Is my hard drive completely shot?

I have had my IMac for 3 years and rarely used it... One day I turned it on and I got the dreaded "blinking folder with a question mark" screen. I have tried everything that all the support sections say to do before the section that walks you through the reinstall disk. I put my #1 disc (the original 2 disc it came with) and follow the restart and boot up using the disk. Then I select English, and then I select continue and when it asks what destination I want to install to, there are no drives to be selected. Also, if this information will help, the disk utility will not verify the permission for this disc and I do not know why, considering it is the disk that came with the computer originally!
The reinstall disk is the MAC OS X 10.5 as well!
Thanks for any help in advance!! If there is any other information that would help please ask and I will do my best to answer!

Read this before drawing any conclusions about your hard disk:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Also be sure to reset the PRAM as described in the link near the bottom of the page.
Only after performing all these steps should you suspect your HD is shot.
... it asks what destination I want to install to, there are no drives to be selected.
If Disk Utility cannot even find the iMac's hard disk then it is likely to be damaged beyond repair, but it is also possible that its connection cable is damaged. This would seem unlikely unless the cable or connectors have been mishandled, or the iMac was somehow dropped or damaged.
Apple or an authorized Apple service provider replace the internal hard disk. Expect to pay something close to $400.
You can replace it yourself, but this is a tedious task best left to those comfortable with disassembling iMacs.
… Also, if this information will help, the disk utility will not verify the permission for this disc and I do not know why, considering it is the disk that came with the computer originally!
The reinstall disk is the MAC OS X 10.5 as well!
I'm not sure if you are referring to the installation disc or your iMac's internal hard disk but you cannot repair anything on an optical disc. Permissions repair is a red herring anyway that will not solve your problem.

Similar Messages

Hard drive completely full computer not responding well What to do

My daughters MBPro has been problematic.
Recently it was misbehaving, and I was able to get about 10GB below capacity. Which really helped. Now however she comes to me and says email is not working and weird stuff is happening. So I certainly a novice at best look it over and the hard drive is completely full, zero space. She I am sure has not add much data, if any over the past few weeks that would have taken up 10GB. I noted thaat she did a recent software update, which may have pushed it over the edge.
Anyway, I launched a Carbon copy clone of the HD in order to hopefully prevent total catastrophe. This is running now.
We could not seem to even delete photos, etc. itunes stuff to help a bit. Kept getting error that it could not save itunes library or iphoto library.
Tomorrow I'll bring the computer to Apple Store for help. Is there anything I can do in the mean time??
Regards,
Jim Svarz

OK, it's me, talking about what I would do...
I would delete both "folders" FULL STOP.
There's an article in Apple's KB suggesting to trash anything in the /volumes/ apart from ANY mounted discs or images.
So, o fcourse, it's your call, but my advise would be to trash them.
Considering the number 1 after the name, the files are leftovers from "Free Agent Drive" (some backup software - I guess), therefore safe to trash - there's your HD space!
As to CCC, if you are cloning (as opposed to backing up just a few folders) your clone would have those files on it as well, which is bad and good at the same time...
If you have a recent-ish clone, delete the files from the HD and if everything runs just fine, delete them from the clone as well. If anything refuses to run or crashes (VERY unlikely in relation to those two folders) you can always restore them from the clone.
Please keep us posted, it's worth learning stuff, innit?
PS. Does PS make any sense in electronic writing? I could just edit the text... hmmm...
PPS. Back on the topic. Is "Free Agent Drive" the name of your backup volume? If so, I am 99.9% certain it's a CCC leftover - safe to delete.
Apple KB article (which I can't find at the moment) says that it does happen under Leopard that stuff can get left over in volumes and it's not a fault of any third party software. You will forgive me if I don't spend my night trawling for that article, but you could have a look for it here: http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search
Message was edited by: i.3d

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.

