What's going on with my hard drive now?

Brief history: Not quite 3-year-old PB had internal drive fail last February. I bought the warranty, so it was pretty much paid for. Had a Seagate 100GB 7200rpm drive put in.
Today: Started up ProTools to do some recording, and everything is s-l-o-w with constant pinwheeling. Restarted. No improvement. Disk utility could not repair permissions. I restarted with the option key down, and the only drive that came up was the internal drive, and NOT the bootable backup drive (via SuperDuper!). Restarted with DiskWarrior in the rom drive, and (A) couldn't build a graph or (B) rebuild the directory (it said its speed was hampered by "disk malfunction."
I (obviously) turned it back on to write this, and was able to save an 82-page working document that wasn't updated in the last week. I'll keep trying to apply DiskWarrior and MacJanitor and DiskUtility and whatever else, but does it sound like my hard drive is toast again??
Any help is appreciated.

Have you tried the Apple hardware test? Insert the first OS X disk, and reboot holding the option key. Choose Apple hardware test. What's it tell you?
Can you boot from the OS X disk? Reboot holding the C key down. If the Apple hardware test tells you you have an unrepairable issue, you can try an erase and zero on the drive (you have to specifically tell it to write zero's to the drive). Then restore your backup. But, before you take this drastic step, reset your PRAM, from the Apple note at http://discussions.apple.com/post!reply.jspa?messageID=4060048:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
I might even reset the power management unit (PMU). Turn the system off, take out the battery, unhook the power adapter, press the power button and hold for 5 seconds and release, then hook up power, reinstall the battery, and proceed.

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What is going on with the Hard drives?

I purchased my macbook in Feb 2007. I've had two 160GB macbook hard drives corrupted (beyond any data retrieval) since then (and in the last year). I lost a great deal of PhD Thesis the first time.
Both times i had the screen freeze (unrelated to power since both were fully charged) and when I rebooted the HD could not be accessed. Seems to be corrupting the category B-tree in the catalogue. I have no idea what this means except i have no love for the B-tree. Off to mac repairers. Apple will not replace your HD without the old one which does create dramas when your old one is at data recovery.
I've learnt my external hard drive lesson (but always remember to back up your iTunes and iPhotos) since then but what's a reasonable expectation for your macbook to corrupt it's hard drive? Each HD took exactly 8 months to corrupt. coincidence? unlikely.
I have extra applecare protection cover but apple seem to think it's reasonable to replace the hard drive again and won't replace the macbook. I'm don't think that living in fear for the next 8 months is an appropriate resolution?
Is there an issue with macbook hardware that explains the HD corruption epidemic?

There have been some reports of a couple of runs of bad drives from the drive manufacturers, most reports being of Seagate drives, but I've seen nothing confirmed by any of the manufacturers. But all laptop manufacturers get their drives from the same vendors, so any vendor is equally likely to have a problem in such a circumstance. It's possible that your replacement drive was of the same series and so had the same problem, if such a problem really does exists. But laptop drives, being of very tiny parts, are more susceptible to failure; they're just not as robust as desktop drives, and of course are subject to more shock from travel. In my experience, support hundreds of laptops from various vendors, MacBooks are no more prone to hard drive failure than are any other manufacturer's system. So it could well have just been bad luck (presuming that the problem was indeed a hardware failure).
As to replacement, it's quite reasonable for Apple to just replace the hard drive again in the case of another failure, as there is really nothing in such a circumstance that would make replacing the entire MacBook help the situation.
Sorry you've had bad luck. I hope that your system behaves well from now on.
Regards.

I/O timeout all the time on console - what can I do with my hard drive? Macbook pro late 2011

My macbook has been extremely slow for a while and after looking on this site I discovered I should look at the console - and noticed I had I/O timeouts all the time which I gather are a problem.
What can I do with my hard drive? If I back it up using time machine and erase the disk with zeros will the problem continue if I simply restore from time machine?
Or should I invest in a new hard drive - but if I buy a new hard drive is there something on my computer that will wreck that one as well? i use final cut pro/studio a lot and it's got to the stage where I can barely use it - do I need a 7200rpm hard drive? My current one is a 500gb 5400rpm.
I have 16gb of RAM in but since upgrading this from 4GB it made a difference to the speed for all of two seconds then the computer returned to its normal slow speed.
Would appreciate any help on this issue as I'm not particularly technical.

I wouldn't worry too much about what the Console logs are showing... although I/O timeouts, if related to reading/writing to your disk may be a problem. I would have to see the whole Console message to know for certain...
Your hard drive is sure to be slowing you down with FCP. Your best bet would be to upgrade to an SSD, if you can afford it. It's the only way you're going to see a real speed increase in FCP as so many large temp/cache files are written to the drive.
If you can't afford a SSD, you may want to look at a 7200rpm SATA III drive (if your MBP supports SATA III - which model do you have? 2011 or later, I'm assuming, since you note that you've 16GB of RAM?).
You should also update your OS to 10.7.5 if your profile reading of 10.7.2 is correct. Won't help speed, but will be more reliable -> http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1582.
Clinton

What's going on with my USB drive?

