Disk Repair (Frequently)

Hi Guys

I have just joined the macforums, so here is my problem and need advice from experts.

I have been using macbook white for the two years and never had any problems with it. I recently (5 months) bought an imac 21in 500gb and 4gig ram, OSX 10.6.3. It was defaulted with 10.6.2 when i switched it one.

So i didn't do any updates for a while and my mac was taking too long to boot. so recently started to download updates via software update program after the release of 10.6.5. I use to get update errors and later figured out that i need to download and install 10.6.3 & 10.6.4 (combo) separately.

However i read some notes on the forums that imac taking too long to boot and did a disk verification and it said disk needs to be repaired so i booted with OSX DVD and ran the repair via utilities, all of a sudden my imac is booting fast like my mackbook. Again after a week it started to boot slow and ran the disk verification and it said desk needs to be repaired.

I mean why would it do this all the time as its a new mac

You can try a "nuke and pave," meaning you clone the iMac's hard drive (clone not copy) to an external, test that the clone is bootable and nothing is missing, then erase the original drive (zero it out), then clone back.

If the drive slows down again anytime soon after that, I would say its a sign that the hard drive is starting to break down and should be replaced.

Agree with chas.

Pertaining to updating - if you use software update, it will find and install the updates in order if you're not installing them when they come out.

If you go and manually download any "combo" update, you do not need to install the older updates first.

You should be keeping your machine up to date. Those updates contain bug fixes, patches to security holes that have been discovered, etc.

thanks for the post, will try it out tonight and let you all know.