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Should I trust my MacBook's harddrive?

S

shrm03

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 17, 2005
39
0
I have a white MacBook that I bought in very early 2007. I love the thing. It's my work horse computer but it has given me problems.

About 2 months after my warranty expired, the hard drive crapped out. If I tried to install any large programs like Photoshop, the computer would crash basically. So, I bought a new external hard drive and all was fine (Western Digitial 250GB HD).

About a month ago, I noticed a folder I keep all of my schoolwork in was missing. I searched for it and it was gone. I restarted and then more files were missing. I quickly backed up what I could and reformatted. Now everything seems to be working fine. But I am leery of losing everything again.

Also, just in case, I bought an external TB harddrive (seagate) to run Time Machine with. 2 days ago, Time Machine tries to run and the hard drive makes several large clicking sounds. Then the drive became inaccessible and is useless. It's still under warranty but the data is gone.

Should I trust my internal harddrive? Should I buy a new one or is something else causing these problems?

Thanks!
 
Why am I having such bad luck with harddrives? I've had 3 crash that used in my MacBook. And I even had one crash in my PC.
 
shrm03 said:
Why am I having such bad luck with harddrives? I've had 3 crash that used in my MacBook. And I even had one crash in my PC.
Click to expand...

That sure is bad luck. I've never had a problem with hard drives.. well, the only problem I had is when I was playing around with the insides of a pc WHILST on, and then short circuited the hard drive :eek:. And I put a flash drive in the washing machine. Other than that, pretty good =]
 
Ha, I actually just found the box for my MacBooks new harddrive... It's a Seagate and is still under warranty. Wonder if they'll take it back even though it's "kinda" working.
 
The first one that crashed? About half.

The new 250GB one that is kinda crashing? Hardly 40GB were used.

The external 1TB? Maybe 10GB were used.
 
I had the same problem with my first generation macbook. About a month after the warranty expired the hard drive died. It was a Seagate. I replaced it with a larger WD HD and it's been fine ever since. I just back up EVERYTHING I do to an external Lacie and back that one up once a month to another one. Sounds like you're just having REALLY bad luck with hard drives though.
 
Thanks for your help. I have been using my PC (painful) since this one started acting up. I'll send it in to Seagate for the free replacement... guess I should do the same for the external too. Maybe they'll feel sympathetic towards me when I send in two HDs at the same time.
 
BlueRevolution said:
Are you using a surge protector? The only thing that I can think of to explain such bad luck is really, really bad wiring.
Click to expand...

The power block should protect it from surges shouldn't it?
What about;
Treating it "harshly" - Carrying it round a lot while the disk is running, abrupt movements with it, etc
Frequent overheating (perhaps, placing it on a bed or similar so the vents underneath get blocked)
 
I use a surge protector sometimes... but not all the time.

Also, sometimes I would use it on my couch with it sitting next to me. Maybe that caused it to overheat too much.

Hmm.
 
What cable are you using to connect the external drive? Maybe the problem is a bad cable.

Do you have another computer to connect the external drive to? Maybe the problem is your MacBook's connector.

Also, if the cable or connector is intermittent, it can fail momentarily while data (or file-system metadata) is being written. The drive then writes corrupted data/metadata, and it may not be detected until later, after the corruption spreads.
 
I am using one of their crappy mini-USB cables that came with the drive. I swapped it with another one and it still doesn't work. Tried it on my PC and it didn't work either.
 
shrm03 said:
Ha, I actually just found the box for my MacBooks new harddrive... It's a Seagate and is still under warranty. Wonder if they'll take it back even though it's "kinda" working.
Click to expand...

lots of luck with that. I never bothered in the past; too much hassle to prove when you purchased the drive, did you abuse it, etc.
 
old-wiz said:
lots of luck with that. I never bothered in the past; too much hassle to prove when you purchased the drive, did you abuse it, etc.
Click to expand...

On SeaGate's site you just enter the Serial Number of the drive and it tells you when you bought it and if it's still under warranty. The serial is registered when you buy them.
 
shrm03 said:
Why am I having such bad luck with harddrives? I've had 3 crash that used in my MacBook. And I even had one crash in my PC.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's you or Apple's supplier for HD's. The HD in my Powerbook G4 died about 3 years in, and Apple replaced it.

Then it started acting up again more recently, and the tech at the store wiped it instead of replacing it, and said it should be fine.

I'm almost relieved the graphics card went out on that computer, because the way the HD was behaving--clicking, weird stalling--I KNOW it was on it's way out again.

I would not hesitate to switch to an aftermarket HD, and back up your data in the meantime.
 
Well, only one of the hard drives that died was actually from Apple. The other internal laptop drive was a SeaGate; as was the 1 TB external.
 
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