Please Help! I think my hard drive might have died (iMAC G3 600)

Hello Everybody
I'm really desparate for some help.
Directly after downloading Security Update 2007-006 my iMac G3 froze. It was switched off at the mains and since then won't get past the grey screen with the apple and the spinny thing.
I know very little about how computers work, troubleshooting etc so have spent hours searching the forum and the apple support pages, following which I have tried -
start in safe mode - no change
Boot from install disc and run disc utility. This appeared to be working but disc utility can't repair the drive and comes up with the following - 'Error - the underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)'.
So I decided to have a go at starting up in single user mode and use fsck. But to no avail, it starts up in single user mode but never gets as far as the command line prompt. The final 3 lines of text say -
'disk0s5: I/O error.
Load of /sbin/mach_init, errno 2, trying /etc/mach_init
Load of etc/mach_init failed, errno 2'
and the screen is frozen, no chance of typing any commands in.
So HELP please! What does it all mean? Is my hard drive dead? Can I do anything else to try to save it? Is there anyway I can retrieve the contents of the drive if it is dead?
Sorry this is so long, I thought it best to try to explain methodically what has happened. If anyone ot there can help I will be made up.
Cheers
Tim
iMac G3 600 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 512m Ram

"'disk0s5: I/O error"
I've seen this error when the read/write arm on a hard drive becomes inoperative. It looks like you need a new drive. Don't buy anything larger than 120GB, and the 7200 RPM drives work fine. Drive replacement pictoral - Takeapart for swapping drives - slot load. When you get to the step that advises taking out the drive cage, you don't really have to do that. Just loosen the 4 drive hold-down screws and slide the drive out.
Unfortunately, anything on the old drive is gone. This is how we all learn to make backups.
David

Similar Messages

I think my hard drive might be getting ready to crash again.

I'm starting to see some awfully weird stuff right now... after hard reboots due to X lockups (Sauerbraten fucking up), I seem to be losing data from config files that weren't being written to or used at the time of the reboot - .viminfo, for example, and the XML config stuff for Galeon. I also lost everything in my .xinitrc file after a normal, clean reboot. No SMART errors but I am getting rather suspicious. And no rootkits or trojans, AFAICT.
(Had this drive for only 2 years though, it shouldn't be failing now. Then again, it might have crashed before.)
Here's what smartctl --all has to say:
smartctl version 5.36 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar family
Device Model: WDC WD400BB-00JHA0
Serial Number: WD-WMAMC1539009
Firmware Version: 05.01C05
User Capacity: 40,020,664,320 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 6
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Wed Jul 12 14:26:23 2006 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (1260) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 23) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 168 166 021 Pre-fail Always - 2591
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1443
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 093 093 000 Old_age Always - 5145
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1443
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 103 088 000 Old_age Always - 40
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 200 051 Pre-fail Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

- Electrostatic discharges: drive was pulled from a lightning-fried machine, apparently undamaged (I figured that it would be either okay or dead, given the surge's magnitude), but I'm starting to wonder if something got a little scrambled. If so, though. it took a while to show uo.
ESD damage is cumulative. in silicon terms you can weaken the transistors (silicon junctions) over a period of time just with low voltage discharges. It isnt necessarily so that these will fail totally and immediately. this is like a weld being ok but the metal around it rotting away over time.
re the CPU etc. a year or so back miqorz had similar probs with random crashes, especially with any medium to high CPU process. turned out he changed something on the CPU, cooler , fan or whatever, and the silicon heat transfer paste wasnt applied uniformly. this led to hotspots obviously and a breakdown of process wrt temperature.
back to basics, if you run a HD test (manufacturers testdisk ) itl remove that from the equation. then u can focus on other probables.
recently had trouble accessing a Maxtor 200G. worked ok when i made an image of it, (i work in data recovery/forensics) , but when trying to wipe it as the owner requested, it failed with I/O problems.
Maxtor hard drive test showed drive was failing.
so ... it worked ok to get an image, but screwed up when trying to write to it. Warranty job.
if you want to scrap the drive should it prove faulty, i can point you to some oss utils and procedures should you need to recover data. these have worked on drives that the M/F test confirmed drive failure. if you need to take it out of forum, dont be afraid to priv msg. im happy to make time to help.
good luck
Kern

PLEASE HELP! My external Hard drive is no longer showing up when plugged in

I have a Western Digital My Book external hard drive using USB2. I have always plugged it in and the hard drive icon appears on my desktop. However, the drive does not appear anymore. It does not appear in the finder, but can be seen using disk utility. I have tried restarting my computer, trying different USB ports, and nothing seems to work.
I am completely loosing my mind, as I have not backed up the majority of the contents on this drive and need this drive to work!
Is there anything I can do? Is there anything I'm missing? Please help me quickly!

