Dying Hard Drive?

My old iMac G4 (running OS 10.4) has been running sluggishly with sporadic freezes & "spinning pizzas" for several months. I launched Disk Utility which displayed the following message "SMART: failing".

I attempted to restart the iMac but it would freeze immediately after the "gong". I was, however, able to restart from the install CD. I attempted to run Repair Permissions which froze. I ran Repair Disk which reported that "volume cannot be repaired because of an error".

I restarted from the Disk Warrior CD. The hardware test indicated that "the built-in SMART indicated everything is normal".

Is this all indicative of an internal drive that is behaving unpredictably & about to die?

Thank you for any help.

Yes sadly it is kitjv. Time for another hard drive.

Make sure you back up your files sooner rather than later. You never know when that thing is going to drop dead completely.

The good news is that I did a backup last week.

I also ran all of the diagnostics from both Disk Warrior & TechToolPro. No unrepairable problems. All hardware tests passed. In fact, both DW & TTP noted that SMART "verified" the disk.

Nevertheless, I still cannot restart from the internal drive.

Something's definitely wrong with it. I suggest you take the safe road and get a new one. That was it won't quit on you while you really need your computer.

Further investigation all points to a dead internal drive. I might just put a new drive in if I can think of a reason to keep the machine.

I ordered a new iMac this morning.

That is always the question - $100 or so to keep a G4 up and running. Put it up on eBay or similar stating questionable hard drive, after you wipe it.

Putting a new drive in a G4 is sort of like keeping a doomed patient on life support.

Well kitjv that view depends ~~ on whether or not you are the patient lol!

Good point, mate. In this case, I'm not.