Hard drive complete back up

received an imac g3 from a friend with no hard drive, bought a used one that is empty formatted hfs+. this is for my daughter in her bed room, she will be on the net. i have the same exact model running 10.3.9. i want to copy or clone my hard drive to the new one. the new one is in her computer. i do not have the install discs. they both have fire wire ports. is there any way to copy or back up my drive to her drive through fire wire? any help would be greatly appreciated thank you. feel free to ask any questions.

Connect the two computers with a FireWire cable, start up one Mac with the T key held down, and then use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder or an application such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the drive.
(27851)

I had CS4 on my iMac desktop (two users) but my hard drive completely crashed. We bought two new Macbook Pros (one for me and one for my daughter) but CS4 didn't transfer over. The iMac is totally dead so we can't deactivate it there. My daughter is head

We had an iMac with CS4 and the hard drive finally crashed. My daughter and I were both users on that computer. We purchased two new macbook pros and had the data transferred but CS4 didn't come over. The iMac is totally dead so we can't deactivate anything from it. She is heading off to college soon and eventually will need to upgrade but for now CS4 is just fine. I also need it on my computer. Help??

Contact support by web chat to reset activations and reinstal lthe programs properly.
Download CS4 products
Mylenium

Hard Drive Shot - 2nd Time!!

In August of 2007, I got a MacBook to use for college. My sister got the exact same model, on the same day. She has had no problems with her machine. I, on the other hand, have had hard drive problems not once, but twice, in the short period of time that I've owned the machine.
The first time this happened, I turned the machine on, and it made clicking noises and soon displayed that dreaded gray screen of death. Soon, a folder icon with a question mark appeared. I had one friend look at it, then she asked her boyfriend, who is much better with computers, about it. He doesn't particularly like Macs and told me to throw it out the window, but as far as real advice, he couldn't help either. I took it to Computer Care here on campus, and they called me a little while later to say the entire hard drive was shot.
I was obviously upset, as I had had the machine for about a month and had nothing backed up. I had to order a new hard drive, and after a lot of hassle involving a very rude customer support person at Apple, problems with shipping, and finally a fairly helpful person at support who helped me figure out the shipping issues, I got my new drive, and Computer Care installed it for me. Needless to say, it wasn't something I wanted to go through again.
The other day, I had my computer on sleep mode, and when I went to use it, it wasn't responding. After I let it sit and let the cursor rotate for a few minutes, I restarted the machine. To my horror, when it started up, once again it was making loud clicking noises and showed the gray screen. Pretty soon the folder with the question mark showed up and I was ready to panic. I called home to get help from my Dad, who knows more than anyone I know about Mac products and swears by them, and to have them look up service centers. We tried a couple of things but I was pretty much resigned to the fact that my hard drive was again damaged and I had once again lost everything. (I had just that day deleted extra stuff from my desktop and was going to back-up as much as possible this weekend. The only thing I have backed up is my iTunes library of music.)
I was shipped the installation disks, and brought my computer to Computer Care once more to have them take a look, just in case. The verdict was the same, and they said it was extremely rare for it to happen twice to the same machine in such a short amount of time. I've now ordered ANOTHER new drive, and called technical support tonight, hoping Computer Care just thought the easiest solution was to replace the drive and that there might be something else I could do to try to salvage what I could. I was walked through trying to see what was on the drive with the first installation disk, but was told once again that everything was probably gone.
When I get the hard drive in the mail, Computer Care will install it once more for me, and I'll use the start up disks again.
I'm here now to see if there's any possible way to get some of my work back, but also to inquire as to whether this has happened to anyone else. Why would this happen twice in such a short amount of time? I've been raised with Mac computers (I remember having a black and white one years back) and have tried to defend them against PC friends in the past, but quite honestly, I'm not sure I want to stick with them after all of this. How do I know this isn't going to happen again?
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Apple has sent me a hard drive free of charge in the past and is doing so again, but they shouldn't have to in the first place. I was upset the first time this happened, and am now as well, but I'm also really confused that I'm having so much trouble with a product from a company that I've stuck by until now.
Anyone had a similar experience?
thanks for your time.

