Internal hard drive replacement issue...(a bit wordy)

I am the second user of this white core duo MacBook - the boss's hand-me-down.
The original hard drive was almost full when I received the unit, so after using it for a while I decided to replace the internal drive. I have an external WD 320GB "My Passport" formatted for Mac use that works just fine - it keeps the Time Machine backups on one partition and a Carbon Copy Cloner image of the original internal drive on another.
I recently bought a WD 250GB Scorpio Blue (WD2500BPVT-00ZEST0), stuck it in the computer, formatted it (Mac OS Extended (Journaled), GUID) as a single partition and put the CCC image of the original drive on it. All was good. New drive booted and functioned as expected. Four days later it failed (question mark appearing on restart attempts). The disk utility applications in four different OS's failed to recognize the disk. Short story is WD sent me a replacement, but 320GB rather than the 250 - a WD3200BPVT-00ZEST0.
I eventually got the new drive partitioned and formatted and installed Snow Leopard from my update disk. All this transpired with the drive docked in an external USB dock.
During the OS install I took the opportunity to set it up in my name rather than my boss's name. (was this a mistake and the source of my problem, I wonder?)
I can boot from this newly built drive when it is docked, BUT NOT when it's installed internally in the laptop. It is recognized as an available start drive during restart, and I get the "apple", but the spinning wheel keeps on spinning without actually booting (or at least I get tired of waiting and the fan keeps spooling up - I eventually just turn the power off).
Is this drive, at 320Gb, too big for this laptop to use internally? (but the 250GB one worked)
Did I make a mistake in creating a different default ID (me rather than the boss) while installing the OS? Is the laptop "remembering" the user setup from the original small drive somehow and refusing to work with the new drive's new user?
This is my first "Mac" experience and I really like the way the OS treats me and the "look and feel" of the GUI, but this has been somewhat frustrating. (I WILL stick with it though, I plan on buying a new MBP next summer.)
Am I forever destined to live with the tiny original drive and be relegated to carrying around Passport drive to get most of my data files?
I now have three drives I can boot from, but I'd really like to have the big new one actually usable from inside the laptop rather than sitting in a dock (with all it's cables).
Thanks for reading this far.
Dave
Message was edited by: Dave Swinnard

Dave Swinnard wrote:
Booted from the SL update disk and ran disk utility to attempt to erase the existing data and repartition - no go. Attempts to erase, change partition size, repartition, verify, or repair all met with an error about being unable to unmount the drive.
OK, so push ahead...
He's dead, Jim.
The hard drive works outside of the laptop.
Your USB enclosure probably runs slower or something.
Has there been some (unknown to me) change in the specifications of 2.5" SATA hard drives since the original one was spec'd for this laptop that renders the newer ones unusable?
I prefer to have other people keep up with this stuff instead of me. I buy pretty much all of my equipment from OWC. If they sell it, it will work with your Mac. Even if you don't buy from OWC (but you should), if you buy the same model numbers that they sell, you should be fine. OWC doesn't sell this drive. For me, that would be a red flag.
(WD claims their "advanced formatting" is OS X compatible without the realignment required by certain versions of Windows, but is it possible this is a hardware related issue with the MacBook?)
OWC does sell the "regular formatting" version of this drive (WDGWD3200BEVT). Perhaps it only works in newer machines. The WD support page also mentioned that cloning can screw up the drive. I never recommend cloning except in some very specific circumstances. I do that not because I know something, but because I don't. I'm not entirely sure what those clone tools are doing underneath and if they've been tested on these new drives.
Maybe put it back into the enclosure and partition it again into a single volume. Make sure to use the GUID option. Don't do anything else with it. Put it back into the Mac and try again. If it fails again, get a different drive.

Similar Messages

Internal Hard Drive replacement issue?

Hi,
Last night, I upgraded my internal hard drive from 20Gig to 80Gig, and I added a DVD ROM drive so I can watch movies (instead of playing CD's only). I ran the hardware test disc and everything passed.
In addition, last week, I installed 512MB of additional RAM. The physical installations of everything was really a lot easier than people in the forum would have you believe, but Pismos are definitely easier and a lot more user friendly when it comes to upgrading.
The problem is I don't have any iBook installation discs. I DO have the 4 original restore discs, but when I attempt to do a restore, the restore option is grayed out and inaccessible. The eject and switch disc option only shuffle between image and disc. The HD icon won't come up. Startup without the restore discs only boots up to the question mark.
Obviously, I didn't know that I was supposed to back up the original 20Gig drive before removing it. I guess I can put it back in, back it up, and take it out again. My question is, before I remove the 80Gig and reinstall the 20gig, does anyone know of another option to get the restore option to not be grayed out?
If not, then I have another question. How can I back up the original iBook drive on my Pismo's external 300 Gig Firewire Seagate without destroying all the data I've backed up from the Pismo.
It is partitioned into 2, but one of them is only 10Gigs large as a mirror of 1 of my Pismo's 10Gig HD? If it isn't possible, then I guess I can destroy everything on my Seagate and reinstall it again when I'm done upgrading the iBook. I would rather not do that though.
Thank you in advance for any ideas you may have on the subject,
A Little Fish in the BigMac Pond

