What is going on with my Macbook Pro

Ok something major is going wrong with my macbook pro, i dont know where to start. A few weeks ago it started to get slow, the harddrive is usually very heavily full with mostly music so i freed up allot of space.

It did not fix anything, and things were starting to get slower, i use adium messneger and skype, sykpe started to get glitchy like i could not click the red X to close the program or minimize it i had to force quit it.

My adium would simply not start up anymore, i reinstalled the 2 of them too! and nothing. So i started to think maybe something is up with some system files or something im not that much of a techy, so i reinstalled my OSX and it got worse!

Anytime im on a website and when i type anything after a few seconds depending on which key (letters) i press the screen will either scroll to the bottom of the page or back up to the previous pages usually straight back to google everytime, i basically had to type all this out in notepad so i could post it here!

And skype does not even open now either im really worried about my machine what could this be from, i reinstalled OSX snow leopard again btw and still nothing

Please can someone help me

Shane

It sounds like your hard drive is causing the problems. The first thing I recommend before doing anything else is to make a complete backup of your hard drive. You can either use a cloning program or Time Machine. You will need an external hard drive to do either. Carbon Copy Cloner is what I use and since it's donation ware, it's free to use and just asks you to donate to the author.

After you have backed everything up, use your Snow Leopard install DVD to boot the machine. However, do not reinstall but instead click on the top menu item "Utilities" and then "Disk Utility". Highlight your hard drive on the left, then go to "First Aid" on the right and choose Verify and Repair. Let's see what it says about your hard drive.

Post back and we can go from there.

After doing what chscag mentions above, you may also want to run the SMART Utility (the free trial is all that you need) to see what your drive thinks about its own physical health.

Also note, on your System drive (the hard disk that contains your operating system), you generally don't want to have less than about 20% free space. So, if you've truly got it loaded up with music, you will likely start to see fragmentation that the OS can't clean up for itself, since it won't have the elbow room to do so.

I did what you said chscag and verified the hdd and repaired it but it reported no problems at all, so then i did what you said cwa107 and it says the hdd is failing

I have attached pictures of the problem, is there anything i can do to save this? or repair it

Nope, it's time to replace it. Fortunately, drives are relatively inexpensive and replacement on a Unibody MacBook Pro (assuming that's what it is) is not terribly difficult - especially if you have a full backup.

You should be able to find a good quality 500GB 2.5" SATA hard drive for less than $100 (probably closer to $70-80). I can point you to instructions for replacement if you can specify what model MacBook Pro you have and the approximate age. Once it's swapped, it's simply a matter of restoring your backup to the new drive and you should be good to go.

cwa107 said:

Nope, it's time to replace it. Fortunately, drives are relatively inexpensive and replacement on a Unibody MacBook Pro (assuming that's what it is) is not terribly difficult - especially if you have a full backup.

You should be able to find a good quality 500GB 2.5" SATA hard drive for less than $100 (probably closer to $70-80). I can point you to instructions for replacement if you can specify what model MacBook Pro you have and the approximate age. Once it's swapped, it's simply a matter of restoring your backup to the new drive and you should be good to go.

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My macbook pro is 2 years old, and here are some details let me know if you need anything else.

2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
memory - 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
MacBook Pro 5.2
Intel Core 2 Duo

i have everything i need already backed up, i did that 3 weeks ago when i first started to notice small problems. I also used ClamXav fro mac to do a virus scan, just incase.. (and its only half way through the scan right now) but its picked up a virus called 'Trojan.Proxy-3730, would this have anything to do with it or would this effect my machine you think?

Purchase a new hard drive locally from a retailer who stocks computer accessories. Best Buy, Fry's, Microcenter, etc. Just make sure it's SATA, 2.5" in width and 9.5 MM thick. It can be either 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM, however, I recommend 7200 RPM for best speed results. Unless of course you have the $$ to buy a nice SSD of a decent size. (256 GB or larger.)

And don't worry about Trojan.Proxy-3730 as it appears to be a Windows variant that tags on to an illegal Torrent download of a Photoshop CS5 keygen program.

chscag said:

Purchase a new hard drive locally from a retailer who stocks computer accessories. Best Buy, Fry's, Microcenter, etc. Just make sure it's SATA, 2.5" in width and 9.5 MM thick. It can be either 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM, however, I recommend 7200 RPM for best speed results. Unless of course you have the $$ to buy a nice SSD of a decent size. (256 GB or larger.)

And don't worry about Trojan.Proxy-3730 as it appears to be a Windows variant that tags on to an illegal Torrent download of a Photoshop CS5 keygen program.

Click to expand...

Beat me to it.

I recommend a Hitachi 7K500. I've been using one in both my current MacBook Pro and my 2008 model and it's been EXCELLENT. Silent, fast and cool.

Hitachi 0A72335 500GB 2.5" Travelstar 7K500 7200RPM... in stock at OWC

Installation videos here:

OWC Video Installation Guides for memory, hard drives, SSDs, and more...

thanks so much for the advise, do you think i would be ok to try and install this hdd myself, i have seen a few videos on you tube it does not look complicated, just keep myself earthed and be careful.

Thanks again

Shane

It's really very simple. Just make sure you have a good precision screwdriver set (you'll need #00 phillips bits, as I recall) and make sure you keep track of the screws as you take the bottom panel off. If you're not handy with a screw driver, find a friend who is. It's not that big of a deal, you just have to pay attention and allow yourself time.

cwa107 said:

It's really very simple. Just make sure you have a good precision screwdriver set (you'll need #00 phillips bits, as I recall) and make sure you keep track of the screws as you take the bottom panel off. If you're not handy with a screw driver, find a friend who is. It's not that big of a deal, you just have to pay attention and allow yourself time.

Click to expand...

Can you get one of them Hitachi harddrives 1TB in size for my machine?

Shanez said:

Can you get one of them Hitachi harddrives 1TB in size for my machine?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure. There are few laptop hard drives in 1TB size, some of them are thicker (12.5mm) drives and that may create some concerns with clearance in your machine.

The OWC site has some good video tutorials on replacing a hard drive.

well i suppose i dont really need a 1TB drive? i can just get more externals