Slow boot-up

[airattack111]

Hi, my macbook pro 15 inch late 2008 unibody takes about an hour to boot up. Running 10.7.1. Once booting up the operating system runs slowly, the rainbow wheel comes on for about 3 minutes, then starts working normally again.

I have a windows partition on the hard drive, this all started when something went wrong with it. I tried reformatting the windows partition with my windows 7 disk, then reinstalled. Windows still does not work, and mac runs like poo.

Help

 

[Mersailios]

Have you tried running the Apple Hardware Test to rule out the possibility of a hard disk failure?

 

[airattack111]

Says the S.M.A.R.T. status "failing" when I boot into the recover HD, I have an external, how can I copy the data to it?

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Also any good hard drive upgrade recommendations? Mine is a 320gb 7200 rpm hard drive that came with the laptop. I would like something a little better for a good price, (320gb-500gb).

 

[Steve's Barber]

Says the S.M.A.R.T. status "failing" when I boot into the recover HD, I have an external, how can I copy the data to it?

Google SuperDuper

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Also any good hard drive upgrade recommendations? Mine is a 320gb 7200 rpm hard drive that came with the laptop. I would like something a little better for a good price, (320gb-500gb).

500GB SSD - $790

Really though. You picked a crappy time to buy a Hard Drive. They've almost doubled in price with all the flooding in Thailand. Any drive brand will do but stick to 7200rpm as that's what you're used to. (5400rpm drives are cheaper but just a tad slower).