Crazy hard drive/slow response

[latergator116]

Hi, I have noticed lately that my computer is going very slowly. If I try to load a page that requires some time (i.e. the page has a lot of pictures), my hard drive starts to go crazy and my computer either locks up or gives me a beach ball constantly. Basically, if I try to click on anything (Safari or the desktop) there is a delay of about 30 seconds. It is really starting to drive me nuts. It comes to the point now that the computer will hardly operate with more than two applications open. Yesterday, I had just Safari open and my hard drive went crazy, causing my computer to lock up. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[idkew]

i amazingly had this happen on a 6 month old 1.33ghz 17".

i traced it to a fragemnted disk. i am in the process of moving home videos to dvd, and the saving and deleting of most of my free space caused problems.

i have since purchased a 7200 rpm, 3.5" drive and an external fw 800 enclosure for dv recording. my 4200 rpm, 2.5" system drive, after defragging, is perfect, and my system is back up to speed. i will always keep multiple gbs of space free on the system drive from now on.

 

[latergator116]

I wish I had a fester hard drive (mine's only 4200rmp) in my iBook.

Could you tell me how you fixed the fragmented hard drive? Thanks.

 

[Celeron]

How much free hard drive space do you have on your drive? If you fill the drive to the brim OS X won't have any space to use as virtual memory and can cause the slow downs you are explaining. Its generally a good idea to keep a sizable amount of disk space free at all times. For example, on my 40gig drive in my Powerbook here I have 33 gigs free. This is mainly because I don't have anything to fill it up with, but thats neither here nor there.

Another possible cause is that your hard drive is failing. How old is the computer? Have you tried calling Apple yet?

 

[trainguy77]

my 1 year old emac started slowing down, and then stopped botting, and then could not see the hard drive. The drive failed and was replaced by apple

 

[latergator116]

How much free hard drive space do you have on your drive? If you fill the drive to the brim OS X won't have any space to use as virtual memory and can cause the slow downs you are explaining. Its generally a good idea to keep a sizable amount of disk space free at all times. For example, on my 40gig drive in my Powerbook here I have 33 gigs free. This is mainly because I don't have anything to fill it up with, but thats neither here nor there.

Another possible cause is that your hard drive is failing. How old is the computer? Have you tried calling Apple yet?

I have a 18.62gb hard drive (marketed as 20gb) with 5.4gb free, so I dont think space is an issue. I have a refurbished 700mhz iBook that I got in November (2003), so I guess the hard drive could possibly be failing. I have definately been hearing some weird sounds lately. This is my last resort, but I am afraid I will have to call apple.

Thanks for all the help guys.