[T-Man]

Now, before the answer I've read everyone get and that everyone shall give, no, the drive is not dying – it's new – and SMART is verified.

This MacBook (that I'm typing on) has had some problems. One was the screen going black, because the power-connector for it on the logic board was loose – fixed. The other seems to be an übertired HDD trying to sleep itself every bloody semiminute.

This drive is new (at least it was bought after MB's original HDD died, some months ago). I clean installed Leopard yesterday (and all updates're installed), and there's 2GBs of RAM. I was so hoping that the semiminute computer-freezing (with things like only Safari or SysPrefs open and the computer doing literally nothing but taking 30seconds to open a menu) would have been fixed when it left 512MBs, and, with small tasks like Safari and SysPrefs and menu-opening, it seems it has, but I've discovered that little RAM wasn't the problem.

For some reason, the HDD parks itself every some-amount of seconds ; I don't think it's perfect intervals. It sounds just like it does if I quickly picked it up and the motion sensor parked the head.

To do a little test, I found a file to download, and watched the disk activity in Activity Monitor – here's a picture:



A second or two after each completely flat area begins, I heard the head park. I watched and heard that in synchrony for about half a minute. The drive just stops the head...

I've done the Googling, and seem to have found the same problem with many others, with many different drives, on Apple Discussions and other forums, but no real fix. Except, I did find a forum which got an answer other than "I don't know" or "Your HDD is failing – back up now" (and I think s/he was a Mac OS X MacBook user, but anyway), and its answer was this (for-Windows) WD support page (the drive was one from WD...). Since, I guess, it could be a similar problem to what WD is depicting, might it be best to first reset that SMC (I forget what it stands for – the power manager system thing, it is) ? I've done PRAM, but have stayed away from SMC because the Apple doc says to not do it if those some-three steps work first – do it only as a last alternative....


Since my family basically considered this computer dead for the last five months, and did nothing the month or two it had problems before the 1year warranty expired, and I simply decided to open it up two weeks ago and see what I could do since nothing was being done, I guess it really doesn't matter if I get some far-fetched computer-opening idea. If I destroy it while trying to fix it, I'll just put it on eBay for parts like was meant to be done five months ago. Sad, but ye auld PowerBook's still around at least... Though don't get me wrong, I would like to save it.

And, I guess it's also good to tell: while the computer was open (and running – the HDD specifically) my dad for some mental reason pressed down on the spinning disk, and that only-heard-in[-geek]-movies bone-wrenching HDD scratching was heard. But whatever problems that might've caused (I have installed Leopard twice now, and everything seems otherwise fine), that most definitely isn't my current problem. The computer had the same problems in Tiger before I installed Leopard, albeit they were magnified because there was only 512MBs of RAM at that time. The 2GBs of RAM seemed to have left the HDD alone ; there's a full 1.48GBs free, and not one byte in Page Outs.

Oh, and it doesn't seem to want to sleep either, the MacBook. Every time except once when I've tried it, the screen turns off, the light stays lit unpulsatingly, and the HDD makes more ferocious quicklier-repetitive clicks. The only time it's worked so far is right after I reset the PRAM. I'll try now after I post.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by T-Man The other seems to be an übertired HDD trying to sleep itself every bloody semiminute. [...] For some reason, the HDD parks itself every some-amount of seconds ; I don't think it's perfect intervals. It sounds just like it does if I quickly picked it up and the motion sensor parked the head.

Perhaps roughly 30 seconds after the last "normal" activity?

It sounds a bit like my (and stevegong's) years-old problem that IFAICT Apple never fixed.

"update" process & hard drive ticking

[Dave]

Heh, it sounds kinda like the opposite of your problem, Brad. T-Man's drive seems to be going to sleep every thirty seconds, but yours was being touched every thirty seconds. In your case, the cause, IIRC, was an overzealous sync process. I wonder if T-Man has an overzealous sleep process? Does anyone know which process is responsible for sleeping hard drives? T-Man mentioned that it sounds just like it does when the sudden motion sensor does its thing. Could that be faulty?

[T-Man]

Like Dave's pointed out, it seems our problems are almost opposite. Mine just stops during normal activity, and it's much faster than every thirty seconds, but I don't think it's constant. I'll have to time it.

Though I don't think I've ever noticed your problem Brad. I see those distnoted and update processes, and update seems to use about '1.0 of CPU' every thirty seconds, but I've never heard it in the PowerBook that I use now and have used since 2006, nor in the (although very quiet) iMac, and I don't ever remember anything with the MB (but I think it'd just be funny if I could actually hear the drive trying to stop itself every so many seconds, and then spin up every thirty...). At least, the HDDs in my Macs are too quiet to make it noticeable.

Ah, and last night, it didn't go to sleep. The noise it makes though when it should be going to sleep is a little more. . .bad-sounding, as if it's scratchier. I can get audio of all this after school – my camera seems to pick the sounds up fine.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by T-Man Now, before the answer I've read everyone get and that everyone shall give, no, the drive is not dying – it's new – and SMART is verified.

Don't trust that info. Try http://www.volitans-software.com/SMART_Utility.html.

[turbulentfurball]

Originally Posted by chucker Don't trust that info. Try http://www.volitans-software.com/SMART_Utility.html.

I thought I'd give it a whirl. This is the result. shit.

[T-Man]

Originally Posted by chucker Don't trust that info. Try http://www.volitans-software.com/SMART_Utility.html.

, such an ironic moment for me.



So, that basically means bad drive. The problem must've been existent before I bothered to try to fix it then. Hm...

And also to note: for every power-on, it seems to do so twice. I'll press power, and I heard the optical drive, then the optical drive again and then the grey screen. I'd say this has nothing to do with the now-known HDD ? Maybe the optical drive simply 'starts' twice...

