IMac drive failure..

Hello All,
Had my 20" iMac hard drive fail - Apple genius recommended to replace, or for time constraints run a bootable external hard drive until replacement. Actually the genius said "I'd just run the external hard drive as you main, as replacing a drive in your iMac could be costly.." In any case, I took his suggestion and purchased a 120GB iOmega drive, loaded it with 10.5 and have been running it as secondary computer (Bought a new iMac 24") until I can return stateside.
For some time now I have been trying to update the OS on the iOmega drive with the latest update of OSX (as of 1/7/09) but every time I've tried to do so, it completely locks up the drive and I have to resort to reloading the drive all over again.. All other updates load fine, iTunes, Quicktime, Front Row, etc. etc., just when I try to update the OS - I originally loaded the iOmega drive with an actually disc version of OSX.
I don't consider myself a novice with Macs, but evidently I'm not doing something correct, or it's not possible to update that version? Appreciate your assistance, thanking all in advance!
Cheers,

AV,
Thanks for the suggestion - I've tried that previously, but upon completion, starting up, the drive then stays on the apple grey screen with the "spinning" gear and never seems to open. I've just tried it again with the combo update, with the same result.
I then tried to restart by choosing the external drive and am experiencing the same thing.
I will try to check the external on my MacBook to see how it reads. Any other suggestions?
Appreciate your help.
Cheers

Similar Messages

  • IMac Drive Failures and Boot Camp - large install experience and question

    We have a large 24" iMac install, purchased in August of '08, 49 machines spread across 6 offices. All run Windows Vista in Boot Camp as their primary (and mostly sole) operating mode - I will be happy to explain why after we get this cleared up, but that is not the point of this question.
    We have had 11 hard drive failures, a rate of over 22% in one year. No machine has failed twice. The equipment was purchased in different groups so a bad lot is unlikely. I am aware that there is an HD failure issue with the iMac's but this seems to be extreme. Personally I've been building apples and pc's since my first apple kit, have a mac plus in a box somewhere, and am fond of these machines (as is the staff) but I've never seen a failure rate like this.
    It has been suggested that it is the use of Boot Camp that is causing these failures. While I have seen viruses over the years that can lead to hardware failure I've never seen validated (or even simply non-malignant) software have the same effect.
    Any thoughts on this? Could BC be the cause? Is this failure rate unusual? Have folks heard of similar cases? Thanks.

    no one has any thoughts on this?

  • Graphite slot-loading G3 iMac drive failure

    Hi. My G3 Graphite slot-loading iMac hard drive died this past week, or at least I thing it did. It has the original hard drive in it and is at least 10 years old,maybe more. It is a 60g drive with 2 partitions: 50g for OS X and 10g for OS 9.2. Now I hardly ever use the OS 9.2 partition, but I just never got rid of it.
    It's the OS X partition that failed. I was working on it this past Saturday and I notice it was acting strange and slow. It froze on me twice and I was force to shut it down both times by pressing the white glowing on button on the front. Well, after that second restart is when the trouble started. I heard the start-up chime and that was it, just a gray screen for a long time, then the question mark and then, after several minutes, it booted into OS 9.2.
    The OS X partition was completely unavailable. The only way I was able to see it was to boot the G3 in target disc mode and attached it thru firewire to my G4 iMac. In Disk Utility, the OS X partition came up as an unmounted drive. Disk Utility could not verify or fixed it. So I tried Disk Warrior 4. Disk Warrior was unable to fix it. So I purchased Prosoft Data Rescue ll and a new internal hard drive.
    Data Rescue ll was able to recover all my files, but with some errors. So, I went and purchased a hard drive enclosure, put the internal hard drive in it, had Data Rescue II clone the entire G3 hd, and then had Data Rescue recover from the clone, with the same results. Prosoft support decipher the error messages to be reporting that some data was missing. Still waiting to hear from them exactly what that means.
    Now I wrote all that to get to this question: If a partition fails on a single hd, does that mean the whole drive is bad? I thought that when you drive fails, you would not be able to see any of the partitions on it. Obviously, I'm going to replace it with the new internal drive that is currently serving as my clone drive. But, I was just wondering how this drive failed. I was going to try and see if I can reinitialized it and if so, reinstall OS X and see what happens. Or do you thing that is a waste of time? As i write this,the G3 is running in target disc mode and the drive sounds fine, not making any noise what so ever. I was wondering if this is an actual drive failure or somehow, when I rebooted the system folder got so damaged that it put the partition in the state it is currently in.
    I'd like to know becuase, if I can just reinstall OS 10.4 and have access to that partition, I could back-up all my files that way and possibly have no missing data.
    So any insights would be greatly appreciated!

