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hard drive repair question

Hi, got a Mac Mini circa 2009 - Intel that I've had running at my Mom's house forever. 60g drive.


It's been flawless for years. Recently she got the spinning gear on startup with no resolution to the OS screen

(10.4x) so i took it home and am running Disk Warrior. DW gets to Step 5 with the 'speed reduced by

disk malfunction' message and is currently wallowing through the process of repairing the directory.


Question - what is the chance that this HD is not permanently damaged abd is there potential that the

hardware issue can be repaired so as not to require trashing the Mini / replacing the HD ?


There's been relatively little action on this thing except email and browser use. I suspect frequent manual

shut-off and restarts of the Mini using the power button along with power outages/spikes -could've

screwed up the HD but i don't know.


I am going to let DW do its thing and will backup the HD contents to an external FW drive but don't

find anything online about potential for repairing the existing HD issue(s) causing this message. DW

is creeping along after about an hour and is up to #183 in its repair "count" or whatever...

Thanks for any insights on what i'm dealing with here,


Mike

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 28, 2013 6:27 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 28, 2013 6:54 PM

Most likely the drive is really failing & will need replacing.


If need be to copy to another Drive, hold Option key while choosig repair Disk in DW to build a new directory without changing the one on the drive, you can even clone using the new directory.

17 replies

Jan 28, 2013 7:42 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks BDA. Just to clarify, I first need to

Let DW run through the directory repair process.

Then attach, say, a FW external HD,

Then hold Option key down and select repair disk in DW.


What would be the next action after the above? Will DW give me a dialog box option to copy the

repaired disk over to the backup drive...or show me an icon for the repaired volume which i could clone

using CCC or Super Duper - (which i have on hand).


It's been awhile since i've dealt with one of these situations so an oversimplified 'step-by-step' might

save me having to leave this to an Apple Store -- though i don't relish opening a Mini to put in a

new HD (been in there for Memory installs on them a couple times and it isn't a 'breeze' ; )


Thanks as always!


Mike

Jan 28, 2013 9:59 PM in response to BDAqua

Well, just one thing confusing me. I have the Mini booted from from its "C" drive --that is, the DW disk...and

a FW drive attached, ready to copy over the DW-created 'preview' directory.


How do I use CCC (or SD) app to clone the DW "alt" directory - (i don't have that app on the Mini). Where does that app need to "reside" to accomplish the clone process you suggest?


Would you suggest putting a copy of it on the external FW drive, starting it on that, and performing the clone process that way (if I can navigate to it on the Mini to do so...) or....do i need to perhaps connect the problem

"Mini" to another computer and restart the Mini in target-firewire mode.... ?


Sorry for any dumb oversight i am missing here...


Thanks!

Jan 29, 2013 5:29 AM in response to BDAqua

Hi, I could - i think put it on a Flash Drive -- but i am booted from the DW disk. I was thinking of putting it on the FW external which i was going to copy the Backed Up data to. BTW DW got to the end of the rebuilding attempt and concluded with the message that the disk was damaged and gave the option to backup the data off the Preview Disk.... I somehow managed to close that menu which left me no choice but to rerun the DW "rebuild directory" process. It has been going all night and is still on Step 5 now at 2315 items ('speed reduced by disk malfunction') It is actually many numbers further than where it ended on the first "run." --


Do you think i necessarily have to let it keep running or could i cancel and clone the damaged disk as-is? I suspect this will be running awhile otherwise...


Thanks again,


Mike

Jan 29, 2013 9:48 AM in response to BDAqua

I could definitely put a cooling fan on it - even ice pack under it i suppose - if that would do any good...


Curious that it reached a point last night where it gave me that Preview Disk copy option without going through

as many files as it has been running through since i reinitiated the rebuild - (which i wish i hadn't needed to do...)

As of now, still going thru the rebuild sequence and the # is at about 3500 -

Jan 29, 2013 2:12 PM in response to MIKEinMICH

Well, the only way out was to wait for the Preview Directory to appear -which it finally did - and am now individually, slowly copying off the contents to a folder on a FW external as a backup of what was salvaged.


