New internal HDD in MBP (early 2011) keeps failing

[Petterpistol]

Hello MacRumors forum, I hope you can help.

About a a week ago, my internal hard drive in my MBP started to fail. The hard drive is about 2 years old, installed by myself and has worked flawlessly since I bought it. My MBP suddenly began crashing several times, and after 1-2 days of that behavior I could not start it. Then I tried to repair the disk using the installation disk and DiscUtility, but it wasn't able to repair it.

I've bought a new 1TB Seagate hybrid hard drive, and made ​​clean install of Mavericks 3 or 4 times . And every time the same error occurs after approximately 1 day of use. The hard drive then fails, and can not be repaired with DiscUtility.

Therefore I now suppose that it is an internal hardware problem (SATA cable or logic board ). Then again, I can't figure out why the new hard drive works for one day's time, and then fails.

As I understand, problems with the SATA cable or logic board usually results in the MBP not being able to recognize the hard drive. Which is not the case for me. Also, everytime the Hard Drive failed (and DiscUtility haven't been able to fix it), I've still been able to format the Hard Drive and do a clean install of Mavericks on it.

Tried both clean install of 10.9.0 and 10.9.1. And the DiscUtility is run from the Recovery HD, which boots up fine.

I really hope you can help me. I found a thread which was concerning some of the same problems I have, but in that case the HDD couldn't be recognized by DiscUtility. Therefore I thought I'd make a new thread.

Best regards
Peter

 

[Swampus]

Hi Peter. Sorry you ain't getting much help, but speaking only for myself, I have no idea. Have you run Apple Hardware Test?

If you don't get anything from that, I know it's a long-shot, but I think I would next want to rule out a problem with memory. Maybe try with one stick of OEM memory at a time?

Do you still have your old drive? Can you stick that in an external case and boot from that for a few days to see if you get the same problems as before?

Just a couple of random thoughts:

1) A think I recall seeing a couple of similar posts to yours on the Apple forums since the release of Mavericks. But they were buried in 50 page threads about the more well-known problem with WD software in relation to external drives. But maybe this is a rare problem with Mavericks that hasn't been flushed out yet?

2) Mechanical hard drives suffer from high infant mortality. There is a pretty high percentage of failures in the first few weeks. Then it drops off for a few years and starts looking like a normal failure curve. I mention this because it's not as uncommon as we might think to replace a failed mechanical drive with another failed mechanical drive. But when it happens, it can still have a tendency to send our mind off in the wrong direction.

Beyond that, I'd suggest taking it to Apple for a full diagnostic. If it does turn out to be a problem with the logic board, ask about the flat rate repair service if you live in the United States or Japan. About $310.

 

[Petterpistol]

Thanks for your reply, any help/ideas is appreciated at the moment.

I'm not able to run Apple Hardware Test, so that's not an option, unfortunately.

I've gotten in contact with a friend, who can help me troubleshooting for the problem, which hopefully leads to finding out which part is causing the failure.

So, we'll might try testing with OEM memory, and the original harddrive either internal og external.

1) I too have read about Mavericks causing trouble, although I haven't found a post/thread about it, that were exactly similar to mine. Maybe the troubleshooting test will lead to some answers concerning my OS, but I'm already considering installing Lion or Mountain Lion, when I get my MBP up and running again (which I hopefully will).

2) The guy I spoke to, who will help with the troubleshooting, didn't think it was the harddrive itself, but he might be able to test it.

I live in Denmark, so no possibility for flat rate repair, but I'm gonna call my insurance agency, to ask if they would pay for a repair at a certified Apple repair shop. I'm not sure they will though, when I've already exchanged the harddrive myself, but I'll see.

I'm still on the lookout for hearing back from anyone experiencing the same problems.