I think my mac has died!!!!

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Level 1

9 points

I think my mac has died!!!!

Hi All
Hope you are doing OK.
Today I had some weird behaviour from my iMAC, it lost all photos from iphoto and music from itunes. Also my address book emptied itself. My mail also lost all its info. I have a external lacie HD and copied some stuff back across. Most of the info was copied OK. Now when I restart it goes through the starting procedure until the hardrive starts spinning like crazy. I booted in both verbose and single-user mode. I get the following errors diskOS3: I/O error, also Waiting for HP IO MONITOR. If I need to replace the hardrive can I do this myself and what do I need to do.

1.8GHZ Power G5, Mac OS X (10.3.x), 250GB Serial ATA, 2GB DDR RAM

Posted on Mar 19, 2008 12:06 PM

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Answer 1

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 19, 2008 12:14 PM in response to Neil Henry1

Do yu have a printer connected? Try booting with all peripherals unplugged.

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Answer 2

cwmmjm

Level 1

5 points

Mar 19, 2008 3:20 PM in response to Neil Henry1

I hope your hard drive isn't fried, but it is not looking good. I hope Miriam's suggestion works.

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2008 8:00 PM in response to Neil Henry1

Read this thread, maybe it will shed some light. That sound you are hearing maybe the fans, not the hard drive?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1449019&tstart=0

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Answer 4

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2008 1:45 AM in response to MGW

I have removal all peripherals except mouse and keyboard(blue tooth). I want to try and boot with the install disc 1 but I have a disk stuch inside that I cannot remove the normal way.

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Answer 5

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2008 1:50 AM in response to Neil Henry1

Sorry Doug just saw your info now. I opened and booted the mac, I physical stopped the fans but the noise was definitely comming from the hardrive.

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Answer 6

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 20, 2008 6:55 AM in response to Neil Henry1

There are a couple of ways you can get the disc out: try hitting the eject key as you reboot, or click the right mouse button when you reboot, and if that doesn't work, lay the computer face down on a soft towel, and then press the eject key.

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Answer 7

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2008 9:04 AM in response to MGW

thank you clicking the right mouse button has done it, I am now busy re-installing the OSX, lets hope it works.

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Answer 8

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2008 9:48 AM in response to Neil Henry1

Sad news, it will not pass disk repair, Tried using Norton System works to repair, no luck.

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Answer 9

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 20, 2008 11:21 AM in response to Neil Henry1

Norton is really not the best application to use on a Mac, DiskWarrior or TechToolPro are more compatible. I'm not sure whether you have used Disk Utility to repair the drive while booted from your install disc. Try it and see if it can do something for you, otherwise, try and get hold of DiskWarrior.

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Answer 10

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2008 1:32 PM in response to MGW

Did try disk utility from install disc, came up with a lot of red text and said disk repair failed.

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Answer 11

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 20, 2008 1:42 PM in response to Neil Henry1

Doesn't sound good, if you can't get DiskWarrior, take the machine in to Apple and have them check and repair the directory.

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Answer 12

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 22, 2008 1:23 AM in response to MGW

I have disk warrior on order lets see what happens.

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Answer 13

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 22, 2008 6:26 AM in response to Neil Henry1

If you can, after installing DW on your computer, clone it to an external drive and boot from that drive, it's much faster than booting from the DW disc.

It can take a while for everything to be tested, so be patient. Let us know how it turns out,

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Answer 14

Neil Henry1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 28, 2008 10:24 AM in response to MGW

After using DW i rebooted my mac and got the following message on a black screen"init:can't exec/bin/sh for single user:no such file or directory"
I had loads of errors using DW when I performed Test Device I got the following error"abnormal temp 156.2 F(69deg) could indicate failure or pending failure that could result in loss of data.
I have accepted that I need to replace the hardisk. I have an 250gb can I replace this with a 320gb? I will do this myself, hopefully it should not be to complicated, do you have any tips?

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Answer 15

MGW

Level 7

27,047 points

Mar 28, 2008 12:58 PM in response to Neil Henry1

You can put any size drive you like in, as long as it's a 3.5 SATA. Go to [xlr8yourmac.com] for installation tips.

However, if your temps are high, don't assume it's your drive, it very well could be your power supply unit that is faulty as well, or a thermal sensor problem.

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