Should I replace failed hard drive in imac 4,1 or run from external or mac mini?

My hard drive failed in my iMac 4,1 (early 2006 intel). I am running from an external drive, but slow. Should I replace the hard drive ($300 at Apple), purchase a better external to run from or a mac mini? I'm trying to determine if it makes sense to invest further in this iMac since its 5 yrs old already. Can any one offer some insight/opinion?

Hi moreenie
Your profile does not indicate your geographic location, but there are Authorize Apple Service Providers that can and will do the work for considerably less than your local Apple Store.
http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Call around, at less than $200 to replace the Hard Drive, it makes a little more sense to fix and use it for another year or two...
I replace the Hard Drive in my Early 2006 a couple of years ago not because it died, but because it became to small.
Sorry I can't honestly help you decide, because I'm torn and can't decide for myself. Not liking the Glossy iMac's, I've also been toying with the idea of either a Mac-Mini or used Mac Pro? My biggest problem with the Mac-Mini is, that by the time you do a few upgrades it cost as much as a base iMac.
Dennis

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Replaced failed hard drive - access is slow with spinning ball

Hi,
I recently replaced my failed hard drive and during the OS install, selected a backup from Time Machine.
All's well. My apps and docs are all there.
However, when I double click on the HD icon on the desktop, I get a spinning ball for about 3-5 seconds before I get a contents window.
Is there something I should NOT have copied over from Time Machine that has caused this behavior?
The new HD is a 7200 rpm(?) Western Digital Caviar, 1 TB. Details from System Profiler:
ST31000528AS:
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Model: ST31000528AS
Revision: CC35
Serial Number: *****
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk1
Rotational Rate: 7200
Bay Name: Bay 1
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Main Drive:
Capacity: 999.86 GB (999,860,912,128 bytes)
Available: 539.26 GB (539,261,030,400 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s2
Mount Point: /
Thank you for any help!
Greg
< Edited by Host >

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take one of the actions that you're having trouble with. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

We are puzzled as to why we are having hard drive memory leakage. Tends to shrink with usage.Should we replace the hard drive? rive lea

According to the get info on the imac hd icon we have used 249.7 out of a possible 250 gb of hardrive. We have deleted some file, caches, but still face the shrinkage which occurs with usage. It may rise to 320 MB but with use fall to 10mb. Is there anything we can do or replace the hard drive?

The 'shrinkage' is due to the system using HD space as virtual memory. That is the reason why you should always leave a good chunk of disk space available for the system to use (depending on how much RAM you have and what sort of work you're using it for, that could be anything from 5 - 20GB or more).
Nothing wrong with the drive itself, you just need to offload some stuff to an external drive to free up enough space for the system to work.
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
How to free up my disk space:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

I replaced my hard drive and used time machine to boot from but it installedthe unrepaired disk permissions of the faulty previous drive would this cause problems on my new drive?

I replaced my hard drive on macbook pro and used time machine to boot from but it also installed the unrepaired disk permmissions of the other drive, would this cause problems to my new drive?

Can you remember what the permissions problem was that you had before? You may need to reinstall OS X from scratch and not reinstall anything from your Time Machine backups. To be on the safe side you should reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, as well. Then only restore from your backup your document/data files.

Need to replace failing hard drive but I don't have RnR discs

The hard drive has started to fail on my brand new T500 with WIn7 Pro pre-installed. I have not had time to create RnR discs. Lenovo support says they are ready to ship a new hard drive but there is a problem getting the RnR discs put together with the drive for me. When the drive first started to fail, I tried to create the RnR DVDs but it seemed to be going nowhere. I got 1 DVD created that I was told to label "Final SP". What is that? There is next to no information available describing the process, but I'd like to take another crack at it in case there is a major delay in Lenovo replacing my drive and providing RnR discs. Any idea how long it should take and how many DVDs? Any suggestions??
Thanks.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

OK. I took another look and I think I found what I need to create the Rescue discs... don't know how I missed it the first time around. I will give it a shot.

Replace failed Hard Drives for all Minis out of warranty?

I bought a mini in March 2005 and the Hard Drive has now failed. Ok, I am aware it is out of warranty but if all those minis on here are having hard drive faults surely apple should replace them?
Well we can but wish ....

All?
We don't know for sure how many minis have been sold in the (almost) three years they have been in production, but it's reasonable to think there have been a very large number. In comparison to that volume, the number of failures of hard drives reported here seems remarkably low - certainly nothing that would indicate a generic problem or failure.
To be sure, as with any mass production, there are some units which are either faulty or contain faulty components, and Apple should stand by those products and make them good. By and large they appear to do so. However, a drive failure after almost three years of use would not be something you could typically expect them to take responsibility for - particularly not in the absence of widespread reports of failures of the same drives in other systems. The rather sporadic reports we see here and elsewhere don't really rise to that standard by any interpretation.

