mid-2007 iMac Crashed - Thinking bad HDD

bbapps · Nov 13, 2012

Well, I think my HDD crashed on my mid-2007 iMac. At least, when going into recovery mode and selecting restore from backup, it allows me to select my backup drive, date of backup, then when it goes to the screen to select a destination drive it just shows a "Searching for drives" message. Also, don't see my HDD in disk utilities. I thinking the HDD is bad OR maybe some type of controller on the mother board. Any body have any suggestions on how to verify it is the hard drive? OR, anybody with similar experience that can confirm (e.g. been a while sense I had a HDD fail)?

Note, I did just upgrade to Mountain Lion this past weekend. Always like to take a clean baseline backup before upgrading to a major release. Had a heck of time getting the backup completed, basically the whole computer would become very unresponsive and time machine would freeze about 30GB into the backup; think it was into the large DVD files. I did some googling and finally found something that worked; disabled the "put drives to sleep when possible" setting and the backup completed without issue (thank you jesus!!!!).

Upgraded to Mountain Lion, and computer has been running without issue for a couple of days, initially quite a few spinning beach balls, but those seemed to had subsided; assuming that was due to spotlight indexing, etc.. Then wife called said there where "HP Message Center" messages from the past all over the screen (e.g. low ink cartridge, ...) and she tried to start FireFox and it just started spinning the beach ball, so she shut it down. I came home, turned on computer, white screen, went into recovery mode on its own.........

rkaufmann87 · Nov 13, 2012

bbucy said:
Well, I think my HDD crashed on my mid-2007 iMac. At least, when going into recovery mode and selecting restore from backup, it allows me to select my backup drive, date of backup, then when it goes to the screen to select a destination drive it just shows a "Searching for drives" message. Also, don't see my HDD in disk utilities. I thinking the HDD is bad OR maybe some type of controller on the mother board. Any body have any suggestions on how to verify it is the hard drive? OR, anybody with similar experience that can confirm (e.g. been a while sense I had a HDD fail)?

Note, I did just upgrade to Mountain Lion this past weekend. Always like to take a clean baseline backup before upgrading to a major release. Had a heck of time getting the backup completed, basically the whole computer would become very unresponsive and time machine would freeze about 30GB into the backup; think it was into the large DVD files. I did some googling and finally found something that worked; disabled the "put drives to sleep when possible" setting and the backup completed without issue (thank you jesus!!!!).

Upgraded to Mountain Lion, and computer has been running without issue for a couple of days, initially quite a few spinning beach balls, but those seemed to had subsided; assuming that was due to spotlight indexing, etc.. Then wife called said there where "HP Message Center" messages from the past all over the screen (e.g. low ink cartridge, ...) and she tried to start FireFox and it just started spinning the beach ball, so she shut it down. I came home, turned on computer, white screen, went into recovery mode on its own.........

Your best bet I think is to boot in recovery mode and run Repair Disk, if it can't boot then you know you have a hardware failure and yes probably the HD. If you can run Repair Disk in Disk Utility, if it still reports errors after 2-3 attemps then yup the diagnosis is spot on and the HD needs to be replaced.

You can also run Apple Hardware Test (you will need the original OS X install discs that shipped with the computer to run it. Nothing else will substitute so please don't ask. Run AHT in Extended Mode about 2-3 times and if it reports errors it's off to the Apple Store or AASP you go.

bbapps · Nov 13, 2012

rkaufmann87 said:
Your best bet I think is to boot in recovery mode and run Repair Disk, if it can't boot then you know you have a hardware failure and yes probably the HD. If you can run Repair Disk in Disk Utility, if it still reports errors after 2-3 attemps then yup the diagnosis is spot on and the HD needs to be replaced.

You can also run Apple Hardware Test (you will need the original OS X install discs that shipped with the computer to run it. Nothing else will substitute so please don't ask. Run AHT in Extended Mode about 2-3 times and if it reports errors it's off to the Apple Store or AASP you go.

I'll play with the Repair Disk a-bit more tonight; but I don't think I can even see the HD to select it for recovery (e.g. it has disappeared).

Also note, I shutdown my External Drive and then started the iMac to see what would happen. The iMac displayed the white screen for a while, then it displayed the white screen with a folder icon blinking (e.g. I believe the folder icon had a X through it). Thinking it could not mount the HDD to boot, not even into recover mode. I only get into recovery mode given the external backup drive is connected and turned on. Guessing there is something on the External HD that allows it to run in recovery mode.

I'll attempt to find my old OS disk; see what happens. We will see; it has been 5-6 years since I've seen those...

Thanks for the info!!!

jimbo1mcm · Nov 13, 2012

Reason for your problem:

It is well known that Apple has backdoor entries into computers. Whenever a new product, like the Imac 2012, is getting ready to be introduced, they send a spike to the hard drive of any computer over 4 years old to get it to fail. This is well documented. Just use your backup and restore to a new hard drive.( Unless you have been critical of Apple anywhere in these forums, then they send the spike to your logic board!!). Good luck.

Intell · Nov 13, 2012

jimbo1mcm said:
It is well known that Apple has backdoor entries into computers. Whenever a new product, like the Imac 2012, is getting ready to be introduced, they send a spike to the hard drive of any computer over 4 years old to get it to fail. This is well documented. Just use your backup and restore to a new hard drive.( Unless you have been critical of Apple anywhere in these forums, then they send the spike to your logic board!!). Good luck.

This is completely untrue.

jimbo1mcm · Nov 13, 2012

jimbo1mcm said:
It is well known that Apple has backdoor entries into computers. Whenever a new product, like the Imac 2012, is getting ready to be introduced, they send a spike to the hard drive of any computer over 4 years old to get it to fail. This is well documented. Just use your backup and restore to a new hard drive.( Unless you have been critical of Apple anywhere in these forums, then they send the spike to your logic board!!). Good luck.

Duh. This is tongue in cheek. Got ya.

Intell · Nov 13, 2012

jimbo1mcm said:
Duh. This is tongue in cheek. Got ya.

Text based forms of communication are not good for sarcasm or tongue in cheek comments as they can be taken seriously very easily.

bbapps · Nov 13, 2012

jimbo1mcm said:
It is well known that Apple has backdoor entries into computers. Whenever a new product, ...

I was actually thinking there must be some code in the BIOS....

if (iMac > 5YearsOld)
{

result = checkWhatIsInPipleline();
if (result.newIMacs)
{

CrashIMac();
RecommendUpdateIMacNow();

}

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