of the most reliable drives last time I checked, though the enclosures weren't all that great. It is convenient to get both in one package but I usually buy a highly rated enclosure and then put a highly rated drive in it myself. OWC sells some good enclosures but if they put a so-so drive inside of it then the package is only as good as its weakest component. If you get a package from them, ask them what drive is inside (some vendors have no idea what's inside - went to an Apple Store recently and they couldn't tell me what was inside some of their Apple brand enclosures). My first thought if buying a new drive would be to buy a OWC enclosure with a WD drive, but chek around because I may be out of date.
10 years ago Seagate was one of the best drives. Now they rate poorly in reviews.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

Leopard cannot see hard drive on any Mac running Tiger.

Running Leopard 10.5.2 on a Mac Pro 3GHz 4-core w/6GB RAM. I cannot connect to any hard drive / root directory on any Mac on my network running Tiger (10.4.9, .10 or .11) or OS9. Yes I have an Avid Meridian in the edit suite runing OS 9.2.2. No laughing please...
I can connect to the User folder on any Mac running Tiger but not any hard drives on any Mac running Tiger from a Mac running Leopard. The hard drive cannot be accessed from a User folder even if an alias of the Tiger drive is placed in the ~/User/Public folder.
The reverse works as usual. Any Mac running Tiger can see any hard drive on any networked Mac including Macs running Leopard.
Has anyone else encountered this issue &/or found a workaround? I spent almost 2 hours with Apple Tech Support including a system specialist. They confirmed this behavior in Leopard connected to Tiger OS Macs. Hard drives can be seen between all Macs running Leopard. It was theorized by one of the Apple techs that the behavior was engineered to encourage upgrading all Macs to Leopard. BAD idea! I requested this be reported to Apple engineering.
Tiger can see any drive on the network back to OS7. Leopard cannot see previous OS version hard drives.
TIA for replies.

I suggest that you repeat the external boot process with your MBP. If it boots the MBP, the internal SATA cable probably is faulty and should be replaced.
Ciao.

I think my hard drive fan may be going or it could be my hard drive itself. Any input?

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