Still having problems despite archive and install

PoleStar

Hi

I posted a few weeks back as my iMac went bad

After getting advice I did an archive and install as even when I tried to back up files on my hard drive, it kept freezing in the middle of this.

So now I have a fresh system, havent installed any software.

I tried to start by importing my old itunes files from the folder "previous systems". It freezes during this when I do more than a single album at once. Even doing one album at a time it is interminably slow, taking like a minute per mp3.

It makes me wonder that I have a more serious problem than just a bug in the software which would be solved by a reinstall.

I did do a hardware check before the reinstall and everything came up clean.

Anyone have any ideas or is there a different reason why itunes is so slow?

Its also freezing sometimes for example when I view rte player in safari (and I have a laptop which views the same website and no problems).

Any help?

r0qi4162fux9kg

What spec is your iMac? How old is it? Did you ever upgrade Ram or Hdd?

PoleStar

ITs about 14 months old ie not the newest iMac but the one before.

No RAM or harddrive changes.

PoleStar

Bumped

Any ideas?

muggyog

Search for 'kernel' and 'I/O error' in your console system log ( type words in search window top right to filter ). If you find these your hard drive is on the way out. What happens is there are too many bad blocks hence the delay as the data finds a 'good place to park'! You could completely reformat the drive and reinstall everything but that is only putting off the inevitable ( complete drive failure).

PoleStar

Thanks for the idea but no help.

Ok so I did an archive and install, still crashing. I decided that I would grab my old files from "previous versions" folders and copy them to an external hard drive, thus then I could do a complete reformatt and reinstall as the archive and install did not work.

However, each time I do this, the computer crashes.

Is there anyway to access the hard disk without having to boot up the Os just to copy the files over to an external hard disk?

At this stage I think it is beginning to look like a hardware problem though. Any ideas?

Sad Professor

I don't remember the previous thread too well, so some of this might have been ruled out, but there's a few things that might be wrong here:

- The HDD is failing despite what Disk Utility is telling you. This would cause the slowness and the freezes. If so (and you don't have a backup) you should to try and copy everything that's important to an external drive - and fast. If this isn't possible, just backup what you can in order of importance. If it getting worse then it may be too late.

(Make sure Disk Utility is still verifying the disk (not permissions) okay. And make sure SMART status is verified).

- There's a failed RAM chip. I think you said you never installed any 3rd party RAM, is that right? Even so, it's still possible one of the Apple chips has failed. You could try removing one, then another, in a process of elimination and see it fixes the problem. Or download a memory tester like Rember and leave it running overnight.

- In the unlikely event that this is software related, there might be something running in your user account which is causing the problem. This would have been ported over during the Archive and Install. So create a new user account in System Preference, login to it and try using it for a while.

I would recommend that you boot into hardware test again and make sure everything is still checking out. Also try booting into safe-mode again and see if the problem is still being replicated there.

PoleStar

Yikes now I am getting scared!

I have kinda realised it must be a hardware problem now

Is there anyway for me to back up the contents of my hard drive without having to boot up mac os x?

I can boot up the Os and use things like internet, but when I try to access my old files the computer crashes and I cant copy them to an external hard drive which is making me thing the hard drive is the problem.

Is there a way to use some boot disc which will enable me to access my hard drive and copy the files to an external hard drive?

PoleStar

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a bootable disk which will enable me to access my hard drive and copy files to an external HDD without having to boot up my operating system?

I am having difficulty trying to back up my files as the computer keeps crashing when I try to do so.

Talisman

Technically it is possible to install OS X on a USB Flash drive and boot from it. But you would need a large enough Flash drive to do this. Or if you have a spare external hard drive you could use that.

Otherwise if you have access to another Mac you could connect the two of them with a Firewire cable and boot your troublesome iMac in Target Disk Mode by holding down the 'T' key while the system is booting. You'll know it's in Target Disk Mode because there will be a big Firewire icon on the screen - The icon looks like a Y with a circle in the middle. You can then access the target disk as you would any other external Firewire drive from the second Mac. When you are finished using the iMac in Target Disk Mode, you should unmount it and power down the target computer using its power button.

Type 17

Target disk mode is your best bet at this stage.

My (3 month-old, 27") iMac was doing this a few weeks ago - HD would start making a steady ticking noise, and then the system would freeze a few seconds later. Luckily I had been using Time Machine, so I was able to restore it after the HD was replaced under warranty.

If you aren't up for changing the HD yourself, and will be getting professionals to do it, you could also ask them to use Target Disk mode and one of their Macs to back up your data?

PoleStar

I doubt my computer is still covered by warranty, its about 15 months old.

I have tried using target drive with my pc laptop (using the MacDrive driver) but it keeps crashing when I try to copy files across.

Can anyone recommend any data recovery software which have bootable dvd's so I can boot from them and maybe recover data to an external hard drive?

Or how much would such a service cost to get a pro to do it (considering I have 200gb of data to recover)!

Also, I do have an external hard drive. I saw a suggestion to boot from eg an external hard drive that has os x installed on it. How do I go about installing OsX on an external hard drive and how do I use this to be able to recover my data to an external hard drive?

Talisman

Going down the professional recovery route is going to cost the price of a new computer. Data Rescue 3 could possibly recover your data for you, it costs $99. It's a bootable DVD so you don't have to worry about setting up a new system. I haven't used the latest version of the product but I have successfully used the previous version to recover data from drives when booting from an external hard drive.

If you want to install the OS on an external drive then follow the following steps.
- Insert your OS disc in the iMac.
- Connect your external drive to the iMac.
- Power on the external drive.
- Power on the iMac and hold down the 'C' key to boot from the OS disc.
- When asked where to install the new OS choose the external drive,
- If you have to partition the drive make sure to use the GUID partition scheme as otherwise the drive will not be bootable.
- Give the external hard drive a recognisable name, "Macintosh HD" may be confusing if that's the name of the internal drive.

Once the installation is complete hold down the Option (Alt) key when restarting the iMac this will let you choose which hard drive you want to boot from.

PoleStar

Hi Talisman, thanks for your reply!

I managed to successfully install Os X onto my external hard drive and am succesfully running what seems to be a bug free Os from the external hard drive.

When I try to access the native hard drive however, I can browse the folders but once I get down to file level I just see the spinning rainbow wheel for a while and then the finder closes. Thus I assume this confirms that there is a fault in the hard drive.

I wonder at this stage, will a boot recovery DVD like the one you suggested actually work in this case and have more success?

I would be willing to try that option if it has a chance of success however not if it will be likely to fail given my scenario. In that case I think I would have reached the stage of giving the computer to a professional hard drive recovery company.

What does anyone think?

Sad Professor

If the drive is physically broken, recovery software such as Data Rescue, etc won't be of any use. And going to a data recovery company could be extremely expensive.

Have you no backup at all? What kind of data is on there? Is it really irreplaceable?

Talisman

Before you go spending any money, download the demo version of Data Rescue and run it from your external hard drive. The demo product has the same analysis capability as the paid for product it's just the amount of data that can be recovered which is crippled. This will give you an idea of the data that you would be able to recover yourself.