Is my beloved iMac dying slowly?

Question

Hi all!
Hoping someone here can help me as i'm at my wit's end! Have had my iMac for almost 4 years now. I upgraded the OS to Leopard at the end of last year to get it more up-to-date. All was generally ok till about a month ago when it became intermittently slow.. and especially after having been switched on for a while.
More recently, Safari keeps shutting down (something about a flash plugin problem?) and it has become so slow it's not even funny! I could be typing something and the beachball comes up! Opening any program is beyond boring at times... whether it's safari or even mail! iPhoto has started playing up as well when I have my iPhone attached and want to look through the pictures to see which ones to upload.
I've tried to look through some of the postings here.. and a lot of what I'm reading is saying the hard drive is on it's way out... does this sound about right in this case? And if so... what's the best thing to do in this situation? If anyone can babystep me through making good backups of all my files, emails etc... I'd love to get it done before this iMac dies on me and I lose everything (including 2.5 years of pics/videos of my only son's life!) I have an external hard drive that I bought from an apple store end of last summer... at the moment I only put copies of some pictures/videos etc... but is there any other easy way of doing it all?
Many thanks for any help you guys can give me!
Vicky

Answer 1

Hi Vicky,
Boot from your install disc to make sure everything on the startup disk is ok. And since your
iMac is slowing down, make sure there is enough free disk space.
Insert your install disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu 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*
Go here for help to backup your files. How to back up and restore your files
As for Safari, try uninstalling then reinstalling the Flash Player plugin.
Uninstall Flash
Install the most recent version of Flash here.
Now repair permissions.
Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.
Carolyn