imac 24, 2.8 extreme hard drive failure?

Question

Level 1

25 points

imac 24, 2.8 extreme hard drive failure?

Hi,

I'm pretty sure the hard drive has gone on my imac, but I just want to get some opinions before I start in and replace it. A couple of weeks ago it started running very slowly, and then became unresponsive altogether, to the point that I had to power it off on the button. It then wouldn't boot up at all - stuck at a grey screen with no Apple logo. Apple hardware test reported no problems, Disc utility reported lots of invalid thread counts. Anyway, I tried wiping the drive and reinstalling but the process froze up with about 20 minutes to go. I left it a few days and tried wiping and reinstalling the OS again, this time without printer drivers, languages, etc. It worked. Imac back up and running ... until today, when ... slow, unresponsive, hard reboot, etc. This time the extended Apple hardware test came up with an error:

4HDD/11/400000004:SATA (0,0)

I'm sure the hard drive's buggered, but, because I had to have the power supply repaired under warranty, and the symptoms were somewhat similar, it makes me wonder if there's something else to consider.

Any thoughts?

Much appreciated as always,

Kev.

Mac OS X (10.4.11), g3 imac 500; g5 imac 1.8, Macbook 2.0, imac 2.8

Posted on Jul 7, 2009 2:24 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kevin Quinn Author

Level 1

25 points

Jul 7, 2009 2:30 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

Hi again,

By the way, this is the drive I'm considering:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Processor-Internal-OEM/dp/B001C271MA/ref =sr12?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246996020&sr=8-2

Any thoughts?

Kev.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 7, 2009 2:31 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

HI Kevin

*"4HDD/11/400000004:SATA (0,0)"*

That's definitely the hard disk gone south.

Whether there is something else going on, power supply/RAM... that's hard to say.

Carolyn

Reply

Answer 3

Kevin Quinn Author

Level 1

25 points

Jul 7, 2009 2:35 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Hi Carolyn,

Yeah, it's pretty conclusive. What do you think of the drive I'm considering?

Cheers,

kev.

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 7, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

I have the WD in my Intel iMac 2.66... no problems so far. That 1TB should do the job nicely.

I love Amazon not only for purchasing but because you can read the reviews. Also, try

http://www.cnet.com/ and http://www.macworld.com/ for product reviews.

🙂

Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Reply

Answer 5

Kevin Quinn Author

Level 1

25 points

Jul 7, 2009 2:38 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks Carolyn,

I'm off to Amazon now, and then bed.

All the best,

Kev.

Reply

Answer 6

Jul 7, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

🙂

Reply

Answer 7

Jul 24, 2009 1:18 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

My HD on my 2008 iMac 2.8 just died. It was a Western Digital. After Googling the problem, it seems a lot of these drives are dying after a little over a year. I replaced mine with a Hitachi Deskstar 1TB. Of course my 1TB Back-up disk is being shipped now. Figures my HD would die 2 days BEFORE I can run Time Capsule. Luckily I didn't loose much. Most was on my MacBook Pro.

Reply

Answer 8

Sep 29, 2009 6:24 PM in response to SteveClark1000

My Western Digital hard drive on my iMac 24, 2.8 died at exactly one year. I was looking for evidence that this is happening to others and found your post. The corrupted hard disk corrupted by Time Capsule backup so I'm now dealing with recovery services.

But I'm interested that you say "it seems a lot of these drives are dying after a little over a year." Where did you find that?

Reply

Answer 9

inyo55

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2009 4:10 PM in response to Charles Luband

We have had two Imac 24" (mid-2007 models) have hard drive failure within several months. They were not on the same electrical circuit. Both would eventually stop showing the hard disk volume on the desktop or in Disk Utility after booting from dvd. The disk drives were the Apple ones (apple logo on the drive) that shipped with them. Has anyone else had this problem? It seems very strange for two to crash so soon.

Reply

Answer 10

Oct 9, 2009 9:26 AM in response to inyo55

It doesn't sound that strange to me, unfortunately. I have now experienced drive failures on every Mac I've had experience with.
I bought a MacBook, and a couple of colleagues also did, all within a few months of each other. All of them had drive failures (and two battery failures), and now it looks like my iMac 24" drive is failing as well. I've never seen so many drives fail on other brands of computer, and it makes me think Apple are going for the cheapest option when choosing drive suppliers.

Reply

Answer 11

inyo55

Level 1

0 points

Oct 29, 2009 4:50 PM in response to Stoatbringer

I am guessing it is a heat problem in the Imac design, or maybe the quality of the drives. These were 500 gb Western Digital drives. ANYONE who is thinking of buying an Imac, be sure to buy the THREE YEAR WARRANTY! That way if the hard drive dies, Apple is supposed to fix it.

Reply

Answer 12

Oct 30, 2009 1:36 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

Add me to the list of hdd failures on the iMac just after a year. Thankfully the tech at applecare replaced it with a new 24" (spec upgraded to the 1TB and GT 130 video from the 500GB and 8800 GS that we had). Similar symptons, iMac gets hot, starts to slow down, then eventually freeze, requiring hard reboot. Make sure you get applecare! I've never had a hdd fail on me during the previous 20+ yrs of owning a computer until now, and now it seems ever so common.

Reply

Answer 13

ajr37

Level 1

0 points

Nov 21, 2009 3:17 AM in response to Kevin Quinn

My iMac 24 2.6 is also making high whirring noises like a helicopter. It froze up last night, requiring a restart, and the screen keeps shutting down. This morning, one of my user accounts froze completely and now cannot start that account - my main one! To add to my concerns, Timemachine has stopped backing up as of last week!
From experience with HD fails with PCs, this is very similar - slow performance, dropped files and structures, system deteriorating and random physical faults. Oddly, SMC says the RPM is fine and the temp constant around 33c.

Mac bought in March this year, WD500gb HD so there does seem a fault here. Taking into Apple store tomorrow for repair. If you are coming up to the end of the 12 month period, I would consider Apple care before it expires!

Reply

Answer 14

Kenjo

Level 1

10 points

Nov 22, 2009 10:33 PM in response to ajr37

I work at a large Polytechnic School. We have classrooms full of iMacs. They are going down at a rate of one every week or so. For instance, in a lab of 25 computers, we've replaced almost half the hard drives already, and expect the trend to continue. For us, we just have the drive replaced, and re-image the drive. But I can imagine how frustrating it would be for a home user. Everyone else out there, if you have one of these, make sure you make regular backups.

Reply

Answer 15

japerry

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2009 9:22 PM in response to Kevin Quinn

Mark me down for two failures. My 24" iMac died exactly a year and a week after I bought it. Replaced with a WD caviar black 1TB.
My Father has the same iMac, and his is showing signs of failure today.
Some interesting notes:
Both my iMac and his are used for windows gaming
Neither fans come up like they're supposed to. I think heat is killing the drive. His windows XP drive partition became corrupted, but OSX is unaffected as of now. I'm going to suggest that he apple care it before installing windows 7 on it.

Reply