Macbook - is my hard drive failing? Every time it returns from sleep it bogs down!

[bq06]

I have read macbook hard drives often go out... I have a black macbook 2.2ghz w/1gig of RAM and every time it returns from sleep mode I get the spinning rainbow beach ball and it takes FOREVER to do anything. It's not completely locked up, but it is basically unusable. I turned off sleep mode yesterday and now I'm not having the problem - everything seems normal.

Is this a common indication that the hard drive is failing?


I should also mention that last week, before all this began, my hard drive was randomly spinning up for long periods of time when I wasn't even using it. Sometimes even when I closed the screen to try to put it to sleep it kept going. It didn't normally used to do that, but could that just be a normal function of spotlight backing up or something? Not sure if the two are related or not.


Thanks guys!

 

[mathcolo]

I would back up important files immediately, then if your HDD is crashing you won't be too disappointed. Other than that... I would just keep running until something serious happens.

 

[bizzle]

The easiest way to check for a failing drive is to check the SMART status. The easiest way on a Mac is a to use SMART Utility which is available with a free trial at their website.

 

[khunsanook]

The easiest way to check for a failing drive is to check the SMART status. The easiest way on a Mac is a to use SMART Utility which is available with a free trial at their website.

I second Smart Utility. Very thorough program. and for future peace of mind do regular back-ups using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. I prefer SuperDuper, but the advanced features (priceless) will cost you. I run a full bootable back-up on an external every couple of days. That way if my internal drive heads south, I can just swap in the back-up and keep working...much better than Time Machine for full back-ups IMHO.

good luck