Mac Will freez and harddrive wokrs realy hard!

G

GigaMcHz

macrumors newbie
I have no idea what to do here. I am a new mac user, but i can figure things out pretty quick. The OS will freeze for 30 seconds at most (or entirely) and the Hdd will make strange noises like it is working realy hard like it can't find something or whatever. I reset my Pram, unplugged everything and let it sit for 15 seconds, and disk utility. Found some permission problems, but fixed them. It still Freezes. It is a PPC imac 2 Ghz 1.5 gigs of ram. The hdd is relatively new. 200 gigs. so i am at the end of my rope here. Is my Hdd going bad? is this fixable? :confused: thanx in advance.
 
Hi, have you tried booting up into Safe Mode (hold the shift key down from when you hear the bong until you see the spinning circle) and if so do you have the same freezing problem when booting into Safe Mode?
 
GigaMcHz said:
I have no idea what to do here. I am a new mac user, but i can figure things out pretty quick. The OS will freeze for 30 seconds at most (or entirely) and the Hdd will make strange noises like it is working realy hard like it can't find something or whatever. I reset my Pram, unplugged everything and let it sit for 15 seconds, and disk utility. Found some permission problems, but fixed them. It still Freezes. It is a PPC imac 2 Ghz 1.5 gigs of ram. The hdd is relatively new. 200 gigs. so i am at the end of my rope here. Is my Hdd going bad? is this fixable? :confused: thanx in advance.
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You should assume that your hard drive is on its way out; strange noises fro the hard drive is a very bad sign. If you don't have a Time Machine backup:

Buy or borrow an external firewire drive. Boot from your Install DVD, start Disk Utility, and use it to copy your internal drive to the external hard drive (I think you just drag the partition from the internal to the external drive). Doing it this way causes the least stress for your internal drive, so it is most likely to succeed.

Once you've done that, you should think urgently about replacing the internal drive. On the other hand, if you keep that iMac in the same place all the time, you might just use the external hard drive exclusively (In System Preferences, Startup Disk choose the external drive. I think you can use Disk Utility to stop the internal drive from mounting). That's probably much cheaper if otherwise you would have to pay someone to replace your internal drive.
 
It could be a failing hard drive, yes. But it could also be a hard drive with directory errors, which can cause the drive to thrash (i.e., make a "strange noise"). So while backing up certainly is a good suggestion (as it always is) I would not jump to the conclusion that the drive is on its last legs. Running Disk Utility from the restore disc or fsck in Single User Mode is the place to start IMO.
 
Well I have scanned for permission problems, and it finds some. But i tell it to fix them. It still freezes. I did reset my PMU on my iMac. The guide said to unplug all my stuff from the imac, including the power cord. I waited 15 seconds and then put everything back. It still did the same thing. However after i had reset my pram, (command, controll, P+R) it didn't do it for a day, then acted up again. There is a small button on the main board that i would assume resets my PMU may be? Oh, It's running tiger btw so i don't have time machine. I don't have the money for leopard right now. So if there's anything else you guys could think of, because i'd like to not have to buy a replacement hdd.

Thanks gnasher for the suggestion, i will try that first.
 
Your Mac wouldn't be constantly freezing unless your HDD was failing. In fact the only thing that should freeze or crash are just the apps but not the system. If it's the system you may have errors on your disk beyond repair which results in a failing HDD.
 
You've tried a lot of things, but not the one I suggested. Try it before you do anything else. If you can't find your restore discs, try fsck in Single User Mode. Here's how it's done:

Restart with the cmd-s keys held down, until you see a black screen with white characters. After the text stops scrolling, at the command prompt, type:

fsck -f [including the space, return]

If any repairs are reported, run fsck again until none are reported. Then, at the command prompt, type:

reboot [return]


Freezing can be caused by more than a failing hard drive. It's one possibility, but not the only one.
 
It found no problems. "the Volume Macintosh HD seems to be ok."
It seems to work better after i do things like this, but then it starts to degrade again. I'll see if it runs fine for a wile. If i have to get a new HDD, can i back up my adobe CS3 sweet installation? I don't have the license information anymore. The machine was soled to me by a friend and it still had them on there. he doesn't have anymore licenses to use so if i loos my photoshop then I'll be pretty screwed because I am an aspiring graphic designer and don't have the money to buy another copy.
 
Well, i opened the imac up so i could see what hdd to buy. now the darn thing wont boot at all. Yes every thing is plugged up fine. It either gets stuck at the OS loading screen (the gray one) or at the loading screen with the progress bar.

Thought I'd post an update.
 
I have unpluged the HDD. It's a sata, not that hard. On a side note, I build and fix PCs so i am very knowledgeable about hardware. But apple is new teritory for me, so as far as some of the hardware and the OS is concerned i am a noob hehe.
So after i had unpluged the hdd to see if it was propriatary or something, i put it back in. After that, the mac would not boot. just got stuck on the gray loding screen. (It has since booted alright.) It does this though. It will work fine for a wile, then i'll find it freezing again. The previous owner had it in his graphic design office for his partner to use. He said that the Mac would do this to him too sometimes but not as bad. I assume it has been a problem for some time that is now geting worse, wich all but confirms my assumptions of fowle play by the hdd. If I unregister cs3 I can use the serial again and will just do a clean install. wich might fix it. if not it's probably the hdd.

unless you have another idea :)

Edit: ahh i see what you said now, i'll unplug the hdd and see if i get anything.
 
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