Check Apple's Knowledge Base article on restoring your Apple software for links to the proper instructions for your model (which depends upon which software came with it). Most likely, the Restore discs are not startup CD's, so you can't use them until OS X is installed on the computer.
You need the installation disc to initialize the drive and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
I haven't used it, but DiskStudio is supposed to allow you to partition without erasing the hard drive.

Can i use seagate goflex 3tb external hard drive for 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacment if i take it out of the goflex case.do i need to format it before installation due to it allready having goflex software on it from manufacturer.

i have 3tb seagate goflex external hard drive.its brand new in package.i took it out of case and deleted partitions that were created by manufacturer.so now i have 2800 gigs.its formatted ntfs.will it work for late 2010 27" imac internal hard drive replacement.i found a apple repair place that will charge me 50$ to swap drives for me assuming i have the drive.i will have to install leopard myself at this price.i dont want to have to pay for anything other than the swap.will this hard drive work with this format or do i need to format it differently.

Hello
formatted ntfs
NTFS format not work on mac system , need to be formatted as Extended Mac os Journaled format and partition table need to be GUID
how to do that in video
HTH
Pierre

MacBook Pro Hard Drive Replacement issues with OSX

Ok so i just replaced a hard drive in a macbook or 17" 2009 and it's fairly simple. I replaced it with a 500g seagate hybrid drive.
After fter doing that I put the old drive in an enclosure so the client could have all of their pictures, etc. I tried to install yosemite onto the new hard drive from the recovery option on the boot loader. It took four hours, but finnaly made it, and when it did it just sat at a grey screen forever. the mouse worked on this grey screen which was wierd, and it hovered there forever. I tried the same process again, this time leaving the grey screen overnight. Nothing. Still.
PLease help.

Is the 640GB WD approved as an internal drive for your MBP? If it is, then the clean, formatted drive with no OSX should be installed in the MBP. Then start up (holding the "Option" key) from the OSX installation disc and install OSX. After a successful installation, the MBP will restart. Then run Software Update to get the latest version of OSX.

Hard Drive Replacement Issue

The IBM Deskstar 60GB hard drive, in my G4 Quicksilver 933, started to go South on me this week. Last night I purchased a Seagate 120GB to replace it with but when I boot from CD it doesn't show any volumes install the OS on.
I'm not concerned about recovering anything off of the old drive as I've already backed it up on my external drives. But, how do I initialize a drive if I'm replacing it as the master? Can I do it from CD? I don't know how to access a disk utility. The CD automatically starts the install process.

right you are.
just to help anyway when you boot up with the installer disk and you end up getting to the point where it lits what language you want to use. goto the file menu and goto the list and select disk utility. this will allow you to see all the drives. the new drive might be listed. there you can then choose to format the drive whatever style you wish, with or without OS9 drivers, etc.
then when finished continue using the installer and install new OSX on the new drive.

Macbook pro Hard drive replacement issue, won't read new drive.

I have a Macbook pro Core 2 Duo. The 2nd generation Macbook pro. I am trying to install a 640GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive. I have formatted the new drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with the GUID table though an external USB enclosure. I have installed OSX from the CD's onto this new drive and can boot from it externally. When I install it internally and try to boot I get a gray screen with a stop sign (circle with a line through it). If I boot from the install CD and use disk utility the compter sees the drive as 4.6TB and can't format it.
Why would this drive work in an external enclosure but not internally?
I can boot from the drive so it should be good.
My original HDD works in the computer so the connections should all be good.
I am confused. Any help that can be offered would be appreciated.

Is the 640GB WD approved as an internal drive for your MBP? If it is, then the clean, formatted drive with no OSX should be installed in the MBP. Then start up (holding the "Option" key) from the OSX installation disc and install OSX. After a successful installation, the MBP will restart. Then run Software Update to get the latest version of OSX.

