Hard Disk sanity check

[aicul]

Hi,

My mbp occasionally goes into "very slow" mode. Then some files started getting corrupted..

So now I have

- completed the hardware check and this says the hardware is ok
- deleted the hard disk completely (7x erase)
- installed osx 10.6

however, the same "very slow" mode is present

So my question is, how does one check the hard disk and ascertain 100% that it is OK, or NOK

thanks for input

 

[kainjow]

Your hard drive might be physically failing. First thing to do is make sure your backup is recent.

There are utilities out there that check for bad sectors, but if you're under warranty I'd contact Apple for a diagnostic/replacement.

 

[aicul]

Actually it's a 2007 model, so no warranty left.

I innocently thought that forcing the full erase would provoke disk utilities to scream out if it encountered a problem whilst it wrote to 100% of the disk seven times...

any suggestion for how to check for bad sectors?

 

[Ccrew]

Actually it's a 2007 model, so no warranty left.

I innocently thought that forcing the full erase would provoke disk utilities to scream out if it encountered a problem whilst it wrote to 100% of the disk seven times...

any suggestion for how to check for bad sectors?

Disc Warrior or Techtool Pro would be my recommendations.

 

[kainjow]

The only ones I know of are commercial and going to cost you about the same as a new drive, and they're only going to really confirm or not that it is the drive.

My brother's computer recently had a similar issue. It was running really slowly. I first had him upgrade ram since it was so low but that didn't help. Next was the drive and that fixed it right up (kind of hard to know what "slow" is over the phone ).

So your best bet might be to just buy a new drive at this point.

Disc Warrior

Does DW do a physical hardware check? I thought it only attempted to repair the file system, which if you have a failing drive DW will make things much worse if the drive fails during that process.

 

[aicul]

I share the logic that some of the tools actually cost as much as a new disk.

as per slow, its really visible like this, copy a bunch of files (say 40MB) and see the progress bar advance, then slow down to a close freeze, then shoot of after about a minute

 

[harcosparky]

Can you get it to an Apple Store?

I have in the past taken a unit to them that was out of warranty for a problem. They diagnosed the problem and then left it up to me to decide if I wanted to pay for the repair or not.

I opted to not pay them to do the repair .... took the unit home and fixed it myself using their diagnosis.

 

[aicul]

That sounds like an idea, let me ask a specialist what he would do,

will write back their diagnostic

 

[aicul]

back with diagnostic

so I asked geniusbar...

test 1, involved the hardware test I had already done. so nothing useful

test 2, involved leaving the computer overnight for "stress testing". actually got a morning call saying they had found the fix, the fans were unplugged. this sounds real curious as I can remember the fans picking up speed as the mbp heated up.

when I went to pick up the mbp it was unceremoniously passed to me, end of discussion....

I somehow question the quality of this advice

So I went to small hardware store and ordered a hard disk upgrade, ram upgrade and battery renewal.

And for the costs; the hard disk and install cost only about $50 more than software to assess the health of the harddisk. Plus I now have 4 times more disk space.

Moral, cut the techy crap and just get a new disk; no hassle; no time wastage; lots of extra disk space.