If the Disk Utility lists it in gray, click on the Repair Disk button for it or attempt recovery of its contents.
If the Disk Utility lists it in black, check the settings in the General and Sidebar tabs of the Finder's preferences. If that doesn't work, click here and follow the instructions.
(59518)

I think my Classics hard drive might have failed.

It has:
Retracts:17,
Reallocs:2672,
Pending sectors:72,
powerOn hours:73,
Start/Stops: 4877,
Temp Current 26c,
Temp min 0c,
Temp max 54c
Is there any hope aside from buying a new hard drive? Also, can I be sure that will fix it?

If a sad iPod icon or an exclamation point and folder icon appears on your iPod’s screen, or with sounds of clicking or HD whirring, it is usually the sign of a hard drive problem and you have the power to do something about it now. Your silver bullet of resolving your iPod issue – is to restore your iPod to factory settings.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60983
If you're having trouble, try these steps at different levels one at a time until the issue is resolved. These steps will often whip your iPod back into shape.
Make sure you do all the following “TRYs”
A. Try to wait 30 minutes while iPod is charging.
B. Try another FireWire or USB through Dock Connector cable.
C. Try another FireWire or USB port on your computer .
D. Try to disconnect all devices from your computer's FireWire and USB ports.
E. Try to download and install the latest version of iPod software and iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
For old and other versions of iPod updater for window you can get here
http://www.ipodwizard.net/showthread.php?t=7369
F. Try these five steps (known as the five Rs) and it would conquer most iPod issues.
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/
G. Try to put the iPod into Disk Mode if it fails to appear on the desktop
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93651
If none of these steps address the issue, you may need to go to Intermediate level listed below in logical order. Check from the top of the lists to see if that is what keeping iPod from appearing on your computer in order for doing the Restore.
Intermediate Level
A. Try to connect your iPod with another computer with the iPod updater pre-installed.
B. Still can’t see your iPod, put it in Disk Mode and connect with a computer, instead of doing a Restore on iPod Updater. Go and format the iPod instead.
For Mac computer
1. Open the disk utility, hope your iPod appears there (left hand side), highlight it
2. Go to Tab “Partition”, click either “Delete” or “Partition”, if fails, skip this step and go to 3
3. Go to Tab “Erase” , choose Volume Format as “MAC OS Extended (Journaled), and click Erase, again if fails, skip it and go to 4
4. Same as step 3, but open the “Security Options....” and choose “Zero Out Data” before click Erase. It will take 1 to 2 hours to complete.
5. Eject your iPod and do a Reset
6. Open the iTunes 7 and click “Restore”
For Window computer
Go to folder “My Computer”
Hope you can see your iPod there and right click on the iPod
Choose “Format”. Ensure the settings are at “Default” and that “Quick Format” is not checked
Now select “Format”
Eject your iPod and do a Reset
Open the iTunes 7 and click “Restore”
In case you do not manage to do a “Format” on a window computer, try to use some 3rd party disk utility software, e.g.“HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool”.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=501330&tstart=0
C. Windows users having trouble with their iPods should locate a Mac user. In many cases when an iPod won't show up on a PC that it will show up on the Mac. Then it can be restored. When the PC user returns to his computer the iPod will be recognized by the PC, reformatted for the PC, and usable again. By the way, it works in reverse too. A Mac user often can get his iPod back by connecting it to a PC and restoring it.
Tips
a. It does not matter whether the format is completed or not, the key is to erase (or partly) the corrupted firmware files on the Hard Drive of the iPod. After that, when the iPod re-connected with a computer, it will be recognized as an fresh external hard drive, it will show up on the iTunes 7.
b. It is not a difficult issue for a Mac user to find a window base computer, for a PC user, if they can’t find any Mac user, they can go to a nearest Apple Shop for a favor.
c. You may need to switch around the PC and Mac, try to do several attempts between “Format” and “Restore”
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2364921&#2364921
Advance Level
A. Diagnostic mode solution
If you have tried trouble shooting your iPod to no avail after all the steps above, chances are your iPod has a hardware problem. The iPod's built-in Diagnostic Mode is a quick and easy way to determine if you have a "bad" iPod.
You need to restart your iPod before putting it into Diagnostic Mode. Check that your hold switch is off by sliding the switch away from the headphone jack. Toggle it on and off to be safe.
Press and hold the following combination of buttons simultaneously for approximately 10 seconds to reset the iPod.
iPod 1G to 3G: "Menu" and "Play/Pause"
iPod 4G+ (includes Photo, Nano, Video, and Mini): "Menu" and "Select"
The Apple logo will appear and you should feel the hard drive spinning up. Press and hold the following sequence of buttons:
iPod 1G to 3G: "REW", "FFW" and "Select"
iPod 4G+ (includes Photo, Nano, Video, and Mini): "Back" and "Select"
You will hear an audible chirp sound (3G models and higher) and the Apple logo should appear backwards. You are now in Diagnostic Mode. Navigate the list of tests using "REW" and "FFW". The scroll wheel will not function while in diagnostic mode. For further details on Diagnostic mode can be found at http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/
Try to do the 5in1, HDD R/W and HDD scan tests. Some successful cases have been reported after the running the few tests under the Diagnostic mode. In case it does not work in your case, and the scan tests reports show some errors then it proves your iPod has a hardware problem and it needs a repairing service.
B. Format your iPod with a start disk