Internal Hard Drive compatibilty issue

The motherboard of my laptop "Toshiba Satellite M305D-S4829 (Part No. PSMDYU-00C005)" is broken.
I removed the hard drive out from my Toshiba Satellite M305D-S4829, which runs Windows Vista.
I have another Toshiba laptop "Toshiba Satellite A215-S7444" which also run Windows Vista and it's working.
Could you please tell me whether the hard drive from my "Toshiba Satellite M305D-S4829" is compatible to "Toshiba Satellite A215-S7444"?
My plan is to remove the hard drive from the laptop in which the motherboard is broken, and to install the hard drive removed from broken laptop to another laptop which is working and also run Windows Vista. Will this way be working for me?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Will this way be working for me?
Very (extremely) unlikely. Windows is configured to run on particular hardware.
Your best bet is to place the drive in a USB enclosure and rescue the important data files using another computer.
-Jerry

I downloaded all into a new external hard drive because my internal hard drive was failing. then got internal hard drive replaced by Apple Store. Now when I try to sync IPAD or IPhone to IMAC, photos will not transfer. Why? What shall I do?

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive. Before getting new Hard drive, I downloaded all into external hard drive. photos did not download!

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive.
How did you import the photos to iPad and iPhone?
If the photos have been synced to the iPhone and iPad using iTunes, you cannot sync them back.
See this document: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236
You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures in the Camera Roll or Saved Photos from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device:
If your photos are not in the Camera Roll on your devices, save them to the Camera Roll, share them to the Photo Stream, mail the photos, or, if you have iPhoto on the devices, use iTunes Photo Sharing.
http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkee26bc1
Save photos to your computer using iTunes
Connect your iOS device to your computer.
Tap a photo, album, event, web journal, or slideshow and tap Share> iTunes.
Tap Selected, or change the photos you want to save (if you are saving a slideshow skip to step 4):
Select different photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap one or more photos, and tap Next.
Select a range of photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap Range, tap the first and last photos in the range, and tap Next.
Select all the photos in an album or event: Tap All.
In iTunes, click the button for your device and click Apps at the top of the window.
Below File Sharing, select iPhoto (in Apps).
Select the Shared Photos folder under iPhoto Documents.
Click Save To and select the location on your computer where you want to save the items.
To view your photos, go to the Finder and look in the location you selected above.

New internal hard drive replacement not seen - why?

I have replaced the internal Seagate Momentus 7200RPM, 160Gb drive on my 2007, 17 inch MBP- with a Seagate Momentus 7200RPM 500 GB. I used Super Duper to clone the original drive - and the new drive will boot up OK - BUT only when in an external enclosure! Not as the new internal drive.
I am using Mountain Lion 10.8.2
When it is in place in the MBP at start up I get the flashing Question mark. I have tried booting from another backup drive - to use Disk Utility to repair the new drive. but it does not show up! I have also tried booting from OS Mountain Lion on a flash drive - but, again I cannot 'see' the new Seagate internal drive to repair it!
I have checked all the connections (taken the new drive out and put it back in several times) all connections appear to be Ok.
I have tried resetting PRAM - no difference.
So, why does it only work when connected as an external drive - and does not show up when connected as an internal drive?
PLEASE - can anyone help?
thanks
Alan

Hi again - thanks! I recall the cable snaking around and it certainly does look as in your pic.
As I put in my first post - I do have an enclosure and it does work from that. However, it is only via USB 2 so is slow. As I write I have booted up from my Firewire 800 backup drive.
I will explore bot iFixit and Powerbook medic and see if they can send these parts to me - so thanks to you both for all this helpful advice!
One final question - since it WAS working when I first took out the original drive it may be that I have EITHER pulled too hard and broken a connector - or just pulled one loose
Is ther any way I can test? How are the other ends connected? The large block of double connectors to the drive is clear - but I have not tried specifically to remove any other ends!

