Q: Using first aid freezes my computer
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Aug 18, 2016 1:58 PMby Grant Bennet-Alder,That happens only when your drive stops responding, a sign of imminent drive death. Run, do not walk, to the store and get a new drive before the one you have stops working completely. It may already be too late.
I recommend an external enclosure or adapter as well, and installing Mac OS on the new drive BEFORE transplanting it. This gets your computer working faster, and helps separate issues of Installation from issues of transplant.
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Sep 10, 2016 7:25 PMby ionasavg,sorry for the delayed answer,
don't know if that has something to do with all this
i can do the old good verify/repair permissions (with the command line) and shows up no problem at all.
also i've done the SMART check with an app named SMART utility
is it really that bad or its something else that happened?
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Sep 10, 2016 7:43 PMby Grant Bennet-Alder,As I said before, when your drive stops responding, especially if testing it with first Aid is all you were doing and not 65 other things at the same time, it can indicate that your drive is near death.
If you do not have a Trusted Backup, making one should be your top priority, because you will need it soon.
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Sep 10, 2016 7:48 PMby Drew Reece,It's difficult to say from our perspective. Disk Utility has this dialog when I run verify/ repair on my Mac…
Your computer may be slow or unresponsive while the startup disk is being verified.
The progress indicator and status messages may not be updated until the verification process is complete.
Is it possible you are simply seeing the 'slowness' that always happens when you test a disk that is running the OS?
The term 'froze' is a little vague. You could mean that it was unresponsive for a few minutes - which is quite normal when testing a spinning disk, or you could mean that it 'locked up' became unusable & required a force quit or reboot - which is not normal.
If you don't have a backup make one, otherwise investigate getting a new disk if your computer has been giving you issues. Eventually all disks will die or have issues, so a backup (or several) is the only way to ensure the data is safe.
If you want to investigate it further please post more info - e.g. why have you been running Disk Utility? Is it to try to solve any issues?
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Sep 11, 2016 4:51 PMby ionasavg,i have a laptop so it is only one disk.
every time i try it (maybe after a small delay) i can't do anything not even move my mouse. i've left it for some minutes (don't think that's more than 4-5 mins) to see if something will change but nothing happens so i force shut down and reopen it.
I usually do it because as far as i know it makes the pc have better performances since it is 5 years old
thanks a lot for the help though
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Sep 11, 2016 5:15 PMby Drew Reece,I don't think 4-5 minutes is long enough on a 5 year old Mac.
The dialog warns you about poor performance, so I would leave it at least 20-40 minutes before considering a force shutdown. I would also monitor the progress bar (place a postit near the bar to see if it progresses at all ).
Forced shutdowns can actually cause the disk damage that Disk Utility is looking for, so it is important to let it finish if possible.
You can also boot into recovery mode to run disk verify & repair. It can be quicker as the OS is not in use on the area of disk that is being checked.
Disk Utility (El Capitan): Repair a disk
It is possible that the disk is failing/ failed, however you can still get a backup & test it if you want, recovery mode may be a better option to check the disk.
