MBP unresponsive after 30s - please help!

[sleepwalker13]

This is my first time here so please bear with me!

I have a mid 2009 17" mbp that has recently (last 48 hrs) decided to become unresponsive to everything i do.

I have had to force shut down because everything freezes up.
the beach ball comes on when I hover over the main applications bar, the upper finder bar and any application/window that I have managed to open in the 30s that everything works.

I have erased the internal HD and reinstalled mac os x to no avail.
I have reset the PRAM and checked the disk utilities using the install disk and everything logged as ok...
None of the other threads, here or elsewhere, have been helpful to me

I am at a complete loss here as to what to do now

 

[GermanyChris]

This is my first time here so please bear with me!

I have a mid 2009 17" mbp that has recently (last 48 hrs) decided to become unresponsive to everything i do.

I have had to force shut down because everything freezes up.
the beach ball comes on when I hover over the main applications bar, the upper finder bar and any application/window that I have managed to open in the 30s that everything works.

I have erased the internal HD and reinstalled mac os x to no avail.
I have reset the PRAM and checked the disk utilities using the install disk and everything logged as ok...
None of the other threads, here or elsewhere, have been helpful to me

I am at a complete loss here as to what to do now

This is the wrong section but I'd replace the hard drive it's the most likely culprit.

 

[OS6-OSX]

I am at a complete loss here as to what to do now

Make sure you have at least 2 good utility disks.
Drive Genius and Techtool Pro are pretty good.

 

[keysofanxiety]

This is my first time here so please bear with me!

I have a mid 2009 17" mbp that has recently (last 48 hrs) decided to become unresponsive to everything i do.

I have had to force shut down because everything freezes up.

Sounds like you've done everything I would try. As others mentioned, it's likely to be the hard-drive. However you can very quickly test the RAM using MemTest. You can run it from Terminal (and also in Single User Mode once it's installed). Direct link: http://cdn.command-tab.com/2008/memtest_422.zip

See if you can get any other third-party tools to check the SMART data on the HDD. I'd normally recommend HD Tune Pro but I'm not sure if that picks up HFS+ volumes.

If it's still freezing if RAM & HDD tested to be OK, it can only be the Logic Board after that. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Best of luck.

 

[sleepwalker13]

I am 100% sure that it's not the hard drive because I can still access it using Single User Mode and when I reinstalled the OS X, I could still find the HD.

My other MBP had the folder with the question mark on it and they told me it was the HD, but when I used an external mount, it was accessible.

I have no idea what a utility disk is or what it does

 

[GermanyChris]

I am 100% sure that it's not the hard drive because I can still access it using Single User Mode and when I reinstalled the OS X, I could still find the HD.

My other MBP had the folder with the question mark on it and they told me it was the HD, but when I used an external mount, it was accessible.

I have no idea what a utility disk is or what it does

Whether you can access the drive or not has nothing to do with whether it's going bad. Only if it's dead will you not be able to access it.

***edit*** I typed the other from my phone, You read and write from the disk during just about every operation which is why SSD's add so much feel and responsiveness to a computer very few actually care how fast it boots. Your problem no kidding sounds like the OS not being able to write to the drive.

Here is where you need to go: