Fixed iMac Acting Up

[scender]

New to the forums, first post and sorry in advance for the long post..

I just recently got my iMac repaired at the Apple Store because my hard drive got corrupted because of Logic Pro and constantly recording. Like an idiot, I never backed anything up and never got the problems fixed before it was to late. It started off as frequent spinning wheels the 4-5 months after I bought and over the months it got worse until it would never start and basically "died" a month ago and I lost all my data.

So I got it fixed and paid for a new internal hard drive and picked it up and its only been a few days and it freezing sometimes still and but now I'm getting a different type of freezing where the screen just freezes with no wheel. It has happened 3 times already and I have had to restart it, and it was really weird when I was using Youtube and the screen froze again but the music was still playing...

What is going on? I'm using Time Machine and backing it up to an external drive now and I've also verified the internal and external hard-drives with "Disk Utility" claiming both the drives are "OK." I honestly do not want to go through this again and I'm actually scared to reinstall Logic and start recording again feeling something is going to happen again. I also do not want to keep forking more money on a system that keepings messing up. I did ask a question on Yahoo! to basically "find ways to protect my hard drives", however, a lot of people were telling me things I should do that I really could not understand how to do... I can also quote these answers as well, any help is appreciated!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ar23LbQcUf7Mn0zl5cYGKcwazKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20120613234735AA6Eebj

1

To minimize HDD issues....
-- Verify Disk with Disk Utility once a week. If it finds problems, boot to a different volume, and Repair Disk with Disk Utility.
-- If the system gets weird or slow, Verify Disk with Disk Utility, even if you already did this an hour ago.
-- Avoid power failures or forced-power off.

For anyone reading this who doesn't know, a corrupt file system is a software issue. It has nothing at all to do with the actual HDD hardware, so either repair the file system, or erase the file system to make all things jolly.

You say "I was wondering what was the best ways to make my iMac actually last so I do not have to go through this again... I'm now using Time Machine"
You answered your own question.

You don't spend money to erase a drive. That is all too easy for a nine-year old to do. You usually can even recover lost files in case the file system cannot be recovered, by making a disk image of the drive, and using recovery software. That's what the shop does when they charge you a hundred smackers.

"I also heard you can actually run the iMac straight from the external hard-drive"
Yes, you can. No, it's not a good idea. You bought a high-class computer to get great performance. You can't get equal performance from a Firewire external drive boot, and even worse performance from a USB drive boot. The idea of reducing the chance of file system corruption by booting to a drive volume that has only the OS on it with most of your apps, and almost all of your documents on a different drive volume is actually reasonable. Here is the very best method...
-- Back up stuff. Sounds like this may already be done.
-- Boot to the install DVD (OS 10.6.8 or earlier) or the recovery partition (OS 10.7 or later).
-- Open Disk Utility. Partition as two or more partitions. The top partition should be about 40 GB for OS 10.6 or later to allow for the final size of the OS after all updates, plus apps and a small number of downloads.
-- Install the OS on that first partition.

The plan above is for one OS. If you want to use Windows, DO NOT make separate partitions with Disk Utility. You must use Boot Camp Assistant to create the Windows partition. This would be the "one Mac, one Windows" partition plan....
-- If you do not plan to use "Paragon NTFS For Mac" software to make the NTFS partition fully usable in OS X, and you do not plan to use Windows as an equal system for multi-media, make the Boot Camp partition (the Windows partition) about 40 GB.
-- If you do not plan to use "Paragon NTFS For Mac" software to make the NTFS partition fully usable in OS X, and you DO plan to use Windows as an equal system for multi-media, make the Boot Camp partition (the Windows partition) about half the drive.
-- If you DO plan to use "Paragon NTFS For Mac" software to make the NTFS partition fully usable in OS X, make the Boot Camp partition (the Windows partition) ALL BUT 40 GB of the drive (40 GB for OS X). This is a liberal allowance. My Lion partition is using only 22 GB after all updates, with plenty of apps, and my Snow Leopard partition is using only 16 GB. See the second link below.

OK, that does the basic setup. Next, follow the plan in the first link below to put music, movies, photos, etc, on the non-boot partition to keep those files out of harm's way. It says ("Best Answer" HDD is full), but that's the same plan to move stuff off the boot partition. A partition acts like an external drive, but without the performance bottle-neck.

I have used the plan of "put the boot OS on a separate partition" for both Windows and Mac OS for 15 years, and have fixed all manner of issues with the OS without having to erase even one of my documents, music, movies or photos ever at all. I also keep a couple of backups just in case the whole dang drive goes up in smoke.

