Wow! Another Spinning Wheel???

[TattooedMac]

Ok, you win. Windows is an excellent product that does not crash often. Sorry I argued.

Its not so much you argued, its just the statements you put forward, doesnt really help the OP.
Telling him its useless and crashes and ruins life isnt the answer he is looking for

 

[cwa107]

Thanks, that was simple! I know this will eliminate my annoyance concerning spotlight searches. I hope it will eliminate my beach ball issue as well. Only time will tell.

I think so. When I first installed Snow Leopard, I had an intermittent issue with prolonged beachballs. At first, I thought it was related to Paragon NTFS for Mac. But soon after that, I started to notice that the 'mds' process was what was pegging the system. So, I booted off my Leopard backup and took a look at the Spotlight configuration. Sure enough, I had the Boot Camp partition excluded (as well as the Firefox cache). Once I did that on Snow Leopard, problems solved.

 

[AutoAustin]

Personally I have not had THAT many problems with the Windows OS. While I;m getting used to the Mac OS X, and sad to say I'm liking it more thus far, I am still a partial fan to Windows. I believe it is all in how you use it.

My 2cents

 

[cwa107]

Thanks for your post. I think we have had enough Mac vs. Windows threads here over time though, so let's not let it go too far off track.

 

[OnceYouGoMac]

sorry

 

[TattooedMac]

sorry

Is all good mate, we are one big happy family here ;P

 

[investinchad]

Well, I'm glad we all kissed and made up.

If there are more ideas for me to try while I wait to see if the spotlight trick works, I am all ears.

 

[cwa107]

Well, I'm glad we all kissed and made up.

If there are more ideas for me to try while I wait to see if the spotlight trick works, I am all ears.

This thread, while old, can be quite handy as well...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

 

[investinchad]

This thread, while old, can be quite handy as well...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

CWA107, that's a really good read! I appreciate the link. I've completed and repeated half of the task that was on the list. I'm a little hesitant on carrying out the rest without waiting to see if by executing some of the minor maintenance task would already solve the issue.

 

[cwa107]

CWA107, that's a really good read! I appreciate the link. I've completed and repeated half of the task that was on the list. I'm a little hesitant on carrying out the rest without waiting to see if by executing some of the minor maintenance task would already solve the issue.

Excellent. I take it that you haven't had the problem since?

 

[investinchad]

I have yet to put a heavy load on it...but so far so good. Initially it was a random issue. It occurred more frequent recently. I will report back in a day or two.

 

[investinchad]

This thread, while old, can be quite handy as well...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

You should make this thread a sticky somewhere?

 

[cwa107]

You should make this thread a sticky somewhere?

There is one in fact - it's in the OS X - Operating System forum.

 

[investinchad]

I'm back! Unfortunately so did the problem. Yesterday I had to perform a "hard shutdown." I only had Safari open with a few tabs and was using Finder when the famous colorful beach ball reappeared for almost an hour before the force shutdown.

Disk Utility tells me that the HDD cannot be repair. I popped in the app CD and did an extended hardware test. The result confirmed that there is an issue with the drive.

The nearest Apple store is over an hour drive so they are sending a prepaid shipping box for me.

I have two questions. I have a PC desktop and would like to perform the "Target Disk Mode" to extract personal data before shipping it to Apple. I could enter the mode just fine but it requires a fire wire connection which my PC does not have. First question, is there an alternative connection?

Second question, should I remove the Zagg Invisible Shield before shipping it? I don't want them to assume that it was the cause of malfunction and void the warranty.

 

[cwa107]

I don't believe you can do Target Disk Mode with a non-Mac.

What I would do this is this - use SuperDuper to make a full backup of your hard drive. Then, boot off the System Discs to get into Disk Utility and zero out the bad drive so that your bad drive does not have any data (you never know who's hands it will fall into).

I would imagine the Invisible Shield won't be a problem.

 

[investinchad]

I have a backup on my TC. Thanks for the tip on clearing it using Disk Utility.

 

[cwa107]

Here's an explanation of the "zero out" and other options in Disk Utility.

Mac OS X 10.4: About Disk Utility's secure erase options

Just to clarify, you'll boot the machine from the System Disc 1 disc. Once it boots up, you'll need to start the installation process by hitting OK in the first prompt. At while, point, it should allow you to access the pull-down menus. Once you're able to do this, launch Disk Utility from the Tools menu (I think it's Tools, might be Utilities). Then you can use Disk Utility to do the secure erase.

If you're not uber-paranoid, a single pass will be fine. If you have something that's highly sensitive and you're afraid the NSA might put someone on the case to dredge data from your disk, then go with the 3 or 7 pass, just be prepared to wait a very, very long time (days).

 

[investinchad]

Apple repair process was flawless. I believe I've just experience an A+ top notch customer service. Absolutely perfect from the first phone call to the day my MBP was shipped back. The tech was even nice enough to provide tech assistance despite going over the 90 days comp. service.

Called on Monday. Empty shipping box arrived at my door step the next morning. Prepaid overnight shipping was sent on Wednesday. Tech received it the next day. Friday morning I was back up and running with a new HDD.

So far all is well. No worries though, Apple's got my back!

Since I'm keeping this MBP for the long haul I will now buy Applecare.

By the way, CWA, thanks for all your help.