Is my hard drive dead?

I have a PB G4 1.0 Ghz FW800 (and my applecare is long gone). Recently it froze, and then after that I tried to restart, and it wouldn't ever get past the grey screen. I used the OSX disc and used disk utility and "repaired" my hard drive. Still, it didn't work. Then I tried to repair the installation of OSX but that didn't work either. And sometimes disk utility will see the hard drive and sometimes it doesn't. No matter what, I can't get past grey screen.
I tried using the PB in Target disk mode on my roomates pb. I got it to work once, but then it froze while trying to transfer files to back up, and now I can't get it to mount again. If there is a cd in my pb's drive, it will show up on his pb but my pb's hard drive will not.
My guess is my hard drive died. Is there some way to confirm this? Preferably without buying anything. If that is the case, I'll buy a new drive and install it myself but I don't want to go through all that to find out it is a problem with the logic board, or hard drive cable. If the problem is with the logic board, how much $ would that cost to be repaired?
thanks in advance

1. You can try using Disk Utility to check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your drive. This is found at the bottom of the DU window, once you have selected the drive in the left hand pane. If a drive is working fine then the S.M.A.R.T. status will say "Verified". Anything else and the drive is in trouble.
2. Then there is the Apple Hardware Test.
3. If you have access to a fully bootable installation of OS X on an external FireWire drive (ie. like a cloned backup) then you can use that to restart the PowerBook. If the PB runs fine using this method, then the problem is unlikely to be the logic board.
4. DiskWarrior will help only if the hard drive is suffering from a software issue (usually directory related). If the drive is suffering from hardware failure then the only option is to replace the drive.
5. If you need to retireve any data, then your best options are either Data Rescue, GNU ddrescue or dd. If those cannot help then it is likely that only an expensive professional data recovery service can help. Bear in mind that those options will require a spare external hard drive.
2.0GHz MacBook, 15" 1.25GHz/12" 1GHz PBs, 2xPPC Mac minis, 12" iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.8) Cube, 2xTAMs, iPod 4G & nano 2G, 1G & 2G iPs, AEBS, AX

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How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?

I have a seagte back up plus. I pulled my hard drive out without ejecting it and now finder dosn't find it but I see it in disk utility (although I cant repair permissions) How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?
Thank you so much for any help

In Disk Utility you need to see a volume or partition in addition to the drive.
If all you see is the drive, then when you ejected it you proably corrupted the volume or partition on the drive.
If that is true then your chances of getting anything back are slim at best.
About the only thing I know that might work not is to send the disk out to a service for recovery. This is going to cost like $$$$.
Is the data worth that much?
Allan

Hard Drive Dead? Help!

Hi, so I recently bought an enclosure for my old HD that died out on me, I suppose? My mac was asleep, then I pressed any button on the computer to wake it up, then I clicked on Mail right away, and it froze for a while.. so I held the power down to restart it. When it restarted, it gave me a white screen with a folder with a question mark on it. I was told my HD was bad. So I changed it, now my mac is up and running. BUT... i need my old files from my old HD. I bought an enclosure, plugged and played.. nothing comes up. How can I get my old files? Please help!!!!

This one has an outside chance of working. But if it doesn't work, _be warned_, might make the data completely unrecoverable through a professional data rescue service. I've only heard about this and never done it myself. You put it in the freezer. Not sure why this is supposed to work, but it might.
_Much safer to try Data Rescue first. I would try this only as a last resort._
For others, try googling hard drive dead freezer and see what you think.
http://hacknmod.com/hack/how-to-recover-dead-hard-drive-data/
I can tell you from experience that it in fact DOES work…most of the time. I have managed to recover data 3 times from dead drives, and have also not managed to recover data about the same amount of time. So, it is fair to say that for me, it worked 50% of the time.
I placed the drive in two zip lock bags expelling as much as air as possible before zip locking both bags. I left it in the freezer for approx. 12 hours with no luck, but after freezing it for extended periods of time, it worked like a charm. It is also important to note that this is generally a one shot deal, if it works, you’re in luck, but you must get as much data as possible from the drive because once it dies, it is rare that you will gain access a second time.
The 3 times I did manage to get the data back, I exhumed only the data that I absolutely required. In other words, only the data I created or files that I placed on the drive.
I too, found it hard to believe when I first heard it, but after losing 3 years of tax returns I HAD to try it. Fortunately for me, it worked like a charm.

Is Hard Drive Dead???

