Is my HD about to die?

[R.Youden]

Hi,

I have just sold a PowerMac G4 (in my sig) on eBay. I was finishing off re-installing the OS last night and making sure that all personal info was removed when it started to run VERY slowly. It took a good 10 minutes to boot, ages to open a Finder Window etc etc. I have run TechTool Deluxe which passed everything but other strange things have occured. For example:

One application lost my admin name for authentication and when I entered them long hand it would let me through.

Another now just shows the generic mac icon rather than the actual application icon

Eventually everything starts to run fine, no Kernal panics or anything like that. My only idea as to what it could be is a HD failing. My other thought was RAM but that looks OK. I have called off the eBay sale untill I can find out what is wrong.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks

 

[PlaceofDis]

could be a bad installation too perhaps since the problems have only come since the re-install, yes?

 

[R.Youden]

could be a bad installation too perhaps since the problems have only come since the re-install, yes?

No, this started to happen before I did a re-install.

 

[R.Youden]

Update

Just looked at the techTools report again. Everything did NOT pass.

The Surface Scan failed. It says that it has removed the bad blocks so they aren't used again. This may explain why it suddenly starts to work again. Is the removal of ad blocks on the surface scan something that OSX can do by itself?

Also does this mean the HD is on its way out or would a total erase and re-install help?