IMac Slow and Hard drive Rumbling
Hi there, I have the mid 2009 24inch iMac. Its been pretty good, but over the last couple months its been really slowing down.
The Hard Drive is more then 50% empty and the system is completely up to date. (Snow)
What I have noticed is every time it tries to perform an action the Hard dive makes a noise.
Whilst looking for an answered to this problem, someone on another post describes the noise:
'like your stomach rumbling'
It is whilst rumbling when it dramatically slows down the iMac, as if its trying to think. I have no idea why this happens, i'm guess the iMac is looking for information.
On a windows I would normal defrag and disk clean but as Macs don't need to be defragged, so im not sure what to do? I don't particularly want to wipe and reinstall as my application will take forever to install and update.
Also on other posts I hear the Hard drive isn't actually ment to make a noise as Apple try and make their products silent.
To Sum up, my iMac is running incredible slow and freezing doing simple tasks e.g. Opening Safari and playing videos, And every few seconds i hear that Hard drive rumbling noise (Its quite loud, noticeable from the other side of the room)
First, while started up normally, run Disk Utility. Select the internal drive in the sidebar, right click on it, and select Information. Next to +S.M.A.R.T. Status+, it should say Verified. On the +First Aid+ tab, run +Repair Disk Permissions+.
Then, insert your Snow Leopard installation disc, and restart with the C key held down. You will eventually get to the first Installer screen. Go up to the menu bar and run Disk Utility under Utilities. This time, run +Repair Disk+. Note if any errors are reported, and if there are errors, note if they are repaired. Then quit Disk Utility and Installer to start up normally.
but as Macs don't need to be defragged
That's not entirely true. Mac OS X will defragment smaller files in the background, but it does not defragment larger files and free space. So if you do a lot of add and deleting of large files (such as video files), there can be some issues with fragmentation. But with more typical use and 50% free space remaining (and a Mac that is less than one year old), it should not be a problem.
It is possible that your hard drive is failing, so be sure to have a good backup of at least your personal data, or use Time Machine.
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When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used for backups by Time Machine is dismounted and all backups are gone. I can reselect it and it will start working again, but I am worried if the iMac hard drive should fail will I be left without a backup ?
fzgy wrote:
"Mac OS X can't repair the disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
That will erase it. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast). Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27. If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups. -
24 imac screen freeze hard drive reinstall&hardware test ok
24 imac screen freeze hard drive reinstall&hardware test ok
Do you have a question? If so please ask it and provide more information. If English is not your native language please use Google Translate .
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Hi
Plz help
A flashing question mark appears when i start my iMac G4 15" when i insert installer CD its run and my hard drive is 0.00 Volume, I try partition and Format its not working.
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Thank YouWhat is your iMac model? It would seem that your internal hard drive has failed since it is not found at startup. Depending on the model of your iMac, replacing the hard drive could be either easy or difficult.
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Please help.Call Apple to purchase replacement discs or order a copy of Snow Leopard from Apple's Online Store. Follow these instructions:
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Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
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If it has got Lion installed:
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Gbu.That's very hot, and I don't know if your fans are ramping up or not. My guess is probably not; I have no idea how hot things have to get before the fans get off their minimums. I noticed my drive was getting up to 51C and the HD fan was still running at its slowest. You can install a little fan program which will allow you to set minimum fan rpms. I have 3 different settings in increments up to around 2K for when things get really hot.
In very hot weather I allow the computer to sleep and cool off more often.
SMCFan Control
http://www.eidac.de/
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Message was edited by: WZZZ -
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Just make sure you actually boot from your clone before erasing your original. And if you are paranoid like me, make 2 backups, then erase the original :-) -
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