How to replace internal Hard Drive on iMac G5 iSight 1.9GHz

Hello everyone,
The internal hard drive of my iMac has died (apparently), and is no longer detectable by Disk Utility. It occasionally makes a "click/tick" sound so I know it's still spinning inside. I currently am booted up from an external firewire drive with Tiger (10.4.11) installed.
I have been attempting to locate a service manual that shows how to open the case to my 17" iMac G5 iSight 1.9GHz model. I have found a service manual from the previous generation iMac G5 NON-iSight models, but the bottom access panel and screw locations differ from my iMac.
I have purchased an internal 500GB Seagate 7200.12 replacement drive.
Does anyone know where I can find a manual with pictures showing how to disassemble this particular iMac so I can install the new hard drive?

Ticking is a death rattle for drives and below are some helpful sites with pix.
http://www.kodawarisan.com/imacintel/imacintel01.html
http://xlr8yourmac.com/systems/imacisight_internals/imac_g5_isightinside.html
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=iVgL9u7ySUk
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_QmBueWg4&feature=related
The reason Apple don't publish pix of the insides of the iSight is that they say that there are no user serviceable parts.

How to replace failing hard drive?

My hard drive is failng, according to the s.m.a.r.t. status.
The recommendation I read repeatedly is to back up and replace. What I don't read repeatedly is any explanation of how to do this.
Is there a step by step guide? Where do I buy a replacement hard drive? How do I make a backup? How do I then restore the backup onto the new drive?
And it is possible to just copy the system in one lump to the new hard drive? Or will I have to reinstall OSX, download and install all the OS updates, and reinstall every application individually? And how about registered commercial applications, such as Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live? Will they just work on the new hard drive, or do I need to de-authorize on the old drive and re-authorize them on the new one?
-Ron.

Hi Ronald,
Installing your own hard drive voids any warranties that you may still have. It also raises the risk of having future computer problems. You may want to bring it to your local Apple Store/Reseller and have them check it out. You may also want try sending it off to PowerBookResQ who can troubleshoot/repair or upgrade PowerBooks and iBooks.
If you still want to install it yourself you may want to look at iFixit - iBook G4 Hard Drive Replacement. You may also want to look at Knowledge Base Document #106941 which has examples on How to back up and restore your files.
Do you have an external hard drive? What format is it in? I suggest formating it in HFS+, but it isn't a necessity. You may want to download/buy SuperDuper. It is one of my favorite full backup, bootable cloning software.
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Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All), Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook, G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight..

Should I replace the hard drive or the motherboard on my pavilion dv9610?

Issues black screen, laptop attemps to start, can hear fan and disk and power led flash, also SD slot led and quick play dvd strip led's come on then shut off after 2 seconds stays off for 5 sec and repeats over and over again (on 2 sec. off 5sec)
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Hi,
From what you describe, I would say the problem is with your video chip, however this is really just my best guess. One possible solution you may want to try is getting the GPU reflowed - the guy on the link below has a good reputation for doing this and if it turns out the GPU is not at fault he only charges a diagnostic fee of $29.99. At least it's an option to consider.
http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-DV2000-DV6000-DV9000-TX1000-Laptop-No-Video-REPAIR-/260674058980?pt=LH_Defaul...
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

Hard drive crashed. How do I reconstruct from external hard drive?

A few weeks ago my computer started to act unstable. Amid crashes and freezes, I was able to copy (drag and drop) the following folders onto my external hard drive...Documents, Library, Music, and Pictures. Then the hard drive died completely.
I have replaced it and upgraded to Snow Leopard
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https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=HDDppcintelformat/HDDppcin telformat.html
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I had to replace my hard drive, and I don't have access to my sync code to get my bookmarks into my new browser. How do I get my sync code if I don't have the original email containing it?

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Intertech Design wrote:
Where do I get the specially assigned serial number????? I don't want to have to purchase anything since I already bought the CS2 and I don't need a newer version.
Follow the prompts at the link provided by Ned.
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I recently took my imac in for a recall on the hard drive, they replaced my hard drive, i used time machine to restore all my files. Now when I turn time machine on it says back up failed not enough space, it is not overwriting old back ups.

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http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

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Should I replace failed hard drive in imac 4,1 or run from external or mac mini?

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