iMac Hard Drive Fail? Can't install OS X

[jzieske]

I was having issues with my Mid 2011 iMac getting very slow when doing anything including backing up files to an external drive. Eventually it completely froze and I had to force shut it down. When it rebooted it it booted to OS X Utilities mode and I am now stuck.

When I try to restore from Time Machine it doesn't see a backup drive even though I have verified on another computer the back ups are still there.

When I try to reinstall OS X the only drive that I can choose to restore to is "Recovery HD" which is locked, my Macintosh HD is not listed as an option (I have since removed all external drives to preserve backups).

Disk Utility sees my internal Macintosh HD but it is now showing with a different name it will not allow me to erase the drive.

Not sure if pictures of the messages will help but I have attached them.

I have a feeling my hard drive died but looking for any tips or things to try prior to taking it to an Apple Store.

 

[ZVH]

It might have, but then again, maybe not. I've seen enough weird problems on Yosemite not to jump to conclusions.

I'd recommend seeing this article:

http://scsc-online.com/Bad Hard Drive Signs and Symptoms.html

That has a bunch of links to sub articles about drive and system problems, with all being related to or acting like drive problems. One of the links is about actual drive problems and that link is:

http://scsc-online.com/DriveProblems.html

About half way through that page is a diagram of common symbols you'll see if a drive isn't recognized. The "drive locked" isn't there, but there are links to some resets you can do listed underneath it and I would strongly recommend doing them.

I would really recommend reading most of the stuff in that set of articles because I think if you start seeing symptoms that might have been telling you that drive problems were present, they would be listed.

For future use, what I do with my backup drive is I put an emergency boot partition on it in addition to the Time Machine backup. In my case it's Mavericks for my home system. It's just an OS install, no apps, no anything else, just the OS. In any case, if problems occur I can boot off of that then do any system checks, drive repairs, etc.

With luck yours may be nothing more than need resets and maybe some repair work with Disk Utility.

 

[jzieske]

Thanks! I will take a look at those links! I like that idea for the Time Machine backup in the future, I will be doing that for sure once I get my issues sorted out.