The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Hard drive overheat?
Everywhereasign
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my iMac has be sluggish recently. I went to do some maintenance to try to speed things up a bit and it crashed. Multiple restarts yielded no file system (flashing question mark folder) and I couldn't hear the HD spin up when I powered on. I restarted from the OS X disks, and disk utility couldn't find my HD.
I unplugged everything to get a look at the computer and consider taking it apart myself to replace the HD. (off warranty >2 years ago) When doing that, I found the small round vent at the back completely plugged with dust.:shock:
I had no idea this vent existed, I'm an idiot. So, I cleaned the vent and let her sit overnight. This AM things seem to be working normally again. I'm in the process of doing a Verify and Repair on the disk to check for errors.
First off. I have a full backup of my HD. Time Machine successfully ran yesterday morning before all this happened. My TM external drive is sitting unplugged and powered off in a very safe place.
Disk verify just finished, claims everything is fine. I verified and repaired permissions just to make sure.
I obviously don't feel like either paying to replace the drive, or taking apart the iMac and replacing it myself if it's working fine.
So, can an HD overheat, shut it's self down and then continue working normally after it cools? Or is this indicative of a major problem that I might as well deal with now, before it happens again when I really need my computer?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Fuck me, just lost the file system again on restart. Reset PRAM and NRAM and it restarted normally. Once again seems to be working fine. I hate intermittent problems.
I unplugged everything to get a look at the computer and consider taking it apart myself to replace the HD. (off warranty >2 years ago) When doing that, I found the small round vent at the back completely plugged with dust.:shock:
I had no idea this vent existed, I'm an idiot. So, I cleaned the vent and let her sit overnight. This AM things seem to be working normally again. I'm in the process of doing a Verify and Repair on the disk to check for errors.
First off. I have a full backup of my HD. Time Machine successfully ran yesterday morning before all this happened. My TM external drive is sitting unplugged and powered off in a very safe place.
Disk verify just finished, claims everything is fine. I verified and repaired permissions just to make sure.
I obviously don't feel like either paying to replace the drive, or taking apart the iMac and replacing it myself if it's working fine.
So, can an HD overheat, shut it's self down and then continue working normally after it cools? Or is this indicative of a major problem that I might as well deal with now, before it happens again when I really need my computer?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Fuck me, just lost the file system again on restart. Reset PRAM and NRAM and it restarted normally. Once again seems to be working fine. I hate intermittent problems.
"What are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman!"
Everywhereasign on
0
Posts
Goto their website support section and find the diagnostics for that drive.
Run full diags. It'll check everything on the disk and let you know if it is truly bad.
And yes, it is possible overheating jacked the hdd, though it could very well be the motherboard having problems as well.
Oh, and I normally recommend people buy a can of compressed air and clean out their computer every time they get the oil changed in their car.
Do a full sector map on the drive, find out if there's any bad sectors that you can work around.
I'd also suggest looking at an external drive to snarf all your irretrievable data onto. Don't leave anything on the internal drive that you aren't willing to lose permanently.
Though I think iMacs are what, 3.5" SATA drives? Those are pretty damn cheap to replace now. A 1 TB internal is < $100 bucks.