    Is the OS X partition installed at the beginning of the hard drive? If so, that's the area of the platter(s) that has seen the most usage over the years, so it may have developed surface damage, affecting the reliability of reads and writes. This wouldn't necessarily cause a difference in operational noise coming from the drive. One partition may continue functioning normally, while the other one occupying a bad area of the drive continues to have errors. The problem with copying files from a quirky drive is that you can likely duplicate the same corrupted files as were found on the original. If time is of no consequence, you could erase that partition and install Tiger again, but I'd use the original installer disk and not clone from the problematic partition. I had a 40 GB drive in a beige G3 that would cause unexpected system hangs. Because Drive Setup's Test Disk function and NDD's Media Scan would hang after a few minutes into the process, I estimated the problem area to be within the first 2 GBs of the drive. My solution was to create (3) partitions, with the first one set to 2 GBs, and the second and third partitions equally dividing the remaining drive capacity. With Drive Setup, I de-selected the "Mount on Startup" option for partition 1, so it disappeared from the desktop. I installed the OS on the second partition and designated the third for file storage. With that partition configuration, the G3 never had the unexpected system hangs that had plagued it previously.

  • IMac drive failure? Consider running off a Firewire 800 external

    This is an informational post, but worth sharing I believe.
    My 2009 iMac 1TB Seagate (ST31000528ASQ) has failed.
    For the SECOND time. When the first one failed at 1.5 y Apple charged me $200+ ($40 service, which is a bargain, and $160+ for the drive which was excessive) to put this one in. I was later reimbursed when Apple extended its recall range.
    Now, at age 1.5 y, the second one of this wretched line has failed. I could pay another $200+ to Apple, assuming they'd still service my 4 yo iMac. Or I could bit the bullet, pay $650 for an SSD, and then pay $240 for an independent to work on the disgustingly unserviceable iMac. With the SSD I'd probably extend the machines useable lifespan another 2 years, and I'd get far higher reliability. The latter is very important to me.
    Except, there's another option. One that is much cheaper.
    My drive wasn't quite dead, so I was able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable external drive. It sits in a Firewire 800 cradle, I used a 7200 rpm 1TB Samsung - one of my offsite backup rotation drives. I booted off this drive and use Disk Utility to unmount my internal. I figured I'd do this while I decided which option to pursue.
    Weird thing is, the iMac 2009 works rather well this way. If anything, it's FASTER than it was running off the internal drive. Aperture is MUCH smoother.
    If your internal drive fails in this old machine, I think switching to a fast, big external drive is a good option to consider.

    Since the Mac is set to boot off the external, i was suprised a complete failure of the internal would make a difference. How does that happen? (I unmount using Disk Utility, it presumably remounts when I restart. But I supposed if it died it couldn't remount :-).

  • IMac Drive Failure.  Restore Data?

    I have a mid-2007 iMac that has the latesst version of Mountain Lion installed on it.
    The computer was locking up often when waking, and lately Mail's data was getting currupted ... prompting me to have to rebuild the index.  This happened twice.
    So, I ran Disk Utility and tried to verify the disk.  It stopped shortly into it, said to reboot via (Command-R) and run it again from there.
    So I did, and again after trying to verify I got errors quickly and the verification cutoff.  It said to Repair, which I tried, and that failed.
    From that point forward, I could no longer reboot.  The attempt to repair apparently was the final straw.  Any attempt to boot results in the iMac shutting itself off about 60 seconds after getting the Apple logo with a small grey status bar.
    Since then, I have tried connecting the broken iMac to a working one via Firewire, and that didn't work.  I tried installing OSX onto an external drive -- verified that I could use it to boot the working iMac, then moved it to the broken Mac.  That didn't work -- on boot, the computer doesn't auto shut off, but it just spins on the grey apple logo scene forever.
    I'd really like to get some data off that internal drive.  Any ideas?

