Failing Disk? Disk Utility Inconsistent

[eighteesix]

Hey all, I've got a fun hard disk question. I'm running 10.7

I've noticed my primary internal HD has been starting up slow for a few months. No real issues though. But now starting up requires two boots at times. So I did a permissions check--all good. Then I verified the disk, and disk utility told me "Volume header needs minor repair, volume corrupt and needs repair, start up with another disk and use utility to repair" you know the drill.

So I pop in my install disc (original to system, 10.4.7 i believe) and I begin my process. however, the issue reverses itself. permission repair fails due to a /Library/Receipts issue (the folder is there, must be OS issue). And when I verify and repair the disk, it completes with no problems. Then I boot back to my regular desktop, verify disk, and I get the original problem again.

Anyone have any ideas? Should I scrap the drive? Wipe it? How do I proceed?

 

[macking104]

Question 1: What computer do you have (model & year)?
Question 2: can you look up what brand/model hard disk?

 

[eighteesix]

mac pro 2006
seagate barracuda 1Tb 7200rpm

i used 10.7's recovery mode, used that version of disk utility, and it seems to have fixed it...

however, i have another drive just like it that whenever i attempt to use it, my machine sees it on startup (hd name, space avail), but freezes for 2min until it decides to eject it, and then i get a message saying "disk not ejected properly". no idea what going on with that drive. cant even see it in disk util cause the system ejects it automatically.

 

[foidulus]

mac pro 2006
seagate barracuda 1Tb 7200rpm

i used 10.7's recovery mode, used that version of disk utility, and it seems to have fixed it...

however, i have another drive just like it that whenever i attempt to use it, my machine sees it on startup (hd name, space avail), but freezes for 2min until it decides to eject it, and then i get a message saying "disk not ejected properly". no idea what going on with that drive. cant even see it in disk util cause the system ejects it automatically.

Well, there are essentially 2 things it could be, file system issues(with that many installs of the OS it could have hosed up some of HFS+s internal data structures) or hardware issues.

If its file system issues, your best bet may be to bust out the Microsoft option and totally reformat and install(after backup of course), that should resolve any FS issues you may have.

If its hardware, well, you are out of luck there. But if it is hardware you will probably

a) hear some sounds you shouldnt be hearing

and/or
b) get a lot of IO error messages in your console logs.

I suggest you open up console.app and poke around in the logs there to see if you are getting any IO errors. If you are not, then its probably an HFS+ issue and your best bet would be to re-install from scratch

 

[eighteesix]

I've been using my Mac Pro's SATA plug and play feature to try to work with this drive, but its no use. when the drive is plugged in, everything is slow, or i cant boot. on a rare occasion it actually shows up, but then the system ejects it after a few minutes. i even launched windows and the drive cant be seen, or windows wouldnt boot with it plugged in. does this mean the drive is dead?

fyi, disk utility said the disk was fine when i booted into recovery mode. cant even see it anymore.

 

[Quad5Ny]

Download a SMART toolkit, one that will output all the values to instead of just saying "SMART Status: Verified" like Disk Utility does.

I recommend smartmontools. Once you have it launch Terminal and type "smartctl --all /dev/disk0" (disk0 is your first drive, disk1 is your second, disk2 is your third..). After you have the info, copy paste it here.

 

[eighteesix]

i cant get smartmontools program to work. heres why:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl --all /dev/disk0
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-w64-mingw32-xp-sp2] (sf-win32-5.41-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

/dev/disk0: Unable to detect device type
Smartctl: please specify device type with the -d option.

Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary

so i tried adding the device parameter, and still nothing

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -d sat --all /dev/disk0
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-w64-mingw32-xp-sp2] (sf-win32-5.41-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

Smartctl open device: /dev/disk0 [SAT] failed: Invalid argument

what am i doing wrong? i tried my main drive and actually it produces this result for any drive

 

[Quad5Ny]

Oh, your running it in Windows. The command is different for Windows.

Try: smartctl -a /dev/hda

(Where hda is drive 1, hdb is drive 2, hdc is drive 3...)

 

[eighteesix]

Oh, your running it in Windows. The command is different for Windows.

Try: smartctl -a /dev/hda

(Where hda is drive 1, hdb is drive 2, hdc is drive 3...)

yeah i was confused at first, but looking back at your original post, you said terminal. ha. anyways, i cant figure out how to 'install' smartmontools in osx anyways. in windows, it picks up all the drives on my system except the one in question. says no drive present when i use /dev/hdd (hda, hdb, and hdc all worked great). so maybe its dead.

i should note that when the system starts up it makes one brief clicking noise.

update: i just booted osx and the new drive window randomly popped up (asks to eject or initialize), and so i initialized it. the drive showed up in disk util. i went to erase and partition but it couldnt unmount the drive, then it disappeared from the drive list and i got the error: "some information was unavailable during an internal lookup."

im about to just toss the drive out. nothing seems to work.

 

[Quad5Ny]

Yea, your drive sounds hosed (dead).

See if you can RMA the drive, I know drive manufactures these days are offering 3-5 year warranty's (1TB sounds pretty recent).

 

[eighteesix]

i believe the drive is less than a year old, so i will look into that. also, thanks for all your help. much appreciated.

one more question. could using one of these hubs cause extra problems, like a failure? this piece of hardware has been functioning very intermittently for me.

update: you were right--drive was purchased feb 2010, warrantied through 2013