I have a WD MyBook 2tb drive, one of several on my Mac Mini running Mountain Lion, and a few days ago that drive started making scritchy-scratchy sounds like it was being worked really hard when nothing at all was accessing it. That the drive access light isn`t flashing while this is going on is all the more puzzling.
So it has to be the OS doing something on it I would think, and doing a lot of it for some reason or another, but I have no clue how to find out what, or why. Okay, so the disk could be failing, and I`ve got it all backed up so if it goes I just go buy another disk, but this disk is less than a year old, and I have a WD 500gb disk that`s nearly 7 years old and it`s still going strong. Then too, I`ve run Disk Utility on it several times and it give the drive a clean bill of health, so WHAT????
I`ve tried using Terminal to find out what`s going on with that disk, but being a total idiot when it comes to Unix I`ve little idea how to look at that particular disk, and try as I might I cannot find anything online anywhere that tells me how.
So far I`ve tried iosnoop, which gets me a lot of seemingly bad messages that scroll endlessly up the screen saying things like:
dtrace: error on enabled probe ID 4 (ID 1031: io:mach_kernel:buf_strategy:start): invalid user access in action #3 at DIF offset 0
and this launchd stuff:
launchd ??/<unknown (NULL v_parent)>/<unknown (NULL v_name)>
This stuff just goes on and on and on and on... forever and never stops.
What does it all mean???? Is the drive dying on me? What if I reformat it? Would this stuff stop?

Is this a one-time occurence, or is it continuous?
Does the drive have a separate power source or is it bus powered by the Mini?

What's 'best-practice' with external hard drives?

Hello folks,
I just got myself a 500GB LaCie d2 'Quadra' hard drive, and it works great - just as I was led to expect. Now I've connected it to my iMac with a FW400 cable. I've a few questions regarding general usage and 'best practice' when using an external hard drive like this:
1. Do I need to disconnect it (pull out the cable from my iMac) every time I Shutdown - and reconnect on Startup? Or can I leave it it and pretty much just forget about it?
2. Can I turn it 'on' and 'off' any number of times (using the on/off switch on the back) when working on the iMac? I might like to switch it off if I'm not using it for an extended period of time while still working on the computer. Is this okay?
3. When I'm not using the drive and the drive switch is 'off', can the drive still remain connected to 'mains' power? Or is it necessary to disconnect it from the 'mains' entirely?
4. I understand it's best to disconnect when 'Repairing Permissions?' Can this be confirmed?
Thanks so much.
Cheers!
Steve.

1. Do I need to disconnect it (pull out the cable from my iMac) every time I Shutdown - and reconnect on Startup? Or can I leave it it and pretty much just forget about it?
What I do is shut down my Mac, leaving it connected to the mains: the external HD, external speakers and other peripherals are all connected to a mains switch and I turn these off. There's no need to disconnect the cable: some disks spin down when the computer is shut down, some don't. It probably wouldn't hurt to leave it spinning anyway, though I prefer to shut it off at the mains. Incidentally I shouldn't disconnect the computer from the mains when you shut down: doing this will run down the PRAM battery and hasten the day it needs replacing, which is expensive.
2. Can I turn it 'on' and 'off' any number of times (using the on/off switch on the back) when working on the iMac? I might like to switch it off if I'm not using it for an extended period of time while still working on the computer. Is this okay?
I shouldn't do this: the most strain on a hard disk is when it is starting up, not when it is running: I should leave it running all the time the Mac is on. If you do switch it off, make sure to unmount it first (drag it to the trash) otherwise you will have all sorts of problems.
3. When I'm not using the drive and the drive switch is 'off', can the drive still remain connected to 'mains' power? Or is it necessary to disconnect it from the 'mains' entirely?
No: I see no problem in leaving it plugged in to the mains: the 'off' switch disconnects it anyway.
4. I understand it's best to disconnect when 'Repairing Permissions?' Can this be confirmed?
I've never heard this, and I can't see that there's any neccesity: the repairing process will be confined to the disk you have nominated to work on in any case.

What is going on with my CD drive?

My CD drive makes all sorts of weird noises when I insert a disc in it. Sometimes it sounds like it's loading then slows down, then speeds up, etc. Then there are times were it'd make some other random rhythemic noises. I don't know what's going on. It doesn't like to read everything. But putting in another DVD is fine and will play ONLY if I'm lucky. Other wise, it just tries to read it and ejects. And on bad days it won't eject the disc at all unless I turn it side ways.....
Anyone ever experience this? My warrenty expired. To be honest if it costs too much to take to the Apple store I'm just going to live without a CD drive.

I dont know whats going on with it, but instead of having to live without a superdrive, you could purchase an external one that plugs into one of the usb ports for BOUT $55 USD. See Here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/VLU2SD22XLS/

What does Apple do with replaced hard drives?

