iMac internal hard drive failing... can I live off of an external drive indefinitely?

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Level 1

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iMac internal hard drive failing... can I live off of an external drive indefinitely?

My iMac's internal drive was behaving slowly, and the S.M.A.R.T status is failure, so I got an external HD and installed OSX on it. Everything is working great! ... except that every time I turn on my computer it tells me its unable to repair the Mac HD and I should copy stuff off of it and reformat.

So, I copied the files over to the external. But Disk Utility wont let me erase, or parition, or anything. Tried from recovery mode too. Should I just live with the error?

I'm worried that since the Mac HD is the one with the recovery partition and presumably other important system booting stuff on it, if / when it finally goes will I be hosed?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Apr 8, 2019 6:40 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

woodmeister50

Level 7

20,401 points

Apr 10, 2019 4:27 AM in response to jdbeast

Note, that with the APFS file system, there is no longer a discrete

Recovery HD partition. It is a volume contained inside the APFS

container belonging to the macOS installed within it. The APFS

container is a partition.

It will not show up as it used to with holding the Option key as a

boot selection and can only be accessed with the Command+R on

boot.

If you did a full, fresh install, the Recovery is there already.

As for running with a dying internal drive, I did it for quite some

time on my iMac until I got around to replacing the internal drive.

Eventually, when the drive dies altogether, the notices will go away.

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Answer 2

babowa

Level 9

78,405 points

Apr 8, 2019 6:47 PM in response to jdbeast

If you made a clone from the internal to the external with CarbonCopyCloner, it will create a recovery partition. If you didn't, well, then I'd say, make one on another external drive. If you have a working bootable clone, you don't really need the recovery process because you can boot from your clone and, if necessary, wipe/clone back your system.

Have you chosen your external as the boot disk? Just wondering if that would eliminate the notice.

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Answer 3

jdbeast Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 9, 2019 10:23 AM in response to babowa

I bought the "My Passport for Mac" drive at best buy, so i think its the right format OTB?

(i'm realizing as a tech professional how little I know about how my computers actually run and its embarrassing)

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Answer 4

rkaufmann87

Level 10

143,380 points

Apr 9, 2019 10:44 AM in response to jdbeast

You should check the format of the drive to verify. How you do that is to locate the drive (it may be shown on your desktop) and select the drive with 1 click. Then type Command + I (as in Ivan) and window will appear with information about the drive including it's format.

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Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,405 points

Apr 9, 2019 10:58 AM in response to jdbeast

Yes, please check that. WD drives also tend to have a lot of extraneous software on it which should be deleted during the formatting process. It is not necessary - an external hard drive does not need any software or app to function - all it needs is to be formatted correctly. So, initially, the format can be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and it should be the GUID partition scheme which is what makes it bootable.

Which Mac OS version are you running on the external (and the internal if it's still functioning)?

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Answer 6

jdbeast Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 9, 2019 1:30 PM in response to babowa

Thanks everyone. Disk utility reports it's APFS. When I click on the root physical disk it says Partition Map: GUID partition map.

I just upgraded to mojave a few days ago.

Back when the internal allowed me to boot it was Sierra.

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Answer 7

babowa

Level 9

78,405 points

Apr 9, 2019 2:53 PM in response to jdbeast

Ok, since it is Mojave, APFS is correct. And, good, it's GUID, so you should be ok except for the needless WD software. Since you would lose everything if you were to reformat (delete the WD software), I'd just monitor it for now. But, you may have to do it at some point; personally, I do not trust WD/software - a couple of years ago, their software resulted in many customers' losing the entire content of the drives.

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