    ChezRusso wrote:
    I tried installing OSX onto an external drive -- verified that I could use it to boot the working iMac, then moved it to the broken Mac.  That didn't work
    I'd really like to get some data off that internal drive.  Any ideas?
    That should've worked. Was the external drive formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled) using the GUID partition scheme? Is this a FireWire or USB 2.0 drive? Is the external drive bus powered or does it use its own corded power supply? What version of OS X were you installing on the ext. hard drive?

  • Following hard drive failure on iMac running Maverick I have recovered from TimeMachine backup but now app store does not connect. All other internet connections normal. Does anyone know of a fix?

    following hard drive failure on iMac running Maverick I have recovered from TimeMachine backup but now app store does not connect. All other internet connections normal. Does anyone know of a fix?
    Also mail not loading. The error report suggests that I look for updates from the app store?

    http://www.apple.com/support/mac/app-store/contact/

  • I had a hard drive failure on my iMac.  I can restore my music, tv shows, and apps from the iTunes store.  How do I restore my movies?

    We came back from vacation to find our iMac not working.  Turns out I had a hard drive failure due to an invalid node structure?  They could not recover anything.  I can restore our music, apps, and tv shows from iTunes.  Anyone know how to restore the movies we purchased from iTunes?

    It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer for just such an occasion.  Use your backup copy to put everything back.
    If for some reaosn you have failed to backup, then you can transfer itunes purchases from an ipod.  File>Transfer Purchases

  • Hard Drive failure on 2006 iMac

    So my iMac (model 5.1; EMC 2118; 2.16 GHz) had a hard drive failure (even Disk Warrior couldn't fix it!), but I can't tell if it's just the boot partition/sector that's bad or total failure .  Any easy way of finding out other than getting SATA/USB adaptor thingy?   I've swapped out the bad drive and replaced it with a new one, but there's data on the old drive I'd like to get at if I can.  If the drive is still good I'll just get an external drive case for it and use it that way.

    Any easy way of finding out other than getting SATA/USB adaptor thingy?
    Not that I know of. This one?
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/

  • HT1661 My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy.  I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?

    My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy.  I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?
    I have ordered a 800 firewire to 800 firewire cable and am hoping to use the target mode option to copy files from the MBP.
    Is this possible?
    Hope so!
    Any advice and or help would be greatly appreciated.
    Many thanks,
    Neil

    Thanks Ogelthorpe.
    Just bought an enclosure to try that also.
    Hoping the MBP isn't really dead but just feigning death
    Fingers crossed.

  • Please could somebody help me I have an iMac which came with Tiger 10.4.10 installed I have lost my disks and I need to re-install after a hard drive failure. Where can I find this? I will upgrade to Snow Leopard after but I cannot go straight to SL

    Please could somebody help me I have an iMac which came with Tiger 10.4.10 installed I have lost my disks and I need to re-install after a hard drive failure. Where can I find this? I will upgrade to Snow Leopard after but I cannot go straight to SL

    You can go strait to SL, all you need is a retail SL DVD available from Apple for $20. The US online store has them at:
    http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

  • Hard Drive failure - various boot modes won't work, HELP!