Also, I keep trying to find a way to e-mail Apple about addressing this issue and about the information I am now finding on MacBook HD failures, but I keep getting led in circles in the support section of the website. Anyone know which email I'd use to contact them about this?

Time Machine Local Snapshots are completely filling my hard drive

I have a MacBook Air and have been receiving errors about my hard drive being full. It turns out that Time Machine's Local Snapshots are filling up my hard drive completely (dangerously so). Obviously there must be something wrong with my machine as Local Snapshots are supposed to only occur if my hard drive is less than 80% full. Does anyone have any idea how I could fix this problem?
Cheers,
Greg

what is confusing is why I would get a warning message that the disc was becoming full if there is 128GB worth of files that should have been automatically deleted?
You didn't get the warning because of that. You got it because of the files that you moved to another volume, and perhaps others. The local snapshots contain some of those files. They're available, for the time being, in case you need to restore them. Eventually they'll be deleted.

Hard drive issues

Hi all. I'm looking for some help with my late 08 macbook.
I've recently installed snow leopard, and I've been having some problems, and I'm worried about the hard drive. Anytime I try to either download new data to the hard drive (ie. software update/transfer of files from external hard drive) it freezes after a short while, and the drive begins to make a strange noise. Not quite a clicking noise but a loud dull almost grounding noise with some form of clicking or like a lever closing 2-3 times. The noise continues, and the computer completely freezes.
I've re-installed the osx and done a restore from a previous version (leopard), and the problem re-appears. I've repaired the permissions and the disk. Whenever I repair the disk it states the disk is ok. I can use the computer, and no problems until I try to load something onto the hard-drive.
Any ideas?? Is my hard drive shot?
Thanks very much

Hmm can't say from that if your hard drive is shot. If you have an external hard drive big enough (my late 08 macbook has a 160GB hard drive) I'd suggest either using Time Machine to make a backup of your data or Disk Utility's restore feature to copy the data to the drive.
After you do that (or if you're not able) try booting in single user mode (holding cmd+S on startup) and typing the command "fsck -fy" (no quotes) this should check for problems with the filesystem structure and repair them. If it gives you messages like "Volume cannot be fixed", keep trying. It often will yield a different result.
If this does not solve the problem, I'd make sure you have your data backed up, boot with the OS install disk, and reformat the hard drive.
Sidenote- my 160GB drive isn't quite cutting it, so I ordered ($53) a 7200RPM 320GB notebook drive for it last night. I'd consider that, too, if you're going to be reformatting anyway.
Best of luck!

Guess I need a new hard drive...

I have no clue how, but suddenly my hard drive is shot. I opened my laptop the other day and expected my login page to come up (I keep it on sleep mode) and it was off. When I turned it on I got a grey screen with an old school mac logo (blinking folder and a ? mark).
I called tech support and learned that my hard drive is completely gone, cannot be retrieved and I need a new one ( PLEASE tell me they were wrong!!! lol). I tried booting from the start up disk and the installer couldn't find the drive to install to.
Where do I find a new hard drive? How much do they cost? Should I go to the mac genius or avoid them? Is there any way to pull files or photos off my old hard drive? Is it worth buying a new hard drive or should I just get a new computer at this point? I feel like I have a faulty used car that hit is 5 year mark and is just going to start dying off...piece by piece. Its so sad, I'm extremely depressed over all this.
Someone give me good news! Please?!