My PowerBook G4 hard drive crashed just over a year ago, taking with it all of my Master's essays and assignments. They replaced it under Apple Care in Mexico City (I was living in Mexico at the time), but would not let me keep my old hard drive to recover the data. I still have the hard drive number and serial number. Is there any way to get it back after all this time? Where does Apple send old hard drives?

vaneska:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
I am sorry that you lost all of your very valuable data. It is very unlikely that the HDD is recoverable anymore. It would have been better to try to recover the data before sending it in, but, of course, it is too late for that now. Indeed, it would have been even better if you had a reliable backup of your computer, and although it is too late for the information already lost, it is still a good idea to do regular backups of everything you can't afford to lose, preferably on an external Firewire Hard Disk Drive.
Good luck.
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

What can I do with the hard drive from my broken iPod Mini?

Hello all,
A friend of mine has an iPod Mini that is broken beyond repair. However, the battery and the hard drive works fine. The question is, is there a way to utilize the hard drive as an external USB drive? If so, can anyone point me in a resource that outlines this? I have checked online but haven't had any luck.
Thanks so much,
Ed

Yeah, but I may have not descriped the issue with the iPod. He tried to replace the battery himself and broke the ribbon cable that connects the circuit board to the control wheel. The battery and HD are o.k. so I mentioned that he may be able to take the HD out and use it as a separate storage device. I thought they drives that had the same form factor as a compact flash card.
I told him to pay the 50 bucks to have Apple replace the battery but did he listen? I know it sounds like I have an imaginary friend and I did it, but really it was he that tried it on his own. <ggg>
Ed

:censored:!! is going on with my hard drive

Hey guys,pc has been working sweet.However today i got a prompt telling me that i have no space left on my hard drive when yesterday i had over 100 gigs?. Opened disc defragmenter and it showed all of my previously open space as being filled with fragmented files!.So i restarted my pc and upon opening defragmenter again it showed everything back to normal???.All seems fine now but im wondering if my new HDD is on its way out already??.I hav'nt yet received my second drive for raid 1 so nothing is backed up yet,should i be worried??,thoughts?

Run WD's data lifeguard diagnostics to check the integrity of the harddrive.
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3

PC with new Hard Drive now thinks my iPod Classic is Mac-Formatted.

My Hard Drive died on my PC, losing all of my iTunes songs. Fortunately, they were backed up on an external hard drive. When my hard drive got replaced on my PC, I downloaded the songs back onto the computer. I loaded up iTunes, which seems to have all of the songs on there. However, when I tried to sync my iPod Classic with iTunes, I get a message saying that:
"iTunes has detected a MacIntosh formatted iPod. You must restore this iPod before you can use it on Windows".
The songs on my iPod are more up to date than what was on my external hard drive, and I worry that restoring the iPod will make me lose everything on the iPod, plus everything that's on iTunes. Is there any way I can sync my iPod with iTunes without losing everything?

Restoring the iPod only wipes all the media from the iPod itself and resets all settings back to their defaults.
You can use a program such as XPlay to allow your Mac formatted iPod to work with your PC.
Xplay
B-rock

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When I open my files to download my pictures from my iphone 6 plus, there is a windows icon with a hard drive. What is that? And why can't I delete it? I already reset my phone and a week later they came back.

I download my pictures by:
!) Connecting my iphone to he computer.
2) It will open a window or I will go to my computer and select iphone device.
3) Open up Iphone folders and download.
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I have an air with 64Gb hard drive and 2Gb RAM and would like to upgrade both the HD and RAM. WHat should I buy?

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TWTexas wrote:
WHat should I buy?
compensate or purchase a new Air
Recommend a SUPERSLIM portable 1TB HD
RAM cant be upgraded, as The Fox-man has already said.

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what does it mean when the hard drive icon with arrow below, appears on screen on start up?

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Hi, all.
Two days ago I was using my computer, a 2011 Macbook Pro, and suddenly got the error message reading "Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
I was only using Google Chrome, nothing was running in the background, and I have 443 of 449.25 GB available (this is after clean-up I conducted after receiving the error message, but probably cleaned up less than 25 GB), so there should be no shortage of space. However, the message kept popping up and I deleted a few files and eventually it went away and hasn't reappeared.
However, last night and then again this morning I have been getting the error message that my USB drive is pulling too much power and has been disable. All that was plugged in was my iPhone 5 on the charger and my computer is also on its charger, so I don't know why this would be an issue, either. I have always charged my phone this way and never had a problem until today.
I haven't been able to charge my phone since. What's going on with my computer?

Regarding the USB, see if zapping the PRAM helps.
Regarding your storage space check out the following:
HD Space Checkers:
Disk Inventory X (FREE)
WhatSize (SHAREWARE)
OmniDiskSweeper (FREE)
GrandPerspective (FREE - donation)
Mac Performance Guide
Slimming your hard drive
===============
Quick fix How To Quickly Free Up Hard Drive Space on Mac OS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO-mlLApEuk

What's going on with my hard drive now?

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