Beach Ball seems to stop all applications

Sounds like the classic signs of a failing HDD.

HI,

If you've only had this iMac for a year I doubt the hard drive is failing. Hopefully you have all your important files backed up just in case.

Boot from your install disc, run Disk Utility to Verify and if necessary Repair any errors on the startup disk.



Insert your install disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)

Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your start up disk and click Restart

While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window. Where you see Capacity and Available. Make sure there is always 10% to 15% free disk space


If you can't boot from your install disc, try booting in Safe Mode

What is Safe Mode






Carolyn 🙂

The age of a system is no better an indicator of whether or not a drive is failing than disk utility is for determining it. And I do wish you'd stop spreading this 10-15% nonsense. It's outdated information that stopped making any real sense probably at least 5 years ago. Once upon a time, yes, but not any longer. If you have a 1TB drive, do you really think you need to keep 100-150GB free? Doesn't anyone take 5 seconds to think these things through anymore?

The startup manager bit is also completely superfluous. The system will default to booting off the internal HDD, unless you specify otherwise. So really, if you wanted to save some time, you could just hold in the power button to force the system off, then turn it back on again. Since the DVD filesystem is the active one, and it's read-only, there's almost zero risk of anything bad happening.

And honestly, Apple Hardware Test, while far from perfect, will be infinitely more useful than Disk Utility for figuring out if a drive is failing. On top of checking SMART status, AHT will actually run a quick surface scan. It reads the first 10GB of the drive to make sure there are now slow read heads. ASD is even better, as you can optionally do a full surface scan of the entire drive.

I've repaired enough "slow" systems to be able to spot a failing HDD when someone describes one. When you've repaired literally hundreds of systems for all manner of things, like I have, you develop a sort of sixth sense about a lot of common problems.

The age of a system is no better an indicator of whether or not a drive is failing than disk utility is for determining it. And I do wish you'd stop this 10-15% nonsense. It's outdated information that stopped making any real sense probably at least 5 years ago. Once upon a time, yes, but not any longer. If you have a 1TB drive, do you really think you need to keep 100-150GB free?

Can you provide an Apple document that backs this up?

Regards,

Roger

We have us a little Musketeers group don't we? One personality posts the same outdated information over and over again. Another personality just posts the first 5-6 things they can find typing in a few words into Google. The third personality runs around asking for an Apple document for everything. So when does Dartanian arrive?

Scott,

I'm simply asking if you have anything to back up your claim. I'm not trying to start anything, I'm just asking for some proof.

AFAIK, it's not anything documented. Companies don't like to document this sort of thing in case they get leaked, and some person(s) with an agenda pick it up. Look at the big deal some people made over that Apple KB document recommending virus scanning software. There was some blurb the other day about a group of right leaning "activists" on Digg who were actively engaged in trying to make it so that left-leaning stories were never seen. I'm sure there's an example of people on the left doing the same thing. Just anyone who has a particular agenda, and will bend some bit of information to fit that agenda. There's a bunch of people who need a good beating in this country, thinking they're entitled to only hear news that fits their particular narrow view of the world.

As you work on systems, you start to pick up on common threads, or at least you do if you're a halfway decent tech. Someone comes in complaining of this, this, and this, and the past 50 times those three things have always resulted in replacing the HDD... You do the math.

So why not conduct an informal survey of all the techs on these forums. Apple or otherwise, since the basic troubleshooting theory is the same. Anyone who's worked professionally as a hardware tech for more than say 6 months. What say you?

And for the record, I've worked professionally as a hardware tech for about 2 years. I've been an ACMT for about 1.5 years of that.

Thanks for getting back to me. With all due respect I think I'll use the 10-15% rule as I haven't been provided any proof.

Thanks again,

Roger

You already have your answer. Run Apple Hardware Test. Can all but guarantee it will report an issue with your HDD. If your looking for some specific answer, why don't you just help us speed things along, and tell us what it is you want to hear? So long as you don't expect it to solve your problem, I'll tell you whatever you want.

Hi,

I think you have been given some good advice, by both Carolyn and Scott about how and what to check. Have you had the opportunity to follow up on these?

As long as you can run AHT it shouldn't matter if it's off the install disc or the hard drive. Apple only recently included AHT on the internal HD, up until recently the only way to access it was the install disc.