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
While it sounds like your hard drive has indeed died, I would run the Apple hardware test to confirm. Find the original OS X disc that shipped with your system, which says "AHT Version x.x" in small print on the label. Insert it, and reboot holding the option key down, choose the Apple hardware test, click the arrow to the right and follow directions. Choose the extended test. Does that confirm/tell you anything about the hard drive?
Assuming your hard drive is indeed dead, you have several choices. You can have a local Apple store replace it, and they will only replace it with the same size drive. They will also keep the hard drive as a trade-in on a new one, which bothers some people. Dead or not they prefer a hard drive with personal data on it not go somewhere else, which would also be relevant if you want to have files extracted from the dead drive. Apple Authorized Service Providers can also replace the hard drive, and are more flexible to deal with. They may also install a hard drive you buy elsewhere. You can find the closest Apple store or AASP via http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Or, if you're handy, you can do it yourself. See these directions to determine if it's in your ballpark: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G4-Al-17-Inch/HD-Replacement/55/6/
If you buy a hard drive yourself, you want a 2.5" notebook drive with a parallel ATA interface, not a serial ATA or SATA interface, which is quite popular today. Standard speed is 5400rpm, and for a slight price premium you can find 7200rpm drives, although the selection is declining due to manufacturers concentrating on SATA drives. Here are two sources at link:[OWC|http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ne=5000&Ntt=2.5harddrive&Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Price|0&N=6885] and link:[Newegg|http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=201015 0380+1035907889&name=ATA-6]. Depending on size you're talking $50 to $105 for a new hard drive, and additional if someone else installs it for you. Even if you have someone else install it, that's quite a bit less expensive than a new computer.
In terms of recovering data, there are some services that will recover whats on the hard drive, however, they are very proud of the services they provide and charge accordingly. You can scan these forums for recommendations. If you don't have a backup today, budget for an external hard drive too. You can see a selection at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go
Please post back with any questions.

Problems installing new hard drive - pt. 2

Hi there,
I have been using a G4 for years for my music (Pro Tools). I had the standard 29GB hard drive, and I had added a second 40GB drive, and those worked well for me for years.
A few weeks ago, the system started acting up, and it seemed like the 29GB hard drive was shot. So, I got a new one (320GB) and installed it, setting it as Master and keeping the old 40GB one as Slave.
I tried to install both OS9 and OSX on the new drive, but had problems (as chronicled in this previous thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2478863&start=0&tstart=0).
After trying a number of things, I finally got 10.3 loaded and seemingly working. Then, I realized my old Pro Tools disc needed OS9/Classic to load, so I looked around for info on if I could load OS9 without disturbing my 10.3. I tried booting to the old OS9 disc -- I didn't actually do anything, like initialize, reinstall, or anything, just looked around to see if it was possible -- and now the 10.3 isn't working either.
Neither the OSX installer, the OSX Disk Utility, or the OS9 Disk Utility seems to "see" the new drive now.
Any thoughts/theories/suggestions on what it might be? Just before the 10.3 installed successfully, I had opened the computer and pressed the IDE cable connections down, just to make sure they were secure. I don't know if that did anything, but it might have.
Now that I'm having problems again, I have of course checked those IDE cable connections again, but the computer still doesn't "see" the drive.
I will remain calm...

Some earlier PowerPC Macs need to have OS X installed on the first 8 GB of the HDD. Mac OS X: Disk Appears Dimmed (or "Grayed Out") in the Installer. I am not sure if that is the case with your computer, but it might be a factor.
On the other hand, if you previously had both OS 9 and OS X installed on the HDD without an 8 GB partition the issue may be elsewhere.
Try this:
Format and Install OS 9
This process will completely erase everything on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure to Backup your User Folder and all third party apps you can't afford to lose
• Boot from your OS 9 install CD holding down C key.
• Go to Drive Setup and reformat your drive as Mac OS Extended (HFS+)
• Reinstall OS 9
• Update to 9.2.2: Mac OS 9: Available Updates
• Update your firmware
Install Panther OS X 10.3.9
• Boot from the 10.3.x install CD 1
• Go to Installer Menu and open Disk Utility
• (Optional)Go to File menu and Repair OS 9 Permissions!
• Quit Disk Utility.
• Launch Installer
• Select Destination disk for installation
• Click Options
• Select Installation Option Archive and Install
• (Optional) Preserve Users and Network Settings
• Choose to Customize and deselect Foreign Language Translations and Additional Printer drivers.
• Check box to install BSD Subsystems (Panther & earlier).
• Install Mac OS X 10.3.x
• Restart and Repair permissions (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)!
• Download and apply the 10.3.9 Combo Update
• Restart and Repair Disk Permissions as previously!
• Run Software Update and apply all updates available
• Repair Disk Permissions (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)!
cornelius

Do I have a bad hard drive?