    Hello all,
    First of all, sorry for the essay, but I didn't want to miss out on possible crucial details that could help!
    A couple of weeks ago, my beloved 27" iMac had a hard drive failure. It won't boot, but instead goes to the grey 'no entry' sign when booting up. I tried holding Cmd + V on boot and this message repeated itself whilst failing to boot:
    "rooting via boot-uuid from chosen/: D94DA2D5-DB38-3517-B05D-70A97AC6EE5B
    Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key><IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1"> IOResorces</string><key>IOResourceMach</key><string ID= "2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
    Got boot device = IOService:/AppleACPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@1F,2/AppleIntel5Serie sAHCI/PRT0@0/IOAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCBlockStorageDevice/IOBLockStorageDriver/Hitac hi HDS722020ALA330 Media/IOGUIDPartitionScheme
    BSD root: disk0s2, major 14, minor 2
    jnl: unknown-dev: open: phys_blksz 4096 does not match journal header size 512, and journal is not empty!
    hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0)
    cannot mount root, errno = 19"
    I'm not sure how much of that is useful, but I thought I'd copy it all down anyway.
    I googled error number = 19 and found articles on an invalid b-tree node and corrupt journals, leaving me to believe that because I recently deleted a Windows Vista partition and reformed the overall HD into a 2TB OSX volume, some windows data may have been left over and corrupted the journal?
    So it fails to boot normaly, using Cmd V, and using the OSX install disk, as well as failing to boot from the DiskWarrior 4 DVD I purchased from my local Apple Reseller because I'd heard that it's very good at helping with issues such as what I think my HD is having. I tried Disk Utility whilst booting from the install disk, and tried to repair the drive, and each time I tried it said that invalid content was present in the journal but the disk repair had been successful.
    Am I right in thinking that my data is on the drive, it's just that OSX won't register the drive's existence because of a corrupted journal? (the little I know of hard drives is shining brightly through at this point, I'm sure!)
    I also tried to boot using target mode by connecting my iMac to a MacBook Pro also running Snow Leopard, but, whilst the iMac clearly went into target mode (bouncing firewire icon on screen), my HD never appeared on the desktop of the MacBook Pro, nor in Disk Utility.
    Whilst I have AppleCare, I haven't tried taking it to a mac store yet because of two reasons; 1. The last time I did this I had HD failure on my old 2008 MBP and, whilst I told them to keep the data on it, the first thing they did was reformat the disk. Needless to say, it worked, but I lost all my valuable Data! The second reason is that it's bloody heavy, and I don't own a car!
    Before people go on about the way I should have backed up my data, I did, and that's gone as well! D:
    System Specs:
    First generation of 27" iMacs
    2.8Ghz Intel i7 quad core
    2TB HD
    ATi Radeon HD 4850 512mb VRAM
    8GB DDR3 RAM
    OS version: not the very latest snow leopard but the one before.
    Thanks in advance, and once again sorry for the essay!
    Westy

    I'm not sure about the DW disk. Check that out at Alsoft's website. Apple doesn't provide data recovery services.
    Apple has records of your iTunes purchases. However, the licensing for music only permits you to download it once. I'm surprised that you don't have backups.
    If you get an external enclosure in which to put the drive then you might try accessing it from the MBP as an external drive. If you have an external drive you could try using recovery software:
    General File Recovery
    If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro.  Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.  Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk.  Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
    The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
    Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
    Beyond this you would need to send the drive off to a data recovery service which will be extremely expensive.

  • Hard drive failures after 10.6 installation, 2 library folders appear.

    I have had to erase my intel imac hard drive 3 times and reinstall 10.6.
    Each time the computer slowed to a standstill after a day or so, while using safari or mail.
    It could not be repaired with disk utility.
    After reinstalling 10.6 I have then retrieved the data from time machine. In all cases I had to update to OS 10.6.1 in order get my printer going (with the updated driver).
    The odd thing is that when checking the hard drive trying to find out what is causing the problem
    I noticed that it had
    one library folder in the system folder
    and another library folder outside the system folder
    on the internal hard drive.
    Is this the reason for the hard drive failures?
    What should I do with this?? How could this have happened?
    Please help! I've been using only Mac since 1986 more or less without any trouble,
    but now I am having the kind of problems with SL that I thought only Windows users had!

