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Do I have a faulty HDD?

D

Dazzystar

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 13, 2014
36
0
Hi All,

I'm still trying to get an OS working on my iMac after two days!

On clicking Verify Disk in Disk Utility I get a few error messages and after clicking Repair Disk that fails. I'm currently reformatting the HDD filling it with zereos as I've tried so many time to put an OS on that it may have caused some kind of problem or am I wasting my time and I should put a new HDD in?

Cheers
Daz
 
A little more background would be helpful: What led you to believe you were having a problem with the drive, what year/make mac and what kind of drive [HDD, SSD, Fusion?]
 
Yes, you can replace the existing SATA hard drive with any another SATA drive. You don't need some special "Apple" drive.
 
Thanks. Apparently the Seagate drive I have is 3.5" yet all the videos I've seen on YouTibe show a 5.25" !
 
Actually, desktop hard drive platters (the internal disk that is used to store data) is 3.5-inch in diameter. The outside case for the drive is about 4-inches, and near 6-inches long. 5 1/4 would refer to PC tower slots for holding either hard drives or optical drives, where you would have enough space for either one.
And, for your iMac, you can replace the optical drive with a desktop hard drive. You would need a mount that will adapt to that larger space, which would be referred to as 5 1/4.
But, you just need to replace the existing hard drive with a new one. No adapter needed, just replace the hard drive. There's good guides for doing that yourself in the iFixit web site. Example:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1766

And, you should consider replacing with an SSD, rather than a spinning hard drive. It will make a world of difference in the performance of your iMac.
 
I'd rather not be spending good money on something that may have other problems. I have a 1TB 3.5" drive in an external USB format which I could extract and use. Could or should I try that or put the whole thing in the bin?
 
I wouldn't consider trashing the whole computer, unless you discover that the logic board has gone south. At this point, you already can say that the hard drive needs to be replaced. It's still a good iMac, worth continuing to use once you get a decent hard drive in place.
It's a fairly simple task to get the hard drive replaced.
Keep in mind, too, that if you intend to update to Yosemite, then a spinning hard drive, plus the 4GB RAM in the iMac, may not be a "happiest" combination for decent performance.
Your used hard drive (probably) will be OK to swap out.
 
I use Scannerz to test my drives and stuff and the procedure they recommend for hard drives is to zero the drive because it will force bad sectors, if present, to remap. If there are too many of them, the zeroing attempt will fail which in a way is telling you to wave bye-bye to the drive.

Another problem you might want to consider is a failing SATA cable. I've heard of lots of problems with them on MacBook Pro's but never really heard much mentioned about it being a rampant problem with anything else. However, it doesn't mean it can't happen. A bad cable can be a complete PIA, maybe even a bigger PIA than a drive that's actually bad.

As far as the drives themselves go, there's nothing magical about drives in Mac's. They're all made by the same set of manufacturers.

If you end up needing a new drive I would steer clear of refurbished drives. Years about you could almost count on them being OK, but recently I bought one of them and it died after being in service for just over 3 months. Interestingly, the warranty was 3 months.
 
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