pointer and screen lockup

[birch17dog]

On a random basis my 21.5" iMac goes into a screen lockup with the pointer disappearing.I have tried "safe start" and downloaded the latest apple mavericks version software.
Can anyone advise my next move please.

 

[chscag]

Try booting to recovery (command + r) and use Disk Utility from Utilities to verify the hard drive. Let's see what it says and we can go from there.

 

[birch17dog]

chscag,many thanks for the response and advice.I have rebooted etc and had error message "The volume MACINTOSH HD has found corrupt files and needs to be repaired". I selected "Repair disc" to be shown another error message "Incorrect number of extended attributes should be 371839 instead of 371833. I selected repair disc next error "Invalid map mode. The repair continued until "The volume MACINTOSH HD was repaired successfully.I did a Restart, I hope this is successful. thank you again.

 

[Slydude]

If I were you I would make sure to have regular backups. Those errors are not automatically an indication that the drive is going to fail but better safe than sorry. Drives experience errors from time to time. Sometimes they continue performing well after being corrected sometimes they do not. I've had it go both ways.

 

[chscag]

@birch17dog

Great advice from Slydude. Your iMac has a Seagate proprietary hard drive which has been known to be troublesome. I also owned the same 21.5" model that came with a Seagate drive and it failed during the second year of usage. Lucky that I had bought Apple Care and the genius bar replaced it with a Western Digital. I have since given the machine to my grand daughter for school and it's still going strong.

 

[birch17dog]

Good advice from you both - chscag and sly dude many thanks.