MacBook HDD Failing?

[xJulianx]

Last couple of days my MacBook (see sig) has been a bit unreliable. I can no longer play Football Manager 2007 without the system hanging and forcing me to force quit. Safari and Firefox were not working the other day, but now appear to be fine. In general the system tends to beach ball much more than normal.

I fear it may be the HDD which has made some rather un healthy sounds over the last few days. I ran Disk Utility and it said my disk seems to be fine, I also ran the extended hardware test which also reported no errors.

Now, my dilemma is that I go on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks. I really need my MacBook in action so I'm going to try reinstalling the OS and hoping that helps the issues. It's worth a shot anyway.

Everything is backed up via Time Machine - is it possible to reinstall Leopard (erase+install) and then copy back only certain Time Machine backed up files (music, video, apps) so as to keep my fresh install fresh at a system level?


Any help would be greatly appreciated, if there's anything I haven't been clear enough on please ask me to elaborate.

[Eraserhead]

If the hardware is failing you'd be better off to replace the HD yourself before going away.

[xJulianx]

If the hardware is failing you'd be better off to replace the HD yourself before going away.

Unfortunately I am out of pocket until I get back to university. I understand what I am proposing is clutching at straws but it's worth a shot. Just need to know if Time Machine will let me copy back specific files as opposed to all of them.

[myuserid08]

Run this piece of software, it should tell you if your drive is failing.
http://www.volitans-software.com/SMART_Utility.html

[myuserid08]

Unfortunately I am out of pocket until I get back to university. I understand what I am proposing is clutching at straws but it's worth a shot. Just need to know if Time Machine will let me copy back specific files as opposed to all of them.

Yes it will, mount the time machine disk and drag the files you require over to your fresh OSX install.

[xJulianx]

Run this piece of software, it should tell you if your drive is failing.
http://www.volitans-software.com/SMART_Utility.html

EDIT: Image upload didn't work.


Basically it came up with a yellow flag stating the overall SMART status as failing.

[myuserid08]

Go get another HD as soon as possible preferably before you go on holiday.

[xJulianx]

Go get another HD as soon as possible preferably before you go on holiday.

As I said I can't until I get back to university in October unfortunately. Going to have to try and drag this HDD out until then. I've just done a Time Machine backup so all of my data is safe anyway.

Thanks for the help.

[xJulianx]

Just tried putting a playlists worth of music on my Shuffle (100 odd songs) and found that with certain tracks it would get stuck (along with unhealthy HDD sounds). I spent a while with trial and error deleting these problematic songs and it synced fine, looks like I have a fair bit of data that can't be read/copied. Bugga.

As I said, have to hold out until October, if I'm lucky I may be able to afford a new laptop by then as I'd say I'm due for a refresh after then anyway.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[MacFanatic08]

It just needs a new HDD. I can give you one. PM me.

[Eraserhead]

As I said, have to hold out until October,

If SMART status has failed that's not going to happen. Is it still under warranty? Otherwise you can get a new HD for about £30 or so from PC Next Day (http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/ProductList.asp?ParentGroupCode=HDD&GroupCode=HDNB), or take up the offer above.