I have not tried this solution myself, I heard that there were few successful cases that the users managed to get their iPod (you must put your iPod in disk mode before connecting with a computer) mounted by the computer, which was booted by a system startup disk. For Mac, you can use the Disk Utility (on the Tiger OS system disk), for PC user, you can use the window OS system disk. Try to find a way to reformat your iPod, again it does not matter which format (FAT32, NTFS or HFS+) you choose, the key is to erase the corrupted system files on the iPod. Then eject your iPod and do a Reset to switch out from Disk Mode. Reboot your computer at the normal way, connect your iPod back with it, open the iPod updater, and hopefully your iPod will appear there for the Restore.
If none of these steps address the issue, your iPod may need to be repaired.
Consider setting up a mail-in repair for your iPod http://depot.info.apple.com/ipod/
Or visit your local Apple Retail Store http://www.apple.com/retail/
In case your iPod is no longer covered by the warranty and you want to find a second repairing company, you can try iPodResQ or ifixit at your own risk
http://www.ipodresq.com/index.php
http://www.ifixit.com/
Just in case that you are at the following situation
Your iPod warranty is expired
You don’t want to pay any service charges
You are prepared to buy a new one
You can’t accept the re-sell value of your broken iPod
Rather than leave your iPod as paper-weight or throw it away.
You can try the following, but again, only do it as your last resort and at your own risk.
Warning !!!! – It may or may not manage to solve your problem, and with a risk that you may further damage your iPod, which end up as an expensive paper weight or you need to pay more higher repairing cost. Therefore, please re-consider again whether you want to try the next level
Last Resort Level
1. . Disconnecting the Hard Drive and battery inside the iPod – Warning !! Your iPod warranty will be waived once you open the iPod.
In Hong Kong there are some electronic shops offering an iPod service for Sad iPod, the first thing they do is to open up the iPod’s case and disconnecting the battery and the Hard Drive from the main board of the iPod. Wait for 5-10 minutes and reconnecting them back. The reason behind which I can think of is to do a fully reset of a processor of the iPod. In case you want do it itself and you believe that you are good on fixing the electronics devices and have experience to deal with small bits of electronic parts, then you can read the following of how to open the iPod case for battery and HDD replacement (with Quicktimes)
http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=Video/directory.html
2.Press the reset button on the Hard Drive inside the iPod – Suggestion from Kill8joy
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2438774#2438774
Have I tried these myself? No, I am afraid to do it myself as I am squeamish about tinkering inside electronic devices, I have few experiences that either I broke the parts (which are normally tiny or fragile) or failed to put the parts back to the main case. Therefore, I agree with suggestion to have it fixed by a Pro.
2. Do a search on Google and some topics on this discussion forum about “Sad iPod”
Exclamation point and folder and nothing else
Spank your iPod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ljPhrFUaOY
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3597173#3597173
Exclamation point and folder and nothing else
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2831962#2831962
What should I do with my iPod? Send it or keep it?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=469080&tstart=0
Strange error on iPod (probably death)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435160&start=0&tstart=0
Sad Face on iPod for no apparent reason
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=336342&start=0&tstart=0
Meeting the Sad iPod icon
http://askpang.typepad.com/relevant_history/2004/11/meeting_the_sad.html#comment -10519524
Sad faced iPod, but my computer won’t recognize it?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2236095#2236095
iPod Photo: unhappy icon + warranty question
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2233746#2233746
4th Gen iPod Users - are we all having the same problem?
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2235623#2235623
Low Battery, and clicking sounds
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2237714#2237714
Sad faced iPod, but my computer won’t recognize it
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2242018#2242018
Sad iPod solution
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=412033&tstart=0
Re: try to restore ipod and it says "can't mount ipod"
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=443659&tstart=30
iPod making clicking noise and is frozen
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2420150#2420150
Cant put it into disk mode
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3786084#3786084
I think my iPod just died its final death
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3813051
Apple logo & monochrome battery stay
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3827167#3827167
My iPod ism’t resetting and isn’t being read by my computer
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4489387#4489387
I am not suggesting that you should follow as well, but just read them as your reference. You are the person to make the call.
Finally, I read a fair comments from dwb, regarding of slapping the back of the iPod multiple times
Quote “This has been discussed numerous times as a 'fix'. It does work, at least for a while. In fact I remember using the same basic trick to revive Seagate and Quantam drives back in the mid to late 1980's. Why these tiny hard drives go bad I don't know - could be the actuator gets stuck in place or misaligned. Could be the platter gets stuck or the motor gets stuck. 'Stiction' was a problem for drives back in the 80's. Unfortunately the fix can cause damage to the platter so we temporarily fix one problem by creating another. But I know of two instances where a little slap onto the table revived the iPods and they are still worked a year or more later.”UnQuote

