Is my hard drive toasted?

[asif786]

Hey guys,

I'm having a little bit a problem with my iMac. I woke up today, to find my computer frozen. No worries, I just restarted it. About 10 seconds in, it freezes again. Now, this is what happens when I restart it:

It goes to the grey screen with the spinning circle, then after about 30 secs all the fans rev up and it just stays like that. I've had this issue before and it was a hard drive failure..but that was like 2 months ago. If this one is busted, then this is the second HD my iMac G5 has toasted. wtf?

I'm even more pissed off, because when it failed 2 months ago, Apple refused to fix it in-store. They said it had to be sent off. Considering I need the computer, and I've had a machine lost by their crappy repair centres before, I wasn't going to do that. So, I had to buy a new HD myself.

Anyway, I guess it's probably pretty obvious it's toasted..but I was hoping it wasn't :/ I've always hated this iMac..and now I hate it even more

 

[topgunn]

Two hard drives in two months? Thats not right. If indeed it is the hard drive that has failed, something is causing it to fail. Which revision is it?

 

[aquajet]

Are you able to boot off of your restore CD? Try the Apple Hardware Disk and see if it finds any problems.

 

[asif786]

hey,

thanks for the replies. it's a rev a model. I managed to boot it and get my most important files off - and now I've formatted.

I'm going to take the drive back to the place I bought it from tomorrow - they said they may be able to replace it.

Damn, it seems hard drives have become worse these days - not better

 

[FoxyKaye]

For what it's worth, when I got my Rev. B iMac, I bought a copy of Hardware Monitor (http://www.bresink.de/osx/HardwareMonitor.html) just to see how hot the thing actually runs. I'm always surprised how close to the high operating temperature limits things can get in there - my HDD stays at a steady 131F, and most manufacturers say that continual use at 140F or more will prematurely age and destroy your drive. I know Apple fixed some of the cooling issues on the Rev. Bs, but I've also heard of people making additional heat sinks for their HDDs with tin foil and clipped down processor heat sinks mounted to the drive inside the iMac.

Hardware Monitor might be worth the purchase if you want to see what's going on - there's a lot of ways to get temp readouts, I just think this one's got the easiest interface.

Sorry about your HDD, though - hope Apple eventually decides your machine is too hot and shipps you a Rev. C.

 

[asif786]

FoxyKaye, thanks for the tip. I just checked my HD temp and it's 57 degrees. The Seagate site says Operating Temp is between 0 and 60.

I'm not sure what I'll do as it's out of warranty, but I'm definitely not happy. Grrr..

 

[neocell]

Have a couple of these rev As at work and they both did a very similar thing. Apparently it was the graphics card/chipset that needed to be replaced in them. They were still under warranty so just the time and inconvenience, but that said I don't think I'd purchase an iMac for awhile, though I haven't heard too many bad things about the Cs

 

[wasimyaqoob]

Phone up Apple.

 

[iLaw]

I agree with wasimyaqoob.

 

[spencecb]

Have a couple of these rev As at work and they both did a very similar thing. Apparently it was the graphics card/chipset that needed to be replaced in them. They were still under warranty so just the time and inconvenience, but that said I don't think I'd purchase an iMac for awhile, though I haven't heard too many bad things about the Cs

This is a different circumstance than what the OP is talking about. I had a Rev A iMac G5 that had this video card failure three times, causing the logic board to be replaced twice, and the third time it happened I refused to have this same iMac sent back to me and Apple replaced it with the current Rev. C iMac, not a bad thing, but a pain in the ass that lead up to it.

 

[neocell]

This is a different circumstance than what the OP is talking about. I had a Rev A iMac G5 that had this video card failure three times, causing the logic board to be replaced twice, and the third time it happened I refused to have this same iMac sent back to me and Apple replaced it with the current Rev. C iMac, not a bad thing, but a pain in the ass that lead up to it.

Well at least something good came out of yours, we still have the crappy rev As. I know it's potentially a different circumstance than what the OP's initial problem, but maybe this time it's not the HD but the video card? Don't know, just putting it out there