Do I need a new internal HDD?

[Bly]

Hi, internalHDD has died on my trusty imac 2008. I have a couple of questions before I go ahead and swap out. I'm hoping the community can confirm I'm headed in right direction (thanks!). Here are my questions:

1) The internal HD is no longer useable and cannot be rescuscitated
2) I have the green light to get a new internal HD, there is no other issue I should be aware of.

Background: my imac was getting slow, so I backed up, wiped, upgraded to Mavericks, and located my home folder on an external Seagate drive about a month ago.
Occassionaly, the mac would fail to find this drive and I would have to reinstall from a back up. Annoying: yes, but as long as it was backed up, I was ok. Few days ago, it couldn't find the start up drive, so I did the usual and reinstalled from back up(external drive).
The external drive appeared to go to sleep during the latest reinstall, so I shut the imac down to start again. This time, the internal HD couldn't be found. I've done a bit of research, and appears that I need to swap out the old internal HD for a new one. And I'm guessing my external HD arrangement broke it's back and caused it to give up the ghost.

Thanks in advance for you help,
Bly

Mac "Core 2 Duo" 3.06 24-Inch (Early 2008)
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

 

[yjchua95]

Hi, internalHDD has died on my trusty imac 2008. I have a couple of questions before I go ahead and swap out. I'm hoping the community can confirm I'm headed in right direction (thanks!). Here are my questions:

1) The internal HD is no longer useable and cannot be rescuscitated
2) I have the green light to get a new internal HD, there is no other issue I should be aware of.

Background: my imac was getting slow, so I backed up, wiped, upgraded to Mavericks, and located my home folder on an external Seagate drive about a month ago.
Occassionaly, the mac would fail to find this drive and I would have to reinstall from a back up. Annoying: yes, but as long as it was backed up, I was ok. Few days ago, it couldn't find the start up drive, so I did the usual and reinstalled from back up(external drive).
The external drive appeared to go to sleep during the latest reinstall, so I shut the imac down to start again. This time, the internal HD couldn't be found. I've done a bit of research, and appears that I need to swap out the old internal HD for a new one. And I'm guessing my external HD arrangement broke it's back and caused it to give up the ghost.

Thanks in advance for you help,
Bly

Mac "Core 2 Duo" 3.06 24-Inch (Early 2008)
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

I think you should buy an SSD instead

 

[Bly]

I think you should buy an SSD instead

Would love to Y95, they def seem the way to go, but a bit out of my price range at the moment. Do you have any thoughts on the original questions? I'm pretty sure my solution is viable, but I just want to have the all clear.

 

[yjchua95]

Would love to Y95, they def seem the way to go, but a bit out of my price range at the moment. Do you have any thoughts on the original questions? I'm pretty sure my solution is viable, but I just want to have the all clear.

Your solution to have the internal HDD replaced is viable, but it's not going to perform faster than in its original state.

 

[xraydoc]

Bly, are you certain the original internal HD is non-functional (e.g., broken) instead of just damaged software/disk image requiring a complete reformat?

Using an external drive should in no way add stress to the internal drive in such a way to cause it to fail faster.

 

[Bly]

Bly, are you certain the original internal HD is non-functional (e.g., broken) instead of just damaged software/disk image requiring a complete reformat?

Hey Xray, I'm no expert, but I was pretty sure until today. To reinstall the OS, I command R, and in Disk Utility, the HD showed up again. Did a DU repair, took all of three minutes (not much on there as I reformatted it and have my homefolder on an external drive). Downloaded and installed the OS on an external drive, and the internal drive has disappeared again. Have checked Finder prefs to display HD. Nor does it appear in Disk Utility. I'm thinking that it's best to be done with it and swap it out.

Using an external drive should in no way add stress to the internal drive in such a way to cause it to fail faster.

Agree: my suspicion is that it was a failing HD anyway ( lots of spinning wheels of deaths in the last couple of months ) and that explains the constant need to reinstall from an external time machine back up on a frequent basis as it would fail to find it's start up disk all the time since December - it was on it's last legs. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I think I got to put it out of it's misery.