Please help me arrange my hard drive setup, testing out different Raid arrays.

Hi folks! If I could bother you for your time to help me figure out what the best options are for my computer setup that would be much appreciated!! I'm editing mostly RED footage so 5K and 4K files.
Here's what my computer build is right now:
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
i7-3930K CPU (OC'd to 4.4ghz)
64GB ram
GTX 680 video card (2GB model)
Windows 7 Pro
Mostly Premiere CS6 and After Effects
Here's the fun part and the part that I'm still baffled by regardless of how many videos and searches I've done online, what to do with my hard drives!?
Right now I have my Mobo setup in Raid mode with these plugged in to the motherboard;
2 x 250gb Samsung pro SSD's on 6gb/s ports (Raid 0) (Windows 7 OS)
2 x 300gb WD Velociraptors 3gb/s ports (Raid 0) (empty)
3 Ware 9750-8i Raid controller +
8 x 3TB Seagate Barracuda drives ready to rock and roll.
Now based on everything I've read, I'm leaning towards setting up 4 x 3TB drives in Raid0 for my footage (making constant backups with synctoy onto an external Drobo)
4 x 3TB drives in Raid0 for exporting footage. (with continuous backups)
That leaves me wondering where's the best place to setup Media cache, cache files and project files and anything else. Also I've left the OS pagefile on the SSD's but wondering if I should set that up somewhere else?
Using Crystal Disk mark, I'm getting these results so far:
OS on Samsung Pro SSD's in Raid0
The 4 x 3TB drives in various Raid setups:
Raid0
Raid5
Raid10
Velociraptors in Raid0
All this is due to many months of recent work on a computer build that would get bogged down and editing became painfully slow. I'm trying out a proper dedicated Raid card instead of just 2 drives in Raid0 off the motherboard hoping this will make a big difference.
Any expert advice on here would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Let's start with the easy part:
C: SSD for OS, programs & pagefile
D: 2 x Veliciraptor in raid0 for media cache and previews
With 8 disks available on the 3Ware controller you can go many different directions and they depend on your workflow. Let me give two extreme examples and then you may be pointed in the right correction for your editing practice.
Workflow consists of quick and dirty editing, usually one day or less and multiple export formats each day (example Vimeo, YouTube, BDR, DVD and web), or
Workflow consists of extensive editing, usually a week or longer and exports to a few formats at the end of the editing (example BDR and DVD only).
If your typical workflow looks like 1, your idea of two 4x raid0 arrays can work, because the load is rather nicely distributed over the two arrays. Of course the drawback is that there is no redundancy so you depend very much on the backups to your Drobo and restoring data after data loss can be time consuming, coming from the Drobo.
If your workflow looks more like 2, then you can consider one 7x raid5 array for projects and media and a single drive for exports. That means that your raid5 will be noticeably faster then either of the 4x raid0 arrays you considered and offer redundancy as well. As a rough rule of thumb, a 4x disk raid0 will be almost 4 times faster than a single disk, a 7x raid5 will be around 5 - 5.5 times faster than a single disk. You profit from the extra speed during the whole editing week or longer.
The export to a single disk may be somewhat slower, but how long does it take to write say 25 GB to a single disk? Around 160 seconds. If you use a hot swappable drive cage, you can even use multiple export disks, say one for Client A, another one for Client B, etc. In your initial idea of a 4x raid0 that time may be 40 seconds, so you gain around 2 minutes on the export, but lose that in the whole editing week.
Just my $ 0.02

