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Hard drive going dead?

A

andrewdale

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 28, 2008
868
1
Memphis, TN
System:

Mid-2009 MacBook Pro 13" Unibody, 2.53GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB 5400rpm HDD

Problem:

Recently, it has become very sluggish in just about all aspects. The beach ball shows up with clicks as basic as "About This Mac" to quitting an application. It happens in every application I can find. Startup can take minutes whereas it used to take seconds. It has frozen a couple of times at startup requiring a hard reboot to get it to respond.

Troubleshooting performed:

Cleared NVRAM, etc.
Created new profile.
Verified/Repaired Permissions and Verified/Repaired Disk
Re-installed OS
Zeroed drive and Re-installed OS again
I also ran the Apple Hardware Test and it found no problems as well as S.M.A.R.T. status is good, apparently.

------------------------

It's still slow.

Example of what just happened, I had just opened Safari and the page was fully loaded. I then clicked on History and it didn't respond, beach ball appeared for 3-5 seconds, and then it started responding again.

Happening every now and then wouldn't kill me, but the fact that it's happening with 30-50% of my clicks is killing me.

Not app specific, not fixed with OS re-install, SLOW SLOW SLOW!

Is my HDD going bad, even though the AHT showed no issues?
 
andrewdale said:
System:

Mid-2009 MacBook Pro 13" Unibody, 2.53GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB 5400rpm HDD

Problem:

Recently, it has become very sluggish in just about all aspects. The beach ball shows up with clicks as basic as "About This Mac" to quitting an application. It happens in every application I can find. Startup can take minutes whereas it used to take seconds. It has frozen a couple of times at startup requiring a hard reboot to get it to respond.

Troubleshooting performed:

Cleared NVRAM, etc.
Created new profile.
Verified/Repaired Permissions and Verified/Repaired Disk
Re-installed OS
Zeroed drive and Re-installed OS again
I also ran the Apple Hardware Test and it found no problems as well as S.M.A.R.T. status is good, apparently.

------------------------

It's still slow.

Example of what just happened, I had just opened Safari and the page was fully loaded. I then clicked on History and it didn't respond, beach ball appeared for 3-5 seconds, and then it started responding again.

Happening every now and then wouldn't kill me, but the fact that it's happening with 30-50% of my clicks is killing me.

Not app specific, not fixed with OS re-install, SLOW SLOW SLOW!

Is my HDD going bad, even though the AHT showed no issues?
Click to expand...

This problems really show that your HDD is bad.

PS. If everybody who had a problem and came here made a thread like you did(listing out everything), it would be a lot easier!
 
Thanks for the assistance!

Working as a Support Center Analyst, I understand the need for a good explanation of the problem and steps taken so far. :D

I guess I'll be ordering her a new HDD and going with a 7200rpm this time!
 
prisstratton said:
Did you give any thought to switching to a SSD. It would provide quite a performance boost.
Click to expand...

Are you a sales man for SSDs? :confused:

Because this thread lists a list of problems the OP is having, none of which can be avoided by using an SSD.
 
miniConvert said:
I'd strongly advise considering an SSD, the improved performance in terms of actual everyday usage is so massive.
Click to expand...

Ahem . . .

Boot time and application launch times are improved. SSDs will not make Excel, Safari, etc., run any faster.

And note the huge price premium relative to a platter drive.
 
I considered an SSD, but I simply can't justify the price premium for the size I need.

Considering that this laptop is used primarily as a peripheral to the 27" iMac, it doesn't get that much hard usage. Even when we travel, it's rarely used as a primary machine.
 
If you go with a 7200 RPM, I can recommend the Hitachi - quicker than the 5400 RPM drive that came stock in mine and is silent in operation.

And yes, it sounds like your hard drive is indeed failing (he adds ruefully, as he sees he didn't answer that question in his first post).
 
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