Hello,
Thanks for anyone that posts and helps me out here. These forums help alot.
I have iMac G5 Isight (model before intel) 200GB HD 2.5GB Ram.
Stopped working and saw blue screen with question mark the other day. uh oh.
Attempted restart -> not solved
attempted safe mode -> didnt work just shut down
attempted single user mode (fsck) -> did not work (catalog file I/O error invalid node structure)
attempted Disk Utilities off startup disk -> not work (failure on exit error keys out of order)
sighed.
bought Disk Warrior (as this helped others w similar issues)
Attempted DW (fingers crossed) -> message said error "speed reduced by disk malfunction" also could not replace original directory b/c of disk malfunction. Comparison could not be performed and recommended backup and to look at preview.
everything critical is backed up. no problem.
everything non critical I dont care about.
So now, the question is...
Is my hard drive dead?
If so, should I reformat it or is it "permanently wounded" and will have PTSD and cause further problems down the road.
Or, should I bite the bullet and get a brand new Hard Drive??
thanks so much !!!!
mike

Ok.
now that I have some time going to do erase and install.
I suppose info is on the apple support website for the exact steps.
I remember reading somewhere to do settings all to zero?
I was running Tiger latest version.
I have a brand new Leopard disks here that I was going to upgrade to before all this happened.
Should I just boot off the new Leopard disks?
Or
Should I boot off Tiger and then upgrade everything afterwards?
thanks again

Folder with ? at startup - is my hard drive dead?

At startup I got a folder with a question mark.
I started up from MacOS 10.5 DVD, opened disk utility and my hard drive was not shown in the available volumes.
In System Profiler, under serial-ATA, it says "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices.
Tried to reset the PRAM, it did't help.
Is my hard drive dead, or is there something else for me to try?

sorry to say but yes your hard drive died....it has just happened to me last week....18mth white macbook. I hope you have everything back up....(I had just got a external hard drive and was going to back up the day it died...sods law!)
Took it to the Apple store and they replaced the drive....fantastic service...got it back in a day.
so lesson to all...back up.

Gray folder with question mark-- is my hard drive dead?

I have a white 13 inch MacBook that is about 3 years old and runs on Mac OS X 10.4 (I believe). In the past year, it has been running more and more slowly and programs keep freezing. I was going to ask for more RAM for Christmas, but decided to try a few maintenance steps first. I ran a VirusScan this morning (using McAfee), and when I came back into the room, my computer had frozen past all help. I powered it off with the power button, and now, when I try to start it, a gray screen appears with a question mark. I have tried some of the support steps listed to get it working again such as trying a safe boot (didn't work) and resetting my PRAM (didn't work). Is my hard drive dead? Is there any way I can get my files off the computer? I haven't backed up in about 3 months, and I am very upset because I have a lot of important papers and photos on my HD.
Thank you..

Hi corimazz and welcome to Apple Discussions!
It is possible that your hard drive has kicked the bucket, but the folder with the question mark just shows that the computer cannot find a valid system when it starts up. There are a number of possible reasons for this.
Do you have the 10.4 install disk? If so, insert it into the optical disk drive, restart the computer and hold down the C key during startup. Once the computer is booted to the install DVD, select your primary language, then look for the utilities menu and from it select "Disk Utility".
In the Disk Utility, you should see a list of available disks, which we hope will include your hard drive. If the hard drive does not appear in the list, it is dead. If it does show up, select it and click the "Repair Disk" button to see if the problem is being caused by directory damage that can be repaired.
If the drive is truly dead, you are going to have to decide how much the data from the last three months is worth to you. There are companies that have quite good records of recovering data from even very badly damaged hard drives (sunk in rivers, burned in fires, etc) but they are not cheap.
In the USA some data recovery options include:
DriveSavers.com - 800-440-1904
www.ontrack.com - 800-872-2599
www.lazarus.com - 800-341-3282
Once you have the drive out (it's a simple process to remove) it can be replaced with a new one.
I hate to say it, but keeping backups of important files is vital to safe computing. Both the Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems make this a much easier process using the "Time Machine" application.
Best of luck.