Please help! Macbook internal hard drive not detectable.

Dear all,
Hope this post finds you well.
I have a very old Macbook and one day the hard drive started making skipping sounds and the system froze. Upon restarting, the machine would not boot and displayed either a white screen or a flashing question mark folder. I used a USB to boot and tried to use disk utility to repair the hard drive. However, the hard drive is not visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. I have also tried inserting the hard drive into another Macbook while booting with a USB, but the result was the same: No HD in Finder or Disk Utility.
Is it possible to recover the files from the HD? Any help would be much appreciated.
Kind regards
Xierong

Well that hard drive is most likely toast. You'd need to place the hard drive in an external enclosure or use a USB "dongle" like here:
http://www.amazon.com/USB-SATA-5-25-Cable-Adapter/dp/B000YJBL78
Plug that into a working MacBook (You'll have to get a new hard drove or use that other one. Run Data Rescue II, or III and there are some others reviewed here::
http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-recovery-software/dat a-rescue-review.html
It used to be you could run II for free to see what it found. Mt only experience is with II. Usually if I can get the drive to spin up I can recover most things. There was one time I jiggled the drive and got it to spin up and had to hold it very still until it finished recovering all my files!

I think my hard drive might be fried!/White screen of death sequel

Yeah...So to add to the lovely white screen of death that I had before, I CAN now put the OS X disks in the cd drive. BUT here's the catch. To get into the disk first aid, it goes through it as it should, BUT there's no hard drive image!

That would be freakin' sweet if it could do that. I wouldn't want to have something run on a USB port 24/7 but I'd rather not have to be without a computer either. I'm running on my parent's iTV right now.

Help - I think my hard drive may explode

I just installed Itunes and it immediately started converting a bunch of music files that were already on my computer. How do I stop this? I have over 160 gigs of MP3s, and Im afraid I will run out of room on my hard drive if they are all converted. I want to install them on teh ipod as MP3s, and not convert them to the apple format.
Thanks.

Do you recall answering a question about letting iTunes manage your music library the first time you started iTunes? It's probably now copying (not converting) or moving all the files to the iTunes Music directory based on their ID3 tags.

PLEASE HELP!- New internal hard drive not recognizing

I have a MacBook pro unibody, purchased October 2008, 250 GB, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM. I bought a new hard drove from OWC, which is 750 GB. I followed all I strychnine from their website by installing osx again on the new drive, and transferrin data and updating the programs. when I checked the hard drive to see if the files were all there, they were. but once I installed in in the MacBook, and turned on, a blue screen with a flashing blue folder and a white question mark popped up. what did I do wrong???

Restart holding down the Option key, the system may not know the new drive is your start-up drive. Select the drive and once OS X is up go to System Preferences-Startup Disk and choose the internal drive.
If it still doesn't start then you made an error somewhere. The correct process would be to put the new drive in an enclosure and format it first to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then using using SuperDuper or CCC clone your old drive to the new drive, once that has been done swap the drives and you should be done.
Roger

Your hard drive might be dying if...

Out of the blue this week, started getting kernel panics: spinning beachball in every open program, dock would freeze, mouse could move but do nothing, restart would only give me grey screen. This was initially after waking from sleep or the screensaver; I have done nothing to the comp recently besides installing an ATI 9800 card a couple months back, been running fine.
Today it's really taken a bad turn. After startup there is a horrible hiccuping noise from my boot drive, kind of like a windshield wiper you know? I can hear something physically clacking back and forth in there, I think it's the little arm that reads the platter. When I do get it to start up I can keep it running for a few minutes before it locks up again. I'm desperately trying to back up my projects and I hope I'm not damaging my drive every time it makes that noise on startup. The Hardware Test CD (v1.2.5, old) finds no problems, but this wouldnt be the first time that SMART diagnostics have given no warning of impending death. It does sound like a bad drive, no?