Installing Windows 7 with boot camp as whole partition on 2nd internal hard drive

Hi all,
I am unsure what is the recent changes with Apple boot camp. But when I used boot camp utilitiy on my Mac Pro (Mid 2010) to install windows 7 64 bits. It would not install and created a whole lot of problems.
After I initialise the process to install windows 7 using boot camp utilities, I chose the option to create a single partition to installl windows 7 on my secondary internal hard drive (1TB). After I restarted my Mac Pro and started the Windows 7 installation process, I was unable to install Windows 7 on the BOOTCAMP partition created by the boot camp utilitiy. I got an error something about Windows cannot be installed on the selected forum because the driver contained GPT details.
I tried to format the BOOTCAMP partition, but it ended up with errors. I tried to delete and recreate the BOOTCAMP partition in Windows setup, but failed with errors again. As I could not go any further with the Windows 7 installation, I had to hard reset my Mac Pro and tried to reboot back into Mac OS X Lion and that's when the nightmare begin.
Not only I could not boot into OS X, I could not use any of the startup key combinations (i.e. Hold option key to select start up disk, option + R to boot the lion recovery drive, not boot from any external firewire drive installed with OS X Lion). Basically none of the key combinations worked except for the holdingi F12 and mouse key to eject CD.
The only thing I could boot the Mac Pro with is the windows installation CD and Linux Ubuntu Raring Distro. I can install the ubuntu distro without any issue. However, I could not boot my mac pro back into OS X as Linux does not support bootcamp. The only way I could use Mac OS X Lion again is to delete the partition OS X Lion was installed on, and then I was be able to install Windows 7 without any issue.
After installing windows 7 I would have to download boot camp and then use the boot camp control panel to restart in the Mac Pro installation DVD and I will have to reinstall OS X again. After installing OS X, I went to System Preference and tried to select Windows 7 as startup disc. But I failed to as it says "Windows 7" Was installed via another utility. I would have to erase the partition and reinstall Windows 7 again using bootcamp utility. If I try to install windows 7 again, the horror I described above repeats again.
From my understanding, the Boot camp utility creates a new EFI bootrom with Master Boot Record (MBR) in FAT32 format. Therefore I could not boot back into Mac OS X without using boot camp in windows 7 as none of the boot combinations key worked.
I want to ask if anyone is experiencing the same issue as i do, and if there are any solutions to the problem I am experiencing. I never had such issue before. I was able to install Windows 7 on my 2ndary internal hard drive without issue using boot camp. I don't what has changed. I have googled for solution, I only found something related to XOM but nothing else.
If anyone can provide me with any help in regards to installing Windows 7 as a whole partition on a secondary internal hard drive. It'd be grealy appreciated. Thank you in advance.

If you have driver issue, just pre-download the boot camp drivers and save them on an external drive or burn them onto a cd, you will be able to load drivers via the advanced installation option during windows setup, that is if your osx partition isn't actively preventing you from installing win7 on the BOOTCAMP Partition created by boot camp assistant, I find this rather ironic, took me 3 days to figure out this issue, I was stuck without being able to boot into anything beside the windows cd, which wasn't even helpful as I could not install windows as I did not want to delete my osx partition. I lost all my data becsuse of it, as I had no idea what was going on. I tried to recover the partition using testdisk, hfsprogs and gparted in ubuntu life cd but they dont support HFS+. As I could not access osx terminal (couldn't even boot into osx installation dvd with that dreaded MBR created by boot csmp). I could not use pdisk in terminal to restore the osx partition map. Though luck for me. Called applecare and they had no idea what the problem was, and as usual they orgsnised for hard drive replacement. But it was clearly a software issue.
They will have to fix bay2 for me as I can no longer detect any hard disk connected to that bay.

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

Major Issues after Hard Drive Replacement

I recently upgraded to a 250 GB Internal Hard Drive for my old 1Ghz eMac. After spending a considerable amount of time getting to the old drive, removing it and then replacing the unit, I was dismayed when I turned it on and no power seemed to be getting to the fan or the optical drive. I was going to boot from an OS X disk to format the hard drive but without the power, this was impossible. Of course, I took everything apart again, checked my connection and same result. The eMac would power on and go automatically to the little folder/question mark icon. Still the fan was not moving nor was power feeding to the optical drive. I opened up another eMac and compared it with the one I was working on and everything was hooked up the same way.
So I then decided to try to install the new hard drive into the other eMac. When I powered up, I got exactly the same result. No power to the fan or the optical drive. I'm at a loss for what could be wrong. I'm certainly no expert and the possibility of my doing something wrong is certainly there, but I've done as much homework as I can dig up on my issues and I can't find out what could be causing this problem.
Any help would be MOST appreciated. (I also reset the PRAM hoping it would provide a quick fix.) Nope...

mat,
And when I plug it in I can hear a quiet buzzing/whining noise, and the power button doesnt seem to do anything
Yah that doesn't seem right.
Ive tested the power on switch and its ok
How was that done?
As soon as I press the PRAM reset switch the power supply noise changes from a random whine to a fix pitch whine for about 5 secs or until I press the power on switch
That's also not right. You're trying to reset the "PRAM" actually called the PMU in this machine while it's active and that's for sure not right.
I can make the same offer to you as I did to TN.
Richard