How do you determine is a hard drive is bad.
When staring my Macbook I get a folder with question mark.
Rebooted and tried Disc Utility and it didn't find the hard drive.
Tried Disk Warrior and it couldn't find the hard drive.
Thought about reinstalling operating system but not sure if I want to waste my time if the hard drive is shot.

Unless the installer finds a usable drive you could not reinstall. You can try this:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
If you are successful doing the above then reinstall OS X after the formatting has completed.
If this doesn't work then you need to replace the hard drive in order to know if the failure was only the drive.

Hard drive not recognized (OMG) & Time Machine

While using my MacBook 10.5.8 I got beachball and could not quit apps or restart. I shut down using pwr button and now computer will not recognize hard drive when checking with Disk Utility, or when trying to reinstall from DVD.
Any suggestions?? Is my HD shot?? Is there any use taking it to Apple Store??
If I connect my external Time Machine to another computer, PowerBook G4) (also running 10.5.8) will it load/restore old computer data??

A Powerbook G4 will likely not understand what to do with half the data on it, because the MacBook is a different setup. Do you have the original 10.5 installer disc that was used for the MacBook? If you do, boot off of it, and see if it can see your Time Machine backup through its Utilities menu for restoring via Time Machine. Connect the drive when it requests you do so. If it can, but it can't see the internal drive, then you probably need to first see if the internal drive's directory is damaged. For that you need to run the Disk Utility in the Utilities menu of the installer program for 10.5's Repair Disk. If it can't repair disk, go out and purchase Alsoft Disk Warrior. If it can't repair the disk, then yes the internal hard drive is shot. If one or the other can repair the disk, shut down the computer and eject the 10.5 disk holding the mouse button. It should reboot normally.

Would like to use WD MyBook external SOLELY for my iPhoto library and remove it from my hard drive to clear up space. How do I do this?

I just bought a 3TB My Book that I would like to store my iPhoto library on and remove it from my hard drive completely. I am running Time Machine with another external drive as back up and would like to use Time Machine to also back up my photos that will be on my My Book external. How do I move my iPhoto library to my new external and delete it from my hard drive? The catch is that I only want this new external to be for my iPhoto. I don't want Time Machine to start backing up my entire hard drive, since I already have an external dedicated to back up. I have not attached my external yet because I am afraid it will automatically start backing up my entire hard drive. I am very experienced on a Mac but not very technical so please, no big words and THANKS MUCH in advance!!

First format the drive to OS X Extended (journaled) with ownership set to be ignored:
Next drag your iPhoto library from your Pictures folder to the EHD. When the copying is complete launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and in the window that comes up select the library on the EHD:
Check the file path under the window to make sure the correct library has been selected.
Once you've confirmed that the EHD library is working properly and has all of your photos you can delete the library in your Pictures folder.
OT

How do I delete Photo Stream photos that are taking up hard drive space in my Masters folder, but not actually appearing in any event, or on the interface at all?