Good move with the spare drive and OS, John!
If you're unsure about the old one being defective, after you get your new one you might zero the old one using the option to overwrite zeros to it, which will map out any bad sectors which might be present, then use it for archiving or as a spare/emergency boot drive if it then seems to be operating normally again. As you might suspect, I'm not one to immediately jump to the conclusion that a drive is going to die when it clicks, whirs, and won't mount or boot. Screeching or sounds similar or worse than what you heard on the linked Hitachi site are a sure sign, but sometimes strange whirring and clicking happen when the directory is fouled up and the drive goes goofy running in a "do loop" as it repeatedly searches for something it can't find. I say this from my own experiences with drives, one of which is the startup drive I'm on right now and have been running 24-7 for 9 months now after having a problem similar to yours (although I don't know what your drive sounded like).
Glad you got your data - I'm sure it's a relief!
Gary

Eek.. one of my hard drives might be dying.

Hi everyone.
I have a 2tb raid (4 x500 seagate drives), and as of yesterday I began hearing an intermittent clicky click sound.. Actually sounding like wires hitting a fan-- Which is what I thought was happening, but after some inspection, I realized one of my 4 drives is making this sound every few minutes. My data is still available-- But I am weary of this and am planning to isolate the drive and replace it with a new one.
My question is, is there a way to carbon copy clone an individual raid slice? Does anyone here recommend a particular way to proceed with this?
-patrick

What version of RAID? 0,1,5?
If zero, you may be SOL as the OS does not see individual drives and there there are not full files on individual disks. You need more than CCC ability to write files, you need a program that will do a byte for byte / bit for bit duplication. Since the file segments may end up in different sectors (bad sectors a possibility) I'd say the individual drive is not usably duplicatable through normal means.
What this means in real world terms is it's time to move the material off of the RAID, replace the dying drive, restripe the set and start over.
This is why RAID 5 has some appeal. It is built for just this very problem.
Good luck.
x

Hi guys i have an macbook 13 late 2007 and does not work when i start it up all u can see is blank white screen and after that its keep bepping high peech tone 3 times i was thinking the hard drive but im not too sure please guys help.

Hi guys i have an macbook 13 late 2007 and does not work when i start it up all u can see is blank white screen and after that its keep bepping high peech tone 3 times i was thinking the hard drive but im not too sure please guys help.

Try to reset the PRAM first then go from there.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

I recently had a kernel panic in which I think my hard drive only had so much space left after I ran a bunch of drivers I thought I needed. I uninstalled all and moved files. For some odd reason I'm not getting sound of of my hdtv/monitor.HELP?

I recently had a kernel panic in which I think my hard drive only had so much space left after I ran a bunch of drivers I thought I needed. I uninstalled all and moved files. For some odd reason I'm not getting sound of of my hdtv/monitor.HELP? I uninstalled all the drives and apps I download. I moived files either to trash if not needed, and others to other external drives. I went into disk utility and did a repair disk permission and verify disk. Clean out junk files. Now my hdtv/monitor does not give me any sound, nor does my mac mini. Can someone please tell me what to do?

What drivers?

Help! I think my hard drive just bit the dust

Hello all. Hopefully someone will be able to help me answer this so i can stop bashing my face against the keyboard.
My parents own a Macbook Pro 13" from about 6 years ago. They told me that one day they turned it on and all it would do is come to the grey loading screen with the apple logo and load and never reach the desktop. I put my snow leopard disk in, booted it from the disk to get to the disk utility options. I did a repair disk to see if it was corrupted and sure enough it was. I erased the partition they had on there to make a new one to start fresh. only problem is now i cant format the hard drive and create a new partition to install OS.
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6806_zpse9915621.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6807_zps9bc0abd7.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6808_zps378a9e2d.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz346/am_main/IMG_6809_zpsb47ba830.jpg
Any help would be appreciated...
To me, I think the hard drive is hooped but I don't really know. Like I said, the computer is 6 years old, nothing has been modified all original hardware.

Do you recall answering a question about letting iTunes manage your music library the first time you started iTunes? It's probably now copying (not converting) or moving all the files to the iTunes Music directory based on their ID3 tags.

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.

Please Help! I think my hard drive might have died (iMAC G3 600)

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