Impending macbook harddrive failure?

[amree18]

6 months ago my macbook suffered hdd failure after the dreaded flashing question mark...i got it replaced and all's been fine until two days ago when everything froze and i couldnt force quit any of the applications. I finally managed to turn it off and left it for a few hours.

It worked fine yesterday, but today on start up the image of a harddrive appeared, with the words 'hard drive' and an arrow....i recall this happening a short while before I got the flashing folder with the question mark when the hdd failure happened...

It appears another hdd failure is on the horizon. Does anyone know if there's anything i can do, or is it already too late? Help!

[stridemat]

Not sure if your hard drive is definately going to break, but it sounds like it is on the way out to me. If I was you I would get Time Machine up and running if you haven't already to make sure that all your work is backed up every hour. So if and when it may decide to break you have a copy of eveything.

[CWallace]

Not sure if Disk Utility can help diagnose any hardware problems. Do Macs support S.M.A.R.T?

[amree18]

yeah everything's backed up....i was just hoping there was something i cld do before it's too late :(

[misterredman]

Not sure if Disk Utility can help diagnose any hardware problems. Do Macs support S.M.A.R.T?

Sure. In disk utility you can check the SMART status, in the bottom left corner. If it's not "verified" then the HD will soon fail.

I use this app to check the SMART status:

http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/