Internal hard drive issue with Mac Pro

I work for two office that share information through a VPN. Each office has one Mac Pro being used as a server for data storage. The Pros have four internal hard drives (1TB each).
Hard drives in the Pro for OFFICE 1 were configured like so:
HD1 - OS/Boot drive
HD2 - Time Machine backup of HD1/DATA1/DATA2
DATA1 - Data storage
DATA2 - Data storage
Three weeks ago: Time Machine could not find HD2 and could not backup. I rebooted the machine and HD2 reappeared. However, after the reboot, DATA1 did not mount. I was unable to find DATA1 in Disk Utility. However, the drive could be accessed by all other Macs on the network. This machine was taken to the local Apple Store and we were told that HD2 was a bad drive and need to be replaced. We opted not to replaced the drive at this time and turned Time Machine backups off. We haven't had any problems with DATA1 since. (NOTE: During the weeks prior, the client machines intermittently lost connection with DATA1 and would have to reconnect)
Last week: OFFICE 2 - Mac Pro hard drives configured the same as OFFICE 1; however, HD2 was not used for TM backups. TM was turned on and set to backup HD1/DATA1/DATA2 to HD2 (exactly like OFFICE 1). The next day, TM could not find HD2 and backups stopped running. I rebooted the machine, HD2 reappeared, but we did not restart the TM backups.
Today: OFFICE 2 client machines have experienced intermittent disconnecting of DATA1.
I wasn't extremely concerned with the situation at OFFICE 1 as these Pros are almost five years old and in constant use. We plan on purchasing an external drive for the TM backups. HOWEVER, with a similar situation now being experienced in OFFICE 2, I am perplexed.
Could both machine be experiencing hard drive failures weeks apart? They were both purchased and installed at the same time.
Is there a known issue with TM and internal drives?
One difference between the two machines: OFFICE 1 is running OS X 10.8.5; OFFICE 2 runs 10.6.8
Any suggestions/help is appreciated. Thanks!

Relying on TimeMachine has some issues, along with only having one, I use at least two swapping TimeMachine so that they rotate AND I clone every drive (volume actually) so I can swap drives if need be, especially useful for t he system but good for any drive.
Power issues in t he buildings?
There are some programs that will scan for and report and./or attempt to reassign a failing sector ("fail" is qualitative, is 10 write failures a fail? then the 9th is not but it is a "weak sector.") Some run in the background.
Mirror can be 2 or 3 ( I prefer 3, that way if one fails I STILL have a mirror array in place) where any failure is not acceptable, AND where the array data is backed up usually - less important when using a three-drive configurations.
How old, when last initialized (zero), and is it showing spare blocks being used? that last is the most indicative of failed drive.
Rare but a bad SATA cable or power (seeing how the cables are tucked away) is only way generally for multiple failures in same drive bay or computer. Note: early on in 2006-7 there were reports of some customers having motherboard and trouble with a drive bay , and t he problems showed up early.
Often though it is NVRAM or SMC related issue trigged by something else, a USB cable or device that is faulty, even a PCIe controller that is the culprit. And replacing cable, keyboard, device, and resetting SMC and NVRAM (often NVRAM needed to be done multiple times, but never keep resetting SMC) - unplugged and when you connect back up, do not install anything other than system, keyboard and mouse and see if that helps.
With a drive, likely the drive in 85% or more, is fine, but the directory is not, or it needs to be erased to rebuild all the system partitions.
1TB is small for TimeMachine. 350% of the amount of data, and always have free space for a full backup set of all the data. T.M. will try and prefers to automatically backup any and everything plugged in and connected, rather than my preference which is ASK FIRST to add a drive to TM backup set, otherwise leave it out. 600GB of data and system would mean 2.5TB drive, maybe 2TB minimum.

