Drive Failing

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Hello. I have been hearing a nasty sound coming from my iMac (1.7ghz, i5, 4gb 27" Mid 2010, OS X 10.6.8). Reading the forums has me concerned as to how best to proceed. Large activity spikes in drive activity. Definitely sounds/seems like a HD issue. From DIsk Utility I am getting the following: The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Also this: Error: This disk needs to be repaired...then use disk utility to repair this disk.

Dusk utility is suggesting that I start my cpu with another disk such as the Mac OSX instal disc. Problem with this is I do not have one/may have lost it.

I am wondering at this point what I should do. I have been backing up using TM so I believe my data/files to be safe. Can I clone using CCC or Super Disk to create a bootable disk? Also, if so can I clone to the external drive that I am using for my TM backups (this is all assuming that I can "fix" my internal drive).

I'm confused as to the best way to proceed

Thanks for the help.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2019 iMac 27"; 2020 M1 MacBook Air; macOS up-to-date... always.
If you want to be more definitively sure your drive is failing, check my advice found here:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os...o-much-space-used-hard-drive.html#post1372971

You can clone the drive if you like, but be aware that doing so may cause the drive to fail, and you are cloning a drive that likely has a lot of corrupt files. There's ultimately no harm in doing so since you have Time Machine backups, so knock yourself out. However, I would not clone that back to the replacement drive. Plan on reinstalling OS X from scratch and migrate your data from the Time Machine backup.

And yes, you could clone to the Time Machine drive if it has adequate space. Actually I would not clone to the drive, but clone to a disk image (dmg). Cloning to the drive would wipe out your Time Machine backups. Be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN you know what you are doing though. Mess that up, and you may wind up with no sound backups.

EDIT: BTW… if the drive checks out after testing it per my tips, then obviously you have something else going on that needs investigating.
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
For starters go into Disk Utility, select the drive and see what S.M.A.R.T.Status has to say concerning Verified or Failing. If failing time for a new drive. As cloning may cause the drive to collapse be prepared to spend $29 at Apple Online for a new Snow Leopard disc.
 
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Thanks for the reply. The SMART status said veified, but DU came back with the errors listed above. If I have wipe and load an OS would it make sense to go with Lion? I've been holding off for the same reason many others have.

Thanks again
 

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