Is my ipod hard drive dead?

since yesterday i have been having problem restoring my ipod.
when i restore my ipod through itune the restore goes somewhat fine ipod reboots, apple with progress bar then the plain apple logo and it stays there for 5-10 min and goes to do not disconnect and does not appear in itunes.
at this point i use windows to safely remove the ipod after which it takes about another min for the ipod to pull up the language selection screen.
then when i plug it back in it takes around another 5 min to show up in itunes (does'nt matter is itunes is open or closed) or itune may not open at all but the ipod still appears in My Computer.
when he ipod does finally appear in itunes i get the name screen like normal and i go though setting what music to sync like always but during the sync i get a -69 error.
to note my mp3s are all good and it doesn't fail at any consistent point. fails to sync at random intervals.
overall the ipod operates very slowly and i can't sync to it at all.
my guess is the hard drive is dead/dying.
i have done every re-install, file removal, and reset trick i could find including putting the ipod into disk mode. nothing works
NOTES:
iPod is 5th gen with video 30GB 2006 ver. (also when i got it)
no warranty anymore.
what i want to know is if my ipod needs repair and how much it will cost

well i am pretty sure the hard drive is dead.
my disk checks indicate alot of bad sectors.
so does anyone know how much a repair will cost?
i really like this 30GB the new classic models start at 80GB and cost $250 which is too expensive and i have no need for such space. my entire collection only spans between 7-8GB and i don't even keep a third of that on my ipod right now its only 271 songs. however 30GB offered plenty of future expansion room so thats why i got it.
so does anyone have any info?
NOTE: i am also curious about the SDRAM test output in my last post. could there be another problem with me ipod too?

EMac hard drive dead?

My eMac was running slow ... reeeeeeeally slow. Spent ages pondering every mouse click. Just opening folders was agony. I tried the usual round of fixes, some of which helped a little, but after a few hours' use, things would slow down again. Permissions repair got hung up 1/3 of the way through every time. Decided to try Disk Utility from the install disk; it reported an error (2STF/8/3: MAC-10 ata-4 - Master); research suggested that meant hard drive trouble. I tried reinstalling system software and now my Mac can ONLY restart from the Tiger disk --- it can't even mount the hard drive.
Four questions:
1. Does this mean what it looks like --- that the hard drive is dead?
2. Is there any way to access the hard drive at this point?
3. If the drive is dead, is it better to replace the internal drive or just get an external?
4. Any recommendations as to brands/spex on replacement drive?
Thanks in advance.

Drives do die! I gather you don't have an external drive nor another Mac. Hope you don't have any important files to recover either.
I had my iBook drive die a couple of years ago while visiting in Namibia on Christmas eve. It hadn't died completely. The local Apple dealer happened to be in his shop on the 26th. We were able to copy most things onto his computer and I bought an external drive and an OX 10.4 DVD. I set up the external drive with a new system and copied all my files to it. It took over 2 months before Apple were able to supply the correct parts but I was able to continue using the Mac during the wait. The iBook was still within the Applecare warranty period so there was no cost to me for the repairs. This procedure will work provided other components in the eMac are in good order.
Access to the drive depends on how dead it really is. If the drive is not dead you should be able to reformat it from the Instal disc. If this fails then repair is an option.
You will need to check whether any other parts need replacing. With my iBook one of the hardware control modules had to be replaced too. Once you know likely cost you should consider whether a new Mac is a more practical option - if you can afford one. You will get a better machine with better specifications for an effective price of new less repair costs.
In terms of recommendations - an external Firewire drive with more than enough capacity for your needs. The advantage of this is that you can use it with any new computer you choose to buy later.

Hard Drive dead? - Failed to Issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts.

Hello, i think my 13" 2.53Ghz Unibody (mid2009) MBP's hard drive has had it's last spin. I was using it normally in bootcamp, when windows7 froze, so I rebooted holding the power button....windows wouldnt start any more...ok, so i tried to boot into OSX...stuck at the loading screen with the apple.
Went into verbose mode and it stops at "Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing..." Google says this has to do with the hard drive.
Did a extensive hardware test (boot + D), all OK, booted from install disk and tried to run disk utility, but it crashed when trying to locate the drives (didn't even list the drive on the right pane). Single User mode wont load either, will give the same COM RESET message. I am literally out of options here.
Is there something i can do to either fix this or verify 100% that my hard disk is truly dead?
I have a backup in timemachine so the data is ok, but the timing couldnt be worse, i have no time to fix this now and needed a working laptop, highly frustrating.
thanks for any tips

