iMac Volume Structure still Failing After Five Repairs!

[shanshor]

Hey guys, my iMac has been running strong for about 9 months now. The only gripe i have had is that is has begun to get SLOW booting up and mundane tasks such as opening apps. iTunes takes a good minute to get up and going. I never even noticed the slowness until i got a MacBook with much worse specs that blew it away.

So I decided to run TechTool Deluxe and see what happened. My iMac did great until the Volume Structure. I repaired it a good five times. The last two times it couldn't find anything to fix and it is still failing!

I don't want to have to buy DiscWarrior (i think thats right), or reformat my drive, mainly because i haven't the foggiest on how to do that. Any options available to me besides these? And do you think the slowness is more due to a growing amount of files, or maybe even a *virus* *gasp*, or to the failing structure?

 

[NRose8989]

Sounds like your just going to have to bite the bullet and do a re-format.

Assuming you can access your files and have a external HD, it should be a pretty easy task.

Just get a good Time Machine back up of your computer.

then boot from your install DVD by inserting it into your computer and holding down the "c" key during start up.

Once in the install screen, in the menu bar, click utilities ---> disk utility.

in Disk Utility, click your internal HD, and select "erase" from the row of icons, then click "security options" and choose "zero out data". (note this will take some time so I'd suggest doing it over night before you go to bed or you can by pass the zero out data option if you don't want to do it but I like to make sure everything is clean in there.)

Now click erase and let it do its work.

(elapse in time)

Now quit disk utility, and install OS X like always, and once you get to the welcome screen, select "transfer information from a time machine back up". now select your time machine back up and let it do it thing.

Once it finishes you should have all of your files intact but you may need to update your software via Software Update. in order to access files made by newer software.

Now your done. if this didn't work and your still getting problems then its probalbly your HD itself is failing, so your either going to have to take it to a apple store or send it in (assuming your still under warranty). Worst case scenario you can replace the HD your self, it's not hard, just pay attention and read the tutorial a couple times. You should be just fine.

EDIT: its not a virus