EDIT: @turbelentfurball: 'lol'... I'll try it on my iMac just to see... I'll try it on all the Macs for the hell of it.

But now, I have to go learn things.

[kieran]

I just ran the same thing on my MBA and it came up with 1 "reallocated bad sectors" and 196 total errors?

Should I be worried?

Please, please please say no.

[turbulentfurball]

I bet this app was made by Hard Drive manufacturers to make everyone buy replacements.

/conspiracy theory

[kieran]

I was thinking the same thing

[Brad]

Originally Posted by kieran23kk I was thinking the same thing

Well, just to buck the trend, it looks like my three-year-old drive consistently shows no errors.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Brad Well, just to buck the trend, it looks like my three-year-old drive consistently shows no errors.

Impressive! I get such errors after mere week of usage.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by chucker Impressive! I get such errors after mere week of usage.

Really? Lucky me or very unlucky you?

[kieran]

So if I have errors it's not such a bad thing?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Brad Really? Lucky me or very unlucky you?

*shrug*



That drive was installed in mid-January. It "passes", but it clearly does have errors already, and it did when I checked a few weeks ago.

With my iBook of 2002, I also had about multiple replacements.

So yeah, I don't have luck with laptop hard drives, and can't wait for solid-state storage.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by kieran23kk So if I have errors it's not such a bad thing?

I'd say that it depends. Certain errors are correctable. I'd be concerned if the drive didn't pass, otherwise I'd cross my fingers and make sure my backups are current.

[kieran]

I don't have any backups for my MBA at the moment.

I gotta pick up a small drive in order to get me through until Time Capsule ships.

But, I do have everything backed up to my old FW External. It's last backup was two weeks ago, so i wouldn't lose too much.

[ghoti]

Originally Posted by T-Man And, I guess it's also good to tell: while the computer was open (and running – the HDD specifically) my dad for some mental reason pressed down on the spinning disk, and that only-heard-in[-geek]-movies bone-wrenching HDD scratching was heard. But whatever problems that might've caused (I have installed Leopard twice now, and everything seems otherwise fine), that most definitely isn't my current problem. The computer had the same problems in Tiger before I installed Leopard, albeit they were magnified because there was only 512MBs of RAM at that time. The 2GBs of RAM seemed to have left the HDD alone ; there's a full 1.48GBs free, and not one byte in Page Outs.

I think it's pretty obvious that the disk was badly damaged. Disks don't make scratching noises without something scratching, and inside a harddisk, scratching is always a bad thing. There may have been damage before, but that clearly made it worse.

Originally Posted by kieran23kk I just ran the same thing on my MBA and it came up with 1 "reallocated bad sectors" and 196 total errors? Should I be worried? Please, please please say no.

I wouldn't be too worried (though you should always keep a current backup of course, no matter how many errors the disk shows), but check the errors every couple of weeks to see if they're getting worse. If they do, I would talk to Apple.

I just ran that utility on a 2.5 year old PowerBook and it showed zero errors. I think you can expect 0 errors from a new disk, and it should stay close to that for a long time. Reallocating bad sectors is something disks do to work around problems and that is not in itself a problem. But again, for a new disk, that really should not be necessary.

[Wyatt]

I just got zero errors on mine. That's reassuring, since this drive is a replacement for one that died.

[beardedmacuser]

2367 "Power On Hours" and no errors on the 120 gig Seagate drive in my PowerBook! But I'm running out of space and I have my eye on a 250 gig replacement...

[T-Man]

Six month old iMac:


And my three year old PowerBook looks perfect like Brad's...

[kieran]

Ok, so I ran it again. (I'm a little paranoid)



Should I be worried about this?

[ghoti]

Yes, I would take that in to have it replaced ASAP. Your total errors went up by seven in less than 24 hours - that can't be a good sign. Also, that yellow FAILING message is pretty unambiguous.

[kieran]

How exactly would I go about that?

Do I just go in and say that my HDD is failing?

The SMART status in Disk Utility says "verified."

Do I bring it in and run "SMART Utility" in front of someone?

[WrestleEwe]

Originally Posted by kieran23kk How exactly would I go about that? Do I just go in and say that my HDD is failing? The SMART status in Disk Utility says "verified." Do I bring it in and run "SMART Utility" in front of someone?

Techtool supposedly shows detailed s.m.a.r.t information. And since it is included with Applecare, Apple implicitly okays it as a trustworthy program.

So you can always go to an applestore and claim that you tested it with TT, the geniuses will have to believe you.

[ghoti]

I think they will have to at least look at it when you show them this tool. It shouldn't be a problem to get the HD replaced if there's any indication that it's failing, and there is a very clear indication here.

[kieran]

Ok. Thanks for that.

I forgot about Tech Tool.

I'll run that tonight when I get home from work.

Maybe I'll have time to run to one of the Apple Stores around her this weekend.

[chucker]

When I requested a hard drive replacement in December, I assured them I tested it with multiple utilities, including TechTool Deluxe, and then they only wanted to know if I had tried formatting and reinstalling (yup). No further questions asked; smooth and speedy replacement.

I'm not sure they're gonna trust SMART Utility's results alone, but if you have multiple independent utilities finding errors, that should be enough.

[kieran]

I guess I could also try formatting and reinstalling and see what happens then.

I'll run Tech Tool tonight, and if that backs up what SMART Utility says, then I'll try to reinstall and reformat.

If that doesn't work, then it's a trip to the Apple Store for me this weekend.

[kieran]

One more question Chucker, how long did it take for them to replace the HDD?

I've never had a problem that required me to send my computer away, so I don't know.

I've heard it's pretty quick though.