A couple months ago, I activated photo stream using my apple ID. I was under the impression that all the photos uploaded to my photo stream would only use server space on icloud and wouldn't actually utilize disk space, or at the most, the option was available to only download specific photos to my hard drive. My hope was that I could upload the photos to a specific drive, and view the uploaded thumbs or low-res comps on any device as a reference.
This is not the case.
What I have found is that iphoto has been automatically downloading any and all photos uploaded to my photo stream. Not just the thumbnails, the entire thumbnail + all resolutions. I shoot RAW photos so in my case, the original averages about 15-25MB per photo.
I have been uploading directly to an iphoto library on an external hard drive specifically designated for handling all my RAW high-res images.
What has been happening is all those RAW files are also being uploaded directly to my iphoto library on my iMac and eating up memory which I cannot reclaim, even after deactivating my Photo Stream in preferences. We're talking almost 100 GB of memory is tied up right now.
I don't want to just go in and start deleting files and folders in my Masters folder, since I have heard this will break iphoto, but the photos in my photostream do not show up in any event and I need to reclaim the hard drive space.
How can I safely delete them?

If the files are loose inside the iPhoto library package here's one way to get them out:
1 - open your library, select all of the photos in the library and add a unique keyword, XXXX, to all of them.
2 - Rebuild the library with iPhoto Library Manager as follows:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - make sure that in the rebuild window the checkbox "Scavange orphaned photos" is checked.
4 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
5 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
3 - open the library, create a smart album with the criterial "Keyword is not XXXX".
4 - the smart album will include those photos that were not visible in your original library. Select them and use the key combination of Command+Option+Delete to move them to the iPhoto Trash bin.
5 - empty the iPhoto Trash bin via the iPhoto ➙ Empty iPhoto Trash Bin menu option.
6 - empty the Trash bin in the Dock to remove the files from your hard drive completely.
Be sure to read Note 1 above. You can use the new library without your books, slideshow, etc. and it will not contain those errant files. Of course delete the original library if the new one is satisfactory.

Please Help! Hard Drive Problem

Hi, I know there are various other posts with a similar problem but I have tried a lot of suggestions and keep hitting a brick wall. Apologies if this rambles on a bit or doesn't make a lot of sense.
Two nights ago my 18 month old imac refused to start up properly and hangs on the grey screen with the fans blowing at full capacity. I have tried various suggestions such as resetting the PRAM and SMU and then opened disk utility from the install cd.
Verifying/repairing disk permissions got stuck about 3/4 of the way through so I then tried to repair disk which failed. various messages told me that there were "invalid node structure" and that it was rebuilding "Catalog B-tree".
I was then told that
volume MAC HD could not be repaired
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
when I attempt to repair the disk again Macintosh HD is now greyed out (although i can still select it) - clicking repair disc again this time brings up various missing thread records, then -
invalid sibling link
volume check failed.
opening in firewire target disc mode brings up the usual firewire icon on the imac but my ibook doesn't seem to recognise that any external drives are plugged in.
Any other suggestions? - Is the Hard Drive completely gone or is there any hope? Will erasing the disk and starting from scratch going to do anything? Most of the stuff on the computer is backed up so I am not bothered if I lose everything.
thanks in advance.

Hello Again, Happy New Year!
Managed to get a copy of Disk Warrior Yesterday but now have different problems.
When I try to start up from the Disk Warrior CD the mac does what it should, I click agree to the terms and conditions, the Disk Warrior title screen comes up and then the mac restarts again.
Now rather than hang on the grey screen it goes to a black screen with white text (single user mode???) with the message -
/etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory
-sh-2.05b
If I try to start up from the Mac OS install disc this works "fine" - i.e the computer doesn't automatically restart itself but disk repair still fails.
If I enter Target disc mode my imac fails to show up on my ibook so that I can get to any of my files but it shows up in Disk Utlity, etc.
The Disk Warrior CD works fine on my ibook. I have tried to repair the iMac hard drive on my iBook using disk warrior (iMac in target disk mode).
It gets as far as Step 5 - locating directory data then appears to hang and the spinning wheel comes up. I left it over night and there is now a message saying that
Speed Inhibited by Disc Malfunction.
The spinning wheel is still going and Disk Warrior is still trying to locate directory data.
Any recommendations? The Disc Malfunction message worries me somewhat - will reformatting the disc and starting from scratch do any good or will I just be wasting my time.
cheers

Is my hard drive completely shot?

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