A while back I started a thread about problems doing Time Machine backups, and the issue was never really solved. The backup would just fail at random points.
Anyway, I got Carbon Copy Cloner, and it cloned the drive successfully, but threw out an error log about some files not being readable, pointing, in my guess, to physical damage on the drive. Since then, I've had a couple of programs hang the Mac when loading, adding weight to the idea of a dodgy drive.
So in the background I bought a Runcore 64GB ZIF PATA SSD (brilliant product, by the way, buy one immediately if you have an original MBA), which arrived a couple of days ago. I did another clone of the drive to the SSD, installed it, and all is well.
Now CCC reported errors again (more than last time) and some critical files were corrupt including, irritatingly, the virtual HD from my OpenBox WinXP which I've had to rebuild.
The original drive is now in an external case and is readable. I can hear very occasionally the click-of-death, so it is definitely a failing drive. The strange thing is, Disk Utility reports the drive is absolutely fine - both in Repair and in Verify.
How is this explained? Is it simply that bad blocks on the HD are remapped by the HD itself, so all the host system knows about are odd corrupt files?
This strikes me as a bit like the ship in Hitchhiker's Guide in which a meteor blows a hole in the ship and takes out the damage assessment computer, so the only way the ship knows something is wrong is by mapping the disappearance of all the robots sent to investigate.
Is there any way to do a full surface scan of the drive?
Anyway, I got Carbon Copy Cloner, and it cloned the drive successfully, but threw out an error log about some files not being readable, pointing, in my guess, to physical damage on the drive. Since then, I've had a couple of programs hang the Mac when loading, adding weight to the idea of a dodgy drive.
So in the background I bought a Runcore 64GB ZIF PATA SSD (brilliant product, by the way, buy one immediately if you have an original MBA), which arrived a couple of days ago. I did another clone of the drive to the SSD, installed it, and all is well.
Now CCC reported errors again (more than last time) and some critical files were corrupt including, irritatingly, the virtual HD from my OpenBox WinXP which I've had to rebuild.
The original drive is now in an external case and is readable. I can hear very occasionally the click-of-death, so it is definitely a failing drive. The strange thing is, Disk Utility reports the drive is absolutely fine - both in Repair and in Verify.
How is this explained? Is it simply that bad blocks on the HD are remapped by the HD itself, so all the host system knows about are odd corrupt files?
This strikes me as a bit like the ship in Hitchhiker's Guide in which a meteor blows a hole in the ship and takes out the damage assessment computer, so the only way the ship knows something is wrong is by mapping the disappearance of all the robots sent to investigate.
Is there any way to do a full surface scan of the drive?