Reinstalling OSX with HDD errors

[hugoboosh]

My kids have been fortunate enough to inherit my iMac.... while they enjoy it, they also do not pass on when it's slowing down to a crawl.... since there's nothing of importance on it I wanted to just wipe and reinstall as thats what i've always done in the past for a clean slate when it comes to computers (with backups of important stuff)...

Well, running Disk utility, i've had some issues... my SMART status is verified and my hard drive shows up just fine... but when i format it (JHFS+) i get the following error:

"Posix error: Device not configured" and my entire HD is no longer listed in the table of drives on the left side.

I've tried using a live linux distro to format it as well and that fails too with the HD disappearing. I've also fsck'ed it and received a "bad superblock" error but some looking on the net says that can be caused by the JHFS+ format i tried to install (or maybe since it's not formatted). I tried fsck_hfs as well but that starts and stops without error or results.. but again maybe cuz it's not formatted...

if i don't format it, the drive is visible with the ok smart status and an unformatted drive. this kinda makes it difficult to install OSX on it.

I know it's most likely the HD but it's weird that it was working and poof, nothing.... any help is appreciated..

 

[chown33]

I know it's most likely the HD but it's weird that it was working and poof, nothing.... any help is appreciated..

Not weird at all. I've had hard drives fail with no SMART warning. In one case, it started slowing down before it failed, but no SMART warning. I'd ordered a replacement, but it didn't arrive before it failed.

In another case, the drive just died. Sometime in about a 6 hour interval from the last time I'd used it, the drive completely conked out.

In fact, I can't think of a single case where a drive has died on me and I had any SMART warning at all.

 

[hugoboosh]

well i found some interesting software that i'm trying....

Unistal's Disk Repair Analyzer.... it already found 2 bad sectors... they were at the beginning of the drive... still finishing the 2nd half but this is a major improvement since fsck and disk utility both errored out within a few minutes....

i know i should spring for a new HD since this one is 4 1/2 yrs old and showing issues but what hard drive doesnt develop bad sectors over time... that and the fact it's only being used by the kids makes me want to hold off on the new HD (yes im as frugal/cheap as can be)... if this works then i'm glad I found it and hope it can help others... also... western digital has liveCD .iso's that you can download and use to fix software/logic issues in the HD itself which i'm hoping is my problem... if you dont know your model, in disk utility it shows the model number so as long as your boot cd is available then you should be able to see the HD's model... then just search on WD's website..