Well my computer kept beachballing and freezing requiring a hard reset a few times in the last couple of days

Well it just happened again and then on reset it was giving me the old question mark folder - Not a good sign

When I load from the cd and run disc utility, it says my hard drive is "0 bytes" and Not supported for SMART

It also calls it "Maxtor SABRE" which i'm pretty sure my hard drive wasn't called before

So, anyone know specifically what boat i'm in?

Should I try to reformat the drive? (I have a backup of most stuff thankfully)

Or is the drive as good as dead?

BTW iMac G5 2.0 20" 1.5gb 10.4.8

Edit: Oh I also have no option to verify or repair the disk

Hi Tiprya,

I would recommend running a few hard disk diagnostic programs ie disk warrior for structure problems, Tech Tool for hardware problems.

If you dont have these most apple centres should have - call around and see

If you post your location i can recommend somewhere.

neil

Ok so you think theres still hope for the drive, I won't format it then

Edit: Oh i'm in Sydney btw

Well i'll be damned, My computer booted

So it's fine for the moment, I think i'll be doing a backup

I guess my HDD is dying, could anything else cause this?

maybe could be logic board... but prob. the hard drive.

seems to be a lot of it going around - my daughter's G4 PB just had the same prob.

way we found out was to run disk utility (to repair permissions as it was running slow for no apparent reason) and it identified 'hard disc failing'

apple replaced it under the beautiful extended warranty.
they stipulate run disk utility

we backed up all her work immediately to my MacBook.

rule of thumb - back up data weekly ideally - monthly at the very least.

I take it it was replaced under AppleCare?

Did Disk Utility identify the hard disc was failing under SMART status?

I just finished doing a comprehensive backup, but almost everything was already backed up - I'm thinking of changing to bi-weekly backups now instead of weekly

I used to not backup but the peace of mind (ie. I wasn't too fussed today when my computer decided to die) about your data is worth the cost of an external any day

There seems to be alot of hard drives dying at the moment, theres 3 in the Recent Topics list atm

As has been said before, its not a matter of if your hard drive dies, its when

EDIT: Just froze needing a hard reset again - Something's dying

Low-Level formatting using the factory disk diagnostics tool might be more accurate to detect drive failures.

Check the smart status under disk util on the osx disk, i'm sure it will tell you the drive is failing.

That's not always that reliable. I've seen it say verified with some really messed up hard drives. But it's a place to start.

Have you given disk warrior a go? I had a really messed up iMac recently, wouldn't boot etc, ran that, and fixed up the issues - I thought the Hard drive was a goner for sure.

I'm getting a hold of Discwarrior soon

Lately its been ok, frozen requiring a restart every second day so I don't know whats up with it.

If its the hard drive I don't know why it doesn't just die already

It's so they lull you into a false sense of working, then stop - bottom line don't trust a hard drive.

S.M.A.R.T should be renamed S.T.U.P.I.D!

I've seen drives fail and SMART still said they were fine. The only thing that one can be reasonably certain of is that if SMART says a drive is about to fail, it probably will.

Dave

The reason S.M.A.R.T doesnt always tell you before it happens is because it isnt really standardized. Each manufacturer uses there own implementation so whats considered ok on one drive may be bad on another etc.

SMART status from my OSX install disc says its fine...

So I guess that rules nothing out

I'll let you guys know what happens when I give Discwarrior a go