PB hard drive - afraid, very afraid

[jackc]

A couple of weeks ago, the hard drive in my 12" 1.33 PB started making some scary clicking noises that I've never heard before, I had a kernel panic and a couple of times it just froze up and I had to turn it off to reboot. Diskwarrior said it was OK, but I figured the drive was on its deathbed. But now I haven't had any problems since then.

My Applecare is expired, and I'm planning on buying a new MB, hopefully holding out until the next update.

What do you guys think? Is that a sign of damage?

 

[JFreak]

If you have an external hard drive, I'd suggest the first thing you do is making a backup. If you can read all the bits and pieces, it's a good start. Then if you have the time, it would be a good test to completely erase the internal hard drive (writing zeroes to the whole disk) and then re-installing everything. If you succeed on the erase thing, there shouldn't be any immediate danger, but if the process halts for any reason, it is a good indicator for a drive failure.

I hope there's nothing wrong with your computer's hard drive, but replacing the drive with a new one wouldn't hurt in any case. Even if you were selling the computer in the near future having a fresh (and bigger) hard drive will only raise the resale value of the machine, plus selling the computer with a new hard drive will definetely give you some peace of mind because you don't have to worry about if the hard drive failed very soon after the deal and your buyer comes to ask you for a compensation.

 

[jackc]

If you have an external hard drive, I'd suggest the first thing you do is making a backup. If you can read all the bits and pieces, it's a good start. Then if you have the time, it would be a good test to completely erase the internal hard drive (writing zeroes to the whole disk) and then re-installing everything. If you succeed on the erase thing, there shouldn't be any immediate danger, but if the process halts for any reason, it is a good indicator for a drive failure.

I hope there's nothing wrong with your computer's hard drive, but replacing the drive with a new one wouldn't hurt in any case. Even if you were selling the computer in the near future having a fresh (and bigger) hard drive will only raise the resale value of the machine, plus selling the computer with a new hard drive will definetely give you some peace of mind because you don't have to worry about if the hard drive failed very soon after the deal and your buyer comes to ask you for a compensation.

Yeah, I was worried about that for selling it, that might be a good idea to replace it. I don't know anything about it, would it make sense to have an Apple Store do it, or would that be ridiculously expensive?

 

[mkrishnan]

Yeah, I was worried about that for selling it, that might be a good idea to replace it. I don't know anything about it, would it make sense to have an Apple Store do it, or would that be ridiculously expensive?

It seems to generally be rated as moderately hard -- much harder than the Macbook hard drive replacement (which is literally a five minute affair) but easier than the iBook. Probably about a 1.5-2 hour job if you've never done it. If you can get by-the-hour installation service from anyone who has some Mac experience, I'd guess you'd end up paying $50-75 (USD, assuming you're from the US).

 

[QuarterSwede]

A couple of weeks ago, the hard drive in my 12" 1.33 PB started making some scary clicking noises that I've never heard before, I had a kernel panic and a couple of times it just froze up and I had to turn it off to reboot. Diskwarrior said it was OK, but I figured the drive was on its deathbed. But now I haven't had any problems since then.

My Applecare is expired, and I'm planning on buying a new MB, hopefully holding out until the next update.

What do you guys think? Is that a sign of damage?

This is EXACTLY the same thing my 12" PB just started doing. It seems to only happen when I'm using safari though, although that could be because I use that the most, and it happens a few hours after I've been using the PB.

But yeah, the hard drive starts to make clicking noises, like a cd drive that can't read a disc and is refocusing. Then you get the spinning beach ball of death and are forced to hold down the power button to get it to stop.

I used TechTool Deluxe (the most current version) and it found no errors on the drive. I ran ever test it had and it found nothing wrong. I still suspect my hard drive will fail within the next few weeks though. I just don't see how it could be a software thing, although I suppose it's possible.

For me it all started after I dropped it on the floor on one of the corners pretty hard. Good thing for me is that my Applecare is still good for about 6 months and my wife just got a MacBook that I can use, when she's not on it, while it's out for repair. I'm also looking to get an external hard drive anyway for Time Machine, so it's not a total loss.

Also, if I can avoid buying the external drive right now, does anyone know if it's possible to use a drive in a PC to backup what I have on my PB before the drive is toast? What I'd like to do is connect the PB via ethernet to the PC and partition the drive making the new partition HFS+. Is this possible?

 

[QuarterSwede]

If anyone is interested in what it actually sounds like, I took this a few hours ago after using Safari for around 2 hours. It seems to only happen after a few hours of use and it's only ever happened in Safari.

Hard drive failing?