Interface freezing issues and hard drive replacement

Hi, I have an Imac. It was getting slow and kept getting a long time lag on typing etc. So I bought snow leopard, backed up and wiped and reinstalled the lot. Then it started freezing - from moment one (literally). I could move my mouse and stuff was still running but I couldn't click on anything or select anything or get any response at all. Sometimes it would "white out". Only solution was forced reboot.
So I called apple, rand disk utility, kept showing disk errors - file 334576 should be file 334575 etc. Fixed them - they came back after each freeze. So they said its a hardware error.
Took it to shop. They reinstalled and no errors showed in the tests - but then it kept freezing when they tried to use it. Eventually they settled on a hard drive error - fitted a new one (money paid), it didn't freeze in 48 hours of tests and use. They said that if it keeps freezing it must be an intermittent motherboard problem. TBH I'm not convinced because, though it was slow before SNOW, it wasn't freezing!
Anyway, I took it home, put my stuff back on, was fine -
next day, froze twice in 2 mins - once, rebooted, then again, froze instantly before dock had fully popped up! (It seems to freeze in movement a lot - like task switching or dock popping etc).
It was then that I stumbled upon this term online "interface freezing issues" which seems to have been an initial issue with the imac, and there were some early posts about snow too. The problem is exact, if you minus this hard drive error issue, which MAY have been separate problem (cause by shorts caused by excessive cat hair inside computer).
I have read that external drives etc can be a cause, but not heard usb mentioned, only flywire - I have a dual USB port external drive for time machine. But really, this freezing is entirely since snow.
Can I solve this problem?
Do apple acknowledge this problem?
SHould I uninstall it and ask for my money back?
I would like solid, conclusive answers if possible - from people with direct experience. I work online and am also a writer - i am BEYOND dependant on this mac (especially as my partner is seriously ill and I am the sole income just now).
thankyou for reading
Anna
Anyway - ran disk utility - but no errors this time. Which is good.

As for the taking apart part. I'm not too worried. I've read quite a bit on the subject and watched a couple youtube videos. Also, i've taken a iBook G4 apart to it's core to replace that hard drive and did it without a hitch.
I'm a little unsure about the interface for the Optical Drive. From what i've read the HD is a SATA connection. While, the Optical Drive connection is IDE. Is that normal for one computer to have both?
I found two drives both around $100 for each. One is SATA the other is IDE.
SATA
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/BusinessProducts/Blu-rayDisc+DVD Writers/DVDComputerWriters/DVR-TS08
IDE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118021
Also, the HD from Newegg that I posted above, runs at 3GB/s. I've remember reading somewhere that my iMac will only run the drive at 1.5GB/s. Is that true?

How can I replace my internal hard drive on my Macbook?

I have a 13 inch aluminum late 2008 MacBook. The processor is 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 running OS X Lion 10.7.4. The hard drive is currently set up as follows:
Macintosh HD 132.5 GB (with only 1.32 GB free)
BOOTCAMP 26.69 GB (with 6.15 GB free)
I am unsure if this matters but here is the info just in case:
On my Macintosh HD I have:
Audio 3.04 GB
Movies 33.11 GB
Photos 36.98 GB
Apps 15.27 GB
Backups Zero GB
Other 42.78 GB
I only use 1 software program on my Bootcamp (which I hardly use but must keep to run an electric vinyl cutting machine). I have thought of re-partitioning the drive. But then I got thinking that maybe the drive is just too small and it's no use.
I also have an older Lacie 300 GB external hard drive that I use to keep all of my iTunes Library, most of my iPhoto library and most of my data. I have another older Lacie 300 GB external hard drive that I use exclusively for my Time Machine back ups.
I also have a Western Digital 2 TB external hard drive that I use to put all of my movies on so that I can play them on any of my computers or plug into my Play Station 3 and play them on any of my TV's.
I have considered just getting another Western Digital 2 TB external hard drive to use for virtually all of the files/pictures/movies/music etc. on this internal hard drive.
Right now I am unsure what the best move is to make. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with Apple Tech Support today trying to buy an internal hard drive to install myself. They were not very helpful (in fact he told me I would have to ship in my machine just to replace the battery which is NOT true). Is there anyone out there who can give me some advice on this situation? Any help or suggestion would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

For a new hard drive try Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Dr ives&Order=PRICE
Or OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
Here are video instructions on replacing the hard drive on the Aluminum Unibody http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_13_unibody/
To transfer your current hard drive I like the free application Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes a bootable copy of everything on your hard drive http://www.bombich.com/index.html You'll need a cheap SATA external hard drive case. Put the new drive in the case then format and partition the new drive and clone your old drive to the new one. Check that it's set up right by booting up from the external drive. Then replace your old hard drive with the new one and put your old one in the external case.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Aluminum-External-Enclosure-Capacity/dp/B000XPS3U6/r ef=pd_cp_pc_3
If you don’t have the tools to open up the MacBook OWC has a set for $5
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TOOLKITMHD/

Internal hard drive replacement issue...(a bit wordy)

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