MacBook Pro Hard Disk Problems

[Techguy98]

Hello all,

I have a Macbook Pro that has served many faithful years under relatively light usage (web browsing, picture saving, etc). Yesterday it refused to connect to my home WiFi, so I restarted it. It took much longer than usual to restart, but once it started up it connected to WiFi fine, and all was well... or so I thought. The issue re-occurred this morning. It would simply refuse to recognize any WiFi networks. So, I restarted it again, but this time it refused to start back up. It would get to the apple with the spinning cog wheel and sit there for as long as I left it. I let it be for 30-45 minutes to see if It would finally boot, but it did not. I powered it down and immediately suspected hard drive failure. I keep extremely current time machine backups so all of my data is safe. I haven't heard any clicking or any abnormal noises from the hard disk, but it is beyond 6 years old. I then booted to my OS X installation DVD (10.7) and verified and repaired the disk and the disk permissions. Many permissions were repaired, but nothing was found wrong during the disk check. After the permissions were repaired, it booted just as quickly as normal. No WiFi issues either. What do you guys think? Is it early hard drive failure, or just some permissions issues? Would you replace the drive at this point?

 

[snaky69]

Hello all,

I have a Macbook Pro that has served many faithful years under relatively light usage (web browsing, picture saving, etc). Yesterday it refused to connect to my home WiFi, so I restarted it. It took much longer than usual to restart, but once it started up it connected to WiFi fine, and all was well... or so I thought. The issue re-occurred this morning. It would simply refuse to recognize any WiFi networks. So, I restarted it again, but this time it refused to start back up. It would get to the apple with the spinning cog wheel and sit there for as long as I left it. I let it be for 30-45 minutes to see if It would finally boot, but it did not. I powered it down and immediately suspected hard drive failure. I keep extremely current time machine backups so all of my data is safe. I haven't heard any clicking or any abnormal noises from the hard disk, but it is beyond 6 years old. I then booted to my OS X installation DVD (10.7) and verified and repaired the disk and the disk permissions. Many permissions were repaired, but nothing was found wrong during the disk check. After the permissions were repaired, it booted just as quickly as normal. No WiFi issues either. What do you guys think? Is it early hard drive failure, or just some permissions issues? Would you replace the drive at this point?

After that little episode I would not trust that drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm with snaky69. Get a new drive. Things like that don't just spontaneously happen unless something (like the drive) is failing.

It could also be the drive cable, but that is much less common.

 

[Techguy98]

Ok, that is what I thought. I'll get a new drive coming in the mail soon.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Ok, that is what I thought. I'll get a new drive coming in the mail soon.

Take the oppurtunity to use an SSD it'll be like a new computer.

 

[Techguy98]

Take the oppurtunity to use an SSD it'll be like a new computer.

That is exactly what I did. I've got a 120GB SSD ordered. I have gotten a SSD upgrade on another laptop and I was very pleasantly surprised at the speed boost the SSD provided.

 

[kingc0bra]

That is exactly what I did. I've got a 120GB SSD ordered. I have gotten a SSD upgrade on another laptop and I was very pleasantly surprised at the speed boost the SSD provided.

Thats a very small side SSD, surprised you didnt get a bigger one considering how cheap they are nowadays

Which brand/model did you go with for the SSD?

 

[Techguy98]

This MacBook Pro doesn't see super heavy use. Not a whole lot of files get stored on this particular mac, so I thought I would get a smaller sized SSD that would accommodate my needs for a little less cost. I purchased an intel 520 SSD. I have heard good things about their SSD's reliability, and I trust the brand.