2

"I'm now using Time Machine but it would be great to have some tips to prevent my hard-drive getting corrupted"
Any item when being use, it will break, that the nature law. There no way to avoid that.

EDIT: I mentioned below is not for corrupt problem. I mistook reading the problem as hardware problem. Thx for silver.. reminder

I also heard you can actually run the iMac straight from the external hard-drive and make it your main HD so you it wouldn't have to run off the internal so it doesn't get damaged, is there any good way to do this?
No, you missing the point. External hdd doesn't mean fail proof, and it will just complicated things. You could use a function like raid 1 or 5, it will have automatic backup system by its own. The consequences are you will be using 2 times the amount of hdd for every hdd space you use. One for you to use, one for backup. So if you want 1Tb of hdd, you have to provide 2x 1Tb of hdd into the computer. The good thing is when one fail, the pc will tell you the trouble, and you just have to change the back up hdd as main and it will work instantly, of couse then you have to change the broken hdd with a new one as a new back up.

Other than that:
The only thing you can do is to make backup periodically to external hard drive. I would say a weekly backup should suffice. Put any finished work onto external hard drive and when its old enough you have to move it into permanent storage like blueray disc and put it on a pressurized anti-humid room.

3

Wow, I remember reading in the Logic Pro manual that you should never record on the hard disk that runs your operation system software. You definitely needed to have an external hard drive due to the fact that you were writing on the sectors of your hard drive and that cause your system to work twice as hard than it normally would had you had and external hard drive. Of course by now I'm sure you know that this is a big "no-no" when recording digital audio.

I bought a hard drive about 6 years ago and it still works like a charm to this day. Any software like time Machine, Logic Pro, Digital Performer, and Pro Tools can be set up to write to an external hard drive, you will only need to set the record path so that the software will recognize your external and will write to it every time you arm a track for recording digital audio.

I don't think Time Machine can simultaneously update and back up both the internal and external but you should do some research on that to make sure. There may be a work around to that question. I think it only does the back up to whatever you set the parameters to. Much success to you.

 

[Bendrix]

just curious: why would recording too much using logic pro cause your computer to crash or freeze? shouldn't the iMac be able to handle that type of use? I plan on getting an iMac to use as a daw and it makes me nervous when I read posts like this.

 

[scender]

just curious: why would recording too much using logic pro cause your computer to crash or freeze? shouldn't the iMac be able to handle that type of use? I plan on getting an iMac to use as a daw and it makes me nervous when I read posts like this.

I honestly have no idea, my Uncle also records at times and he does say producing can use high CPU usages, however, with "Quote 3" I apparently did something I was supposed to do before I actually consecutively record.

 

[Bendrix]

I think regarding quote 3, it's optimal/ideal to have your music program software on a different drive from the one you are writing the tracks to. But, it's not an absolute necessity and it shouldn't cause your computer to totally freak out. I could be wrong about this.

 

[scender]

I think regarding quote 3, it's optimal/ideal to have your music program software on a different drive from the one you are writing the tracks to. But, it's not an absolute necessity and it shouldn't cause your computer to totally freak out. I could be wrong about this.

Yeah but I don't know how to make the iMac run exclusively on the external hard drive and write to that when I'm using Logic Pro. I'm honestly very new to this regardless that I've had the iMac for a year now but I'm trying to take a lot of precautionary acts to not hurt my iMac and make it last longer. Can anyone help me out here?

 

[Roller]

I'd just take it back to the Apple store and let them diagnose the problem. The most any of us here can do is speculate on the problem and fix. Good luck.

 

[harcosparky]

Yeah but I don't know how to make the iMac run exclusively on the external hard drive and write to that when I'm using Logic Pro.

I would think you would want Logic installed on one drive, call it HDD1 and the recording to go to a separate drive call it HDD2.

Install Logic and start it up BUT BEFORE YOU RECORD anything, go in the the PREFERENCES pane of Logic and look around .... somewhere in there you should be able to tell it where to record to.


I am not a LOGIC user but every other program I have that saves data, the destination of the data is designed in the PREFERENCES pane of that program.

To get to PREFERENCES you left click on the Program Name on the top menu and from the drop down menu select PREFERENCES.


BACK TO YOUR PROBLEM - another visit to Apple may be needed to address the hard drive, it could be problematic and since it is a repair you paid for I believe it is covered for 90 days.