08-27-2010, 09:48 PM

Hi There, wasn't sure weather to put this in hardware or software since i'm not sure what the problem is yet. I'm working on a 2.1ghz intel imac. 20" with the white enclosure. Searched around, but cant find any solutions to my particular problem. Whenever I turn it on, it loads the desktop background, dock, and a finder window. Sometimes i have a cursor for a few seconds, sometimes not, but either way i can never click on anything. No desktop icons ever load, and after no more than 15 seconds, everything goes back to a blue screen and the desktop and finder reloads. This loop just goes on forever with anywhere between 2 and 30 seconds between each cycle. I'm never able to click or do anything. If I boot in safe mode, each cycle it just adds another step and makes me actually log in with my password. I've reset smu and pram. Don't have stuffit in the bottom of my preferences panel, so this usual fix for this issue doesn't apply. Booted with the install disk and ran disk utilites, repaired disk and permissions, still no luck. My main concern is getting all my files onto an external drive I have, but i've had no luck with that either, couldn't create an image. Now, when booting from the install cd, i cant even get disk utilities to start anymore. I'm starting to suspect a hardware issue now, but just don't know for sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

-Mark

08-27-2010, 10:46 PM

Welcome to Mac-Forums!

Almost every indicator you've provided (well done for that) seems to point to a failing hard drive. Since the StuffIt AVR issue doesn't apply to your situation, you should probably resort to Disk Warrior. If it can't repair your HD, you're really left with no option but to replace the HD. Data recovery? Maybe.

08-29-2010, 07:59 PM

Yep, something is goofy with the hard drive. I removed it from the mac and put it in an external drive enclosure to see if i could get any info from it. When i hook it up, the drive spins up to speed and everything sounds normal. The drive doesn't show in finder, but is listed in disk utilities. If I try to create an image of it, i get an error message right away. Tried the seagate data recovery/ disk utility program with the same results. Do the PCB's on hard drives ever go bad? If i got another circuit board from the exact same model drive and put it on, could that possibly solve my problem? This is my first time having to work on a hard drive issue, learning quite a bit though.

Since this has been determined to be a hardware issue, a mod or admin might want to move this thread out of the software forum.

08-30-2010, 12:13 AM

PCB's are not often the cause of drive failure - but I guess it could be an interesting exercise trying to replace one!

I'd say it's damaged boot blocks on the HD, and the reader heads can't get past them. They might be repairable, but only with Disk Warrior, which is rather expensive @ US$100. It's the best repair utility available, but for that you pay a premium price.

[PS. to get the thread moved, PM a Mod individually.]

08-30-2010, 12:54 AM

I was just advised that if the particular disk is actually showing up somewhere, its probably not the pcb. The exact firmware version of my pcb was pretty hard to find also, so i might not have had any luck doing that anyways. Super simple to switch them if i had the right one though. Might bite the bullet and try that disk warrior. Might be able to make the money back by helping out some friends with bad drives eventually. Thanks a ton for your help so far.

08-31-2010, 12:35 AM

Bought Diskwarrior, but the drive wont show up in the menu where you select the drive. It shows up in disk utility, but not finder. Any suggestions? I hope I didn't just spend $100 for nothing.

09-01-2010, 01:58 AM

Originally Posted by 84Marquis

Bought Diskwarrior, but the drive wont show up in the menu where you select the drive. It shows up in disk utility, but not finder. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately, it reads like the HD is gone. If DW couldn't resurrect it, I know of no other Utility that can. You can take the HD to a data recovery technician to see if your valued material can be extracted, but don't get your hopes high.

I hope I didn't just spend $100 for nothing.

No way! As you say, your possession of DW may prove to be a boon for others who have hardware problems, and you can recover the purchase cost in the process!

Good luck.

09-07-2010, 02:19 AM

Success! Put the drive in the second slot in a powermac g5 and used a program called data rescue 2 to clone it onto an external drive (the powermac was to old to run data rescue 3, but i actually liked 2 better than 3). The drive cloned fine, and all the files are on the new drive safely. Thanks for the help!