nobrex wrote:
Hello, i think my 13" 2.53Ghz Unibody (mid2009) MBP's hard drive has had it's last spin. I was using it normally in bootcamp, when windows7 froze, so I rebooted holding the power button....windows wouldnt start any more...ok, so i tried to boot into OSX...stuck at the loading screen with the apple.
Went into verbose mode and it stops at "Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing..." Google says this has to do with the hard drive.
Did a extensive hardware test (boot + D), all OK, booted from install disk and tried to run disk utility, but it crashed when trying to locate the drives (didn't even list the drive on the right pane). Single User mode wont load either, will give the same COM RESET message. I am literally out of options here.
Is there something i can do to either fix this or verify 100% that my hard disk is truly dead?
I have a backup in timemachine so the data is ok, but the timing couldnt be worse, i have no time to fix this now and needed a working laptop, highly frustrating.
thanks for any tips
Welcome to the Apple Forums!
Your HDD is probably dead, since the error doesn't appear to indicate something wrong with the motherboard. Just buy a new 2.5" HDD. I don't know about prices in Brazil, but here in the US, a 1TB drive runs for around US$100. Also, check on eBay for people who upgraded their drive and are selling their Apple drive. Some will ship to Brazil, and you can score those for $50-100.
I hope you backed up your hard drive. If not, you'll have to do the whole reinstallation process.

IMac G5 non-isight Hard Drive dead - 2 questions

1. I see that 1TB drives are very affordable but is there one that is going to be better than others in my 5 year old iMac G5? Hitachi, Seagate, WD, Samsung, etc..
2. Is there only one HD bay? I want to leave the original in just in case it can be accessed later (Apple Store tech could not read it and pronounced it dead). I would like to install the new one as an addition so is there more than one hard drive bay?
Thanks!

There is only one bay in the iMacs, and any of the brands you mentioned would be good, look in macsales.com or newegg.com for drives. I'm afraid you will have to take the old drive out, but you can always put it into an enclosure if you think it's useable. You can get enclosures at the places I mentioned.

Ibook hard drive dead

My friend has an ibook that she spilled some sqrite on several months ago (yes i know this is very bad) but it has worked fine since then and we have kept our fingers crossed. This week though the computer will not start and the genius at the apple store said the drive is dead, which is understandable. The warrenty runs out in january (she doesn't have apple care as of now) but that doesn't really matter because apple would not cover this anyway. My question is how can she fix it? She doesn't have much money so an expensive repair may be out of the question. I have thought about trying to put in a new hard drive myself seeing as how her warrenty is almost up anyway but i don't really know how hard that is, i've never reaplaced a laptop hard drive before. Ideas?

At the time of the spill all of the above cautions were taken. After a day or 2 it was turned back on and had been functioning like normal until this weekend. At this point it will start to turn on but when it hits the blue screen before the login screen it will sit there forever. I tried to run disk repair, but that gave an error. When i took it to the apple store today the guy plugged in a firewire drive and booted off of it then ran disk utility. When disk utility opened the ibook's hard drive showed up red, and the guy said that meant it was dead. He could tell something had been spilled on it and i told him it was a surgary liquid and he said that with sugar it doesn't necessarily destroy the circuit right away, but that over time the circuit could eat away at it and then could get messed up. So because the computer could boot off of the external drive at the store i infer that the motherboard etc is fine (at least for now anyway)

Hard drive dead, can I download my Logic X again?

My hard drive has gone dead and all programs with that as well:( I Had Logic X installed, but not sure if I can make another download not purchasing it again? Can I donwload several times? Thank you.

Log into the Mac App Store with the Apple ID you used to buy it, click on the Purchases tab, and download it from there. This is free.
(88812)

G4 Mini Hard Drive dead?

Hi All,
I've been unable to start my Mini and using Disk Warrior to try to fix the hard drive yielded the message ""Directory cannot be rebuilt due to a disk access error (0, 1613)""
Does this mean the hard drive is dead? or would I still be able to use the hard drive with a fresh reinstall?
Thanks

Hi all,
I'm experiencing the same problem as krs24rbn, it looks that my hard disk is dead, but would like to be sure of it before buying a new HD.
Is there any way to be suere of this? I started seeing wrong behaviour before installing last Apple update to 10.4.8. I first experienced some problems with mail going slow, then accessing internet with Safari and FireFox hangups, specially with java intensive webs. Other weird things occur like iTunes radio volume going down and up depending on internet traffic, (or at least it looked taht way).
Then found some problems to start up, I begun backing up and got most of my files on a safe externl HD. When I was almost done some files appear unable to copy correctly. Finally my mini got dead.
I erased the disc and instaled a fresh copy of Tiger, booted normally and start to reinstall.
After one or two days problems began again, so format, reinstall....
Sometimes Disk Utility command Repair Disk worked fine others stopped reparing with message "invalid node structure" and
"Error:la tarea subyacete ha registrado un fallo a la salida".
Rigth now I can start from my CD and intall the
mac OS but my mini can't boot. It shows the apple logo on a grey screen, that's it!
Shoud I change my disk? is there any tool to repair/eliminate phisical bad sectors on the disc?