    HI,
    "*It could not be repaired with disk utility.*"
    Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
    Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger and later) and launch Disk Utility.
    Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
    Select First Aid in the Main panel.
    *(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)*
    Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
    If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
    *If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.*
    When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
    Select your start up disk and click Restart
    While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window. *Where you see Capacity and Available. Make sure there is always 10% to 15% free disk space.*
    There should be a Library folder in the System Folder.
    Carolyn

  • Restoration after Hard Drive Failure

    Hello all.
    My Powerbook G4 suffered a hard drive failure a couple of months ago, and every bit of information was lost in no-man's land. After seeking help with Apple, I was sent to DriveSavers. Thankfully, they were able to recover 100% of my drive or that's what they tell me anyway. (No need to scold me, I have learned my lesson about backing up EVERYTHING -- especially when the bill arrived from DriveSavers!) The Powerbook was kaput, so I decided to purchase an new iMac. DriveSavers has put my entire Powerbook contents onto several DVD discs, but so far I have had very little luck with actually transferring and using any of it on the iMac. I have been able to copy document files from Appleworks, Photoshop, etc. onto the iMac, and I can open them and use them with no problem. Although, I did have to go back and re-install the actual Photoshop and Appleworks applications from their original software discs since I was unable to successfully copy the applications from the DriveSavers discs onto the iMac. Still, I am in desperate need of certain Apple applications from the Powerbook that just will not appear on the iMac -- things like Address Book, all of my Stickies , plus the other Stickies that were only located on Dashboard (i was a stickies freak), the emails and contacts saved in Mail, the appts. & scheduling in iCal, etc. I cannot successfully access these kinds of things. I am able to copy an entire disc from DriveSavers onto the iMac, but when I launch the Address Book application from that folder, it just opens up the empty, brand new Address Book from the iMac or the new, empty iCal. The same thing happens with other similar programs. (I think iTunes has been the only thing with which I have any kind of success.) I've even rifled through the DVD discs and gone through my old User folder to the Library folder, then the Caches folder, and finally to the .com.apple.AddressBook folder where I extracted just the Metadata folder which clearly contains all of my contacts. When I try to add just the contact cards to the iMac's Address Book application, I still doesn't work and remains empty. The only way I've been able to look at any of my contacts is to use TextEdit to open those contact cards, and then dig through all of the jargon and piece together the info. It's very frustrating and time-consuming. I would just like for my Powerbook to be reincarnated, if you will, here on this new iMac. Is this even possible? I am completely baffled, and beginning to fear that I may have paid thousands of dollars for DVDs that would serve me better if I were lost in the Sahara and needing to signal a plane flying overhead by reflecting them against the sun. If anyone has any advice or tips, I would be very grateful.
    Cheers,
    Maize
    Intel-based iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6)
    PowerbookG4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
    PowerbookG4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

    Hi,
    Maybe this article can help :
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941#2c
    Take a look at the 'manual' backup and restore sections of the article.
    Good luck!
    iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

  • IPhone synch after hard drive failure

    I have an iMac 7.1 and after a total hard drive failure I had a new drive installed. Everything was wiped out, but at least I have the iTunes library still on my iPhone Here starts the problem.
    After reading posts for the better half of a day I tried all suggested approaches, however the descriptions for doing it within iTunes don't seem to work (they insist on erase and synch the new (empty) library. I authorized the iTunes account on the iMac - still the same.
    There are programs out there that rip the content from the iPhone, something I think is the wrong approach. Apple has to provide a way for its customers that have done nothing wrong to get their data back from a legal copy on the iPhone. This right way will likely exist, I just can't find it.
    Anyone can point me in the right direction?

    Hi, what no back up? -- well lets be honest everything should be covered by Apple & iTunes but!!
    I use SENUTI @ odd times & it's an excellent App...why you are so against 3rd party app's I'm not sure..
    If you have friend with a Mac & has some music you like you can always set up SHARING & dragNdrop..
    With my first mac (ibookG4) I lost all my music etc.. a lesson learned, always back up otherwise it's a long arduous task burning your cd's one by one..If you purchased your music thro' iTunes you can contact them, at times have allowed me to Re download purchased items....L

  • Hi I previously had elements 12 but had a hard drive failure how can I re download

    HHi I previously had elements 12 but had a hard drive failure on my imac. How can I redownload

    You can get photoshop elements 12 from here:
    Download Photoshop Elements products | 12, 11, 10

Maybe you are looking for