Seeing a lot of errors in the transfer...should at least be able to salvage docs, media (photos etc). Then question becomes whether i should even bother attempting to repair the Mini HD. Otherwise if i put in a new HD i guess i'm just going to have to do a fresh OS install but doubt i can 'migrate' any of the stuff, prefs et.al. back onto the new HD and OS from the Disk Warrior backup folder. Alot of damaged files/folders presumably. Wondering if there's a way DW can run repair on them and beyond that, what kind of Permissions issues i might have. O well better than a total loss i guess.

Jan 29, 2013 5:36 PM in response to BDAqua

So far i've almost finished copying over the Library Folder and the remaining major folders will be System and Users. This is a 10.4 System. As it has copied each folder, DW is showing scores of Errors that are being recorded in the Log. Question i have is, once this stuff is all copied off to my external FW, what are the next steps when i want to reconstruct / restore the salvaged contents - whether back onto a repaired HD (doesn't appear likely i'll be able to repair this disk) or a new HD. I don't know if i should first run DW on the backed up files n' folders residing in the external FW or... just figure on replacing the drive, installing a new OSX system and -- well -- i guess manually go through the backed up files and see what apps i need to reinstall from scratch. I don't know if putting any files/documents etc. from the BU folder back onto a newly installed system would even be worth bothering with - or could cause system confusion...

Jan 29, 2013 10:15 PM in response to MIKEinMICH

I don't know if i should first run DW on the backed up files n' folders residing in the external FW or... just figure on replacing the drive, installing a new OSX system and -- well -- i guess manually go through the backed up files and see what apps i need to reinstall from scratch.

I doubt Reparing either drive after that will help, won't hurt of course on the FW Drive, but it just has the best info DW could find.


We need new Drive & install, then figure out what can be salvaged & the best way to do it. 🙂

Jan 30, 2013 7:53 AM in response to BDAqua

Yep, got what i could off of it using manual copy-over in DW of the "Preview" Disk... Guess will have to shop the Apple Store and weigh whether i want to tackle installling a new HD or leave it to them - then go from there and

see whatever's useable if anything from the Users and Library folders

Hoping after a new install i might possibly be able to add back stuff like Apple Mail and anything that had passwords but the old Mini disk appears to be a goner...and i don't want to risk putting anything corrupted

back on it - hence my question about whether DW would "clean up" any of the offloaded stuff to make it

okay to put back on the new drive.

I'll report back once there's another HD installed. Thanks as always for your help!


Mike

Jan 31, 2013 1:39 PM in response to MIKEinMICH

In a bit of a quandary at this point. Here's where i am at. Mac Mini has a new HD installed, with Snow Leopard.


I would like to migrate data from items that were saved to an external FW HD using DiskWarrior - It allowed me to copy off items in the Preview Directory phase -- so what I have to draw from are Library, Users and other Folders - some of which invevitably have corrupted files/data but that's not my first question. Is there any way to run Migration Assistant to try and capture any of the data from the folders that i salavaged using DW Preview - They are effectively "standalone" folders -- so when I go to MA to find the folder they are in - it is not finding a volume to select - Hangs indefinitely ... The FW Drive containing the folder which has the salvaged stuff in it IS 250GB and mostly full -- Any other suggestions on how i can get MA to 'see' these specific folders so i can attempt to migrate info associated with apps like "Mail" that were on the old (OS 10.4) damaged HD...?


Hope this makes sense,


Thanks!


Mike

Jan 31, 2013 2:04 PM in response to MIKEinMICH

Mike, MA will only see/work for, drives it thinks are bootable with a System Folder, likely so it can tell whivh OS it is & where files are for that OS & how to handle them.


We can try Importing some things, like Bookmarks, Contacts, etc.


Or... a couple of ideas...


Make a new Admin User, log out & into the new one, then replace usr folder contents on the first admin user from the backup.


Other Idea is a little more dangerous...


Install OSX on the FW drive after putting all backedup stuff in a folder that won't get renamed... like "OldData", then replaceing user stuff on that drive.

hard drive repair question

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