Disk Errors Reappear Within Day After Repair-Hard Drive Dead?

Over the last few weeks, I have been experiencing crashes on my Macbook Pro. The crash would appear as such:
I'll be using Chrome and all of a sudden pages won't load. The mouse continues to work, but if I navigate to the desktop, folder won't open. Then, if I try to quit programs, the dock either becomes unresponsive or programs will only quit if "forced quit." Then the beachball of death appears. The beachball of death will continue for a very long time—perhasp indefinitely, so I decide to manually power down the computer.
I have tried to verify the hard drive in Disk Utility, and a few times I have gotten this error:
Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 46122698 instead of 42839276)
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.
So I restart from the system (command-R) and repair the disk. But now within a day or two I get the same error.
Does my hard drive need to be replaced? Am I on borrowed time? My computer is under warranty. Do you think Apple will replace the hard drive?
Thank you for your help!
P.S. I have my data backed up to Time Machine, so I am not in imminent danger of losing priceless files.

papayaman wrote:
Does my hard drive need to be replaced?
Sure sounds like it.
Am I on borrowed time?
I believe so. Hope you have a backup.
My computer is under warranty. Do you think Apple will replace the hard drive?
If under warranty & determined to be faulty, your hard drive will be replaced. Make an appointment at an Apple store.

Hard drive dead/Boot from external hard drive?

My hard drive failed and I need a new one. For the time being, I'd prefer not to open up my iMac and replace the internal hard drive. I have an external USB hard drive and I cannot install OSX onto this drive (strangely, it takes the first disc but not the second).
Is it possible to boot and run an iMac G5 from an external hard drive? If so, what is required for hardware and what steps need to be taken?
If not, what course of action would you recommend?

It is very easy to boot an iMac from an external drive, but the drive should be a Firewire drive. Get one, then get SuperDuper!, which will enable you to clone your data and system to it. You can then choose the external firewire as your boot drive and operate without any problems.
Apparently, there are ways to boot from a USB drive, but they are complicated and a firewire drive is very straightforward and fast.
Let us know how you make out,

Is my internal hard drive dead?!? (iMac mid-2007)

Hi everyone,
My aluminum iMac (mid-2007) is behaving strangely recently. I'm suspecting some internal hard drive failure. Here are the symptoms:
1) Difficult wakeups from sleep mode: two times out of three, the spinning beachball appears on each open application, making the iMac unusable, almost frozen. I have to hard reboot.
2) One reboot out of two fails, with the "question mark folder" appearing, just like if the iMac could not detect an internal hard drive.
3) In the Finder, the spinning beachball appeared once with an error message: "The drive has not been ejected properly". Of course I didn't eject or disconnect any drive... There was also an icon "SystemUI Server" appearing in the Dock! I was forced to hard reboot.
4) Made all the usual stuff: all Onyx tests and repairs + Apple Hardware Test full tests + permission and disk repairs + PRAM/SMC reset... No problems detected, but nothing resolved in the end. (The only thing I haven't tested yet is Techtool Pro or DiskWarrior.)
I think this is an internal hard drive problem, but I'd like to have a confirmation from you, forum pros. Would a hard drive replacement fix the problem? Or is the internal drive OK but some connection to the drive not working anymore, making a HD replacement useless? (Sorry if this is nonsense, but I'm not very skilled in hardware stuff.)
In other words, any help would be appreciated. (And my AppleCare expired some weeks ago! Talk about bad luck...)
Thanks in advance for any help!

D.F. wrote:
Done! Installed a new HD following the instructions of this site. Everything works perfectly again.
Yay!
But I'm still disappointed that my original internal hard drive chose to die two weeks after my AppleCare three-year warranty expired!
The original HD was a Western Digital. Is WD a crappy brand?
You'll get widely different opinions on that. Many folks say their --cheap-- inexpensive ones are "junk;" others say they've had several that ran for years.
Some say the ones Apple uses are better quality -- not quite server grade, but better than the run-of-the mill consumer products.
As with any manufactured product, disk drives may have a few early failures (even in the first days or weeks); a few will last for many years, most will last for 2-4 years or so. Even under identical circumstances, there's no predicting the life span of any one drive.

Is my hard drive dead?

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