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Mac is killing the HDD

4

4tune8chance

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 6, 2012
203
192
Brisbane, Australia
I have an early model 21.5" Mac, Nov 2012 with the fusion HDD. A couple of moths ago the Mac started to drop me out of Safari, a little later it then rebooted before finally not being able to switch on at all. A new HDD fixed it, for a while, then the same thing happened, the repair guys said I was just unlucky an got a dud HDD, so they replaced it again. But it has now failed again so it's super unlikely to be a dud HDD.

what can cause a Mac to kill the HDD? I should add that the utility disk software can't fix it. Do you think I'm throwing good money after bad to keep fixing this as I'm not sure if there is anything cheap in the Mac other than the HDD to replace.

Thanks in advance.
 
Unless the drive is going way, way over thermal limits, or there's some weird vibration (which I should think you would be aware of), I can't think of anything reasonable that would "kill" an HDD and leave the rest of the machine operational. Do the supposedly dead drives work in any other machines, or are they truly dead? Do you have any SMART reports from them before they died?
 
Do you have an external drive?
If so, do one of the following:
a. Use CarbonCopyCloner to create a cloned backup on it.
or
b. Install a "clean copy" of the OS of your choice onto it.

NOW...
... when the Mac won't boot, try the backup.
Does the backup work ok, even if the main drive won't?

Personal opinion follows:
I'm amazed at the number of Mac users (probably 90% or more) who don't comprehend the importance of keeping a fully-bootable "spare drive" within arm's reach. It can make things far FAR easier when you're having problems with the internal drive, and can "keep you going" if the internal drive fails (hardware or software). It's just one of the "easiest tricks in the bag"...
End of personal opinion.
 
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kschendel said:
Unless the drive is going way, way over thermal limits, or there's some weird vibration (which I should think you would be aware of), I can't think of anything reasonable that would "kill" an HDD and leave the rest of the machine operational. Do the supposedly dead drives work in any other machines, or are they truly dead? Do you have any SMART reports from them before they died?
Click to expand...
I'm taking the Mac back next week so I'll ask them about the old HDD.
[doublepost=1496532589][/doublepost]This is the most recen report from the third failure, when using the disc utility the iMac did boot up. It advised that the problem could not be fixed and said you have to perform the same repair pre boot up. After which using Ctrl R method it never recovered. Does any of this make any sense to anyone?

Verifying storage system

Checking volume

disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers

disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers

disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels

disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Logical Volume Group CF08F091-23A3-46E6-8E49-97CD2A5A111A spans 2 devices

disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume

Logical Volume Group has a 24 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy

Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint

Load and verify Segment Headers

Load and verify Checkpoint Payload

Load and verify Transaction Segment

Load and verify Transaction Segment

Load and verify Transaction Segment

Incorporate 2 newer non-checkpoint transactions

Load and verify Virtual Address Table

Load and verify Segment Usage Table

Load and verify Metadata Superblock

Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees

Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume

Load and verify AFBB6DAD-1427-4FED-A305-E659D3818DCA

Load and verify 30DD9958-D9A0-40AC-88C8-20A4D895CF62

Load and verify Freespace Summary

Load and verify Block Accounting

Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses

Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid

Load and verify Segment Cleaning

The volume CF08F091-23A3-46E6-8E49-97CD2A5A111A appears to be OK

Storage system check exit code is 0.

Verifying file system.

Using live mode.

Performing live verification.

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.

Checking extents overflow file.

Checking catalog file.

Keys out of order

Missing thread record (id = 1024983)

Invalid extent entry

Missing thread record (id = 11230423)

Invalid extent entry

Invalid extent entry

Missing thread record (id = 1006807)

Invalid extent entry

The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.

File system check exit code is 8.

Operation successful.
 
I wonder if you have a bad SATA controller, which would be a logic board repair. It appears that the drive is responding, at least somewhat, but the data on the drive has been garbled in some way. That certainly could be a drive problem, but if it's happening on 3 separate drives, I would start to wonder. If the supposedly dead drives can be reformatted and used in another machine that would certainly point to cables or something on the logic board such as the SATA controller chip.
 
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kschendel said:
I wonder if you have a bad SATA controller, which would be a logic board repair. It appears that the drive is responding, at least somewhat, but the data on the drive has been garbled in some way. That certainly could be a drive problem, but if it's happening on 3 separate drives, I would start to wonder. If the supposedly dead drives can be reformatted and used in another machine that would certainly point to cables or something on the logic board such as the SATA controller chip.
Click to expand...
My son has the original HDD and has been trying to recover the data, has had some success but like you say it's garbled. Is the logic board the main "mother board" ? I'm sort of wondering at what point should I cut my losses.
 
Yes, logic board = main board = mother board. I was thinking more along the lines of can you reformat the drive and use it in another machine, but of course that assumes another machine. If you can show that any one of the supposedly dead HDD's are usable in other machines then I think you are looking at either a bad HDD cable (not expensive) or a bad logic board (expensive and possibly not worth it). And I'm afraid my money would be on the latter, but it's not a sure thing by any means.
 
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kschendel said:
Yes, logic board = main board = mother board. I was thinking more along the lines of can you reformat the drive and use it in another machine, but of course that assumes another machine. If you can show that any one of the supposedly dead HDD's are usable in other machines then I think you are looking at either a bad HDD cable (not expensive) or a bad logic board (expensive and possibly not worth it). And I'm afraid my money would be on the latter, but it's not a sure thing by any means.
Click to expand...
Ok thanks. Off to the repair shop tomorrow.
 
The sata cable may be the fault, I do remember a couple of those machines floating through my workshop a couple years back needing cable replacements after multiple drives. Never needed to replace the main board.
 
I have removed the 16GB of RAM and replaced it with a known good 2GB RAM (slow) and the MEM fault code has gone. I did the teardown myself not too difficult but tedious to get to the RAM. Think ill give it a good burn in before buying more RAM, just in case.
 
4tune8chance said:
The Temporary RAM passes the hardware test but am now getting a sensor error,
4SNS/1/40000000: TH0009.000
Click to expand...
Logic board. If multiple components are coming up bad, my bet is for the logic board. And that may or may not be permanently damaging your other components.

Personally, I would cut my loses and replace the machine. You could replace the logic board but given the cost, I'd just put that towards a new machine.
 
I agree that I'm not going to spend anything on my old iMac and save up for a new one. However I have traced the sensor error to the new HDD, apparently if you use an aftermarket HDD it may cause the error which manifests itself as a cooling fan running at high speed when you switch it off or put it in sleep mode. Oh well, will just have to put up with that. I also isolated the bad memory card and am now running a 1GB and one of the original 8GB cards together, seems to be hanging in there. The screen is just being held in with the original tape with some additional sticking tape around the outsides to stop it falling out. It looks a bit of a dogs breakfast, but it's functional.
 
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