I have recently been having problems with my iMac. It was acting very slow and would have frequent spinning beach balls while doing pretty much anything. I know that my hard drive has been getting pretty full lately (about 11.5GB left of 250GB HD). Anyway went to restart the computer a week or so ago and it got stuck on the blue screen. Tried again a few times and would get stuck on either gray or blue screen. I then started the computer up with the startup disk and and repaired the permissions and did a check of the HD which said that it didn't need any repairs. I then did an archive and install of the OS(10.5). I restarted the computer and it took awhile but it did start up. I was able to verify that my stuff was still on the HD. I tried transferring some of my files to an external HD and had some success. Seemed that it would transfer so much (700ish Mb) then stop and hang. I decided it was time to take it to the Mac Genius Bar and they were able to find and run disk utility on my HD with the same results. He told me to go home and use disk utility to create a disk image of the hard drive and save it to my external HD. I tried to do that twice now and it seems to work until just before the end of the progress bar. I get a message that says that it is unable to create the image file because of I/O errors (or something like that). Am I doing something wrong or am I just out of luck. I need to get some of the HD (hopefully) and was dumb enough to not make a backup sooner. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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Possible HD problems...trying to backup.
- Thread starter fordmustangfan
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Sounds like the heat is the problem. Boot it and then transfer as much as you can (not with Time Machine, select folders by hand). When it freezes, you already have something in the external HD so just shut it down and let it cool down and do it again for so long that you have all you need (or it can't transfer anymore)
Is it better to do this from my Macbook pro and putting iMac into Target disk mode or just trying to let the iMac startup on its own and connecting my external HD to the iMac?
It would be better through target disk mode because then the HD isn't stressed that much
Any thoughts on why when I try and make a disk image with disk utility that it gets almost all the way to the end (taking at least 2 to 3 hrs with about 240GB to image) and then says that there is an I/O error and can't create the image.
I dunno how from your posting that anyone could just deduce that it was "heat" that is your problem. Sorry, dont buy it.
Your drive is too full, you need to have 20-30% free for optimal use.
Instead of a disc image, download and install Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your drive to an external.
Then reformat your internal drive and clone it all back.
I would have recommended this first, before any sort of archive and install or whatever.
Get the data backed up first would have been my suggestion.
Then you either need to install a larger internal drive -- or keep your libraries on an external.
Your drive is too full, you need to have 20-30% free for optimal use.
Instead of a disc image, download and install Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your drive to an external.
Then reformat your internal drive and clone it all back.
I would have recommended this first, before any sort of archive and install or whatever.
Get the data backed up first would have been my suggestion.
Then you either need to install a larger internal drive -- or keep your libraries on an external.
I've heard it million times that heat can make HD struggle so that it work for awhile and then starts freezing. Sometimes it only works for few minutes but it can also work for 20 minutes. I don't meant that it overheats but when it warms up, it starts to fail, that's why freezer trick may also work. I'm not saying it is the cause but it MAY be.
I don't buy your 20-30%... 5-10GB is enough IMO. It would be insane to use only 750GB of 1TB drive!
Problem with CCC is that as OP said, it hanged after 700MB... Worth a try though as everything else you said.
Thanks for your help guys. I will give CCC a try. Any ideas as to why when I tried making a disk image of the HD with Disk Utility it would get to the very end after a few hours and then tell me their was some type of I/O error?