OS X :: Dreaded WD External HD Click Of Doom
Feb 4, 2010
Click.
Click.
Click.
I'm sure many of you have witnessed it, and tonight, so have I. My WD external just bit the dust, after slightly over 2 years. It could be worse, I guess-- it could have been my iMac's internal that keeled over. The only things I "lost" were some m4v's I Handbraked from my collection for my nano, and I can re-Handbrake the ones that aren't on my nano. I also lost some music projects I was working on that were on the Windows partition, but for the most part I can recover them from elsewhere. (My Time Machine files are gone, of course, but I never really used it to recover anything-- it was just for peace of mind.)
Two questions:
1. My AppleCare doesn't cover attached peripherals, and the WD is past its own warranty period. Do you think it's worth attempting to take the drive out and attempting to recover using another machine?
2. Obviously, I'm picking up a replacement this weekend. Any under-$200 suggestions? (One other stipulation: Must have FW800.)
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Dec 2, 2010
today I just upgraded my stock Macbook hard drive to a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB 7200 RPM drive, and I upgraded the stock RAM to 8GB of DDR3 1333. After the upgrade, everything worked smoothly. And freaking screamed out frames on Wolfenstein and Devil May Cry 4 in Boot Camp! Barely dropped under 50 FPS on high settings. It was a beautiful thing When I quit Wolfenstein, and rebooted using the Windows menu, OSX was starting up normally. Then a grey progress bar loaded up and took about five minutes to fill. I should also mention that the Wolenstein disc was still in the drive when this happened, in case that's in any way relevant. I wondered what was wrong, so I restarted from the Apple Menu and got it again. And then a third time. So now I'm making a full backup onto my external drive. In case it's a failing hard drive like most of the stuff I found from googling and searching on here said it was, if the progress bar showed up numerous times. And I'm writing this question in the hope that someone highly competent answers. I really know my hardware stuff, I have my A+ certification for my job and a computer science and engineering degree from CMU i honestly barely use, this is just a problem I haven't ever encountered before. Could anyone shed some light on exactly why the bar is showing up for me, and how I can fix it?
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Dec 6, 2010
1st Gen. MacBook Air, 1.6, 80gb HD. 31 months old.
In the last day or two my MBA has started making a clicking, fluttering sound. I thought it might have been the fan, either dust or lint build up. Popped the bottom off, cleaned the fan, and the sound is still there. While holding it over my head, I noticed that the sound seems to be coming from the area of the hard drive.
Here's a recording-
[URL]
I use Time Machine, and nightly full Carbon Copy backups, so I'm not too worried about data loss. Just wondering if I should make a Genius appt. ASAP, or if this will wait for a bit.
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Aug 14, 2010
About once a month I have a problem where the machine won't boot and I get the blinking question mark icon on the screen. I've read lots (and lots) of posts about this, all which say that the hard drive is dead or something similar. Disk Utility and Drive Warrior sometimes see no disk and sometimes see a disk that reports a 0 byte capacity. The thing is, it has always come back. The typical pattern is that nothing I do seems to help. Eventually I've tried all the standard things (safe mode, pram reset, etc), rebooted it a bunch and then walk away for a few hours. Nothing seems to work immediately, but if I leave it alone it comes back. What gives? In case it matters I've got an iMac 20" (?), intel duo 2.8 GHz with a 500 GB WD drive. I used to think the problem might be heat related, but I recently had to leave the machine off for a week in this state and when I returned the problem persisted.
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Feb 25, 2009
Ive had my Imac for about 9 months and havnt had any issues with it until the past 2 months. The first issue was that i would leave it running for the day and i would restart and get the flashing folder issue. I would then go through all the appropriate steps- unplugging from the power source for 45 seconds +, try booting it with the OSX cd in, ect. At first these steps worked. The next issue i had was a power outage. I followed the same procedure when i went to start my imac up again (mind you it was within 10-15 minutes of it being turned off) and these steps did nothing and the flashing question marked folder appeared every time. I called Apple support and after 2 hours they insisted that it was a faulty hard drive. I let the imac sit for the rest of the day and before i went to bed i decided to give it one more shot. It booted up just fine.
Ive come to the conclusion that im only getting the boot error when it has been running for long periods of time and that the casing feels hot when i try restart. I was wondering if you guys could let me know if my theory of over heating causing the boot error is correct, and if so is there anything i can do myself to help correct the problem? I really want to avoid going to a mac store because its so far away from my location.
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May 13, 2009
My dad has a black macbook with an intel processor, 2.0 Gigahertz processor and 2 GB of RAM. When he tries to shutdown he gets the spinning beach of doom. What should we try to fix it?
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Jun 29, 2009
Anyone who knows anyone from anywhere is aware of the fact that finger oils + laptops = eventual doom. Lets face it, an oily keyboard or trackpad is disgusting and makes you not ever want to touch the computer. Also, it makes potential buyers of the system you are selling think twice before buying from you.
I wash my hands and do all the basic hygiene stuff, but its an undeniable fact that eventually finger oil (or face oil depending on how you use your computer I guess) will get on your stuff. For my Macbook Pro (early 2008) I use a iSkin keyboard cover, so the keyboard looks brand new. The downside to the cover is that it touches the screen when the laptop is shut so those oils translate to the display and it needs to be cleaned quite a bit, but thats easy. The trackpad is getting a little slick feeling, which is a bummer because from what I understand, this is irreversible.
On my Macbook Air I use the Moshi keyboard cover which is nice because of how thin it is but cumbersome at times. I have nothing on the trackpad and am dreading the day that new trackpad feel goes away.
So how do you fellow MacRumorites combat the oils?
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Sep 28, 2010
I have a 13" macbook purchased 2007 just out of the extended protection plan this summer. Last night while watching a video in full screen it froze with the beach ball for over 20 minutes with no sign of stopping. I had my external WD drive hooked up which is my iTunes drive (only). I had to manually shutdown the computer (with external still hooked up) After trying to reboot I got the flashing question mark and continue to get it no matter what I do.
I've removed the external drive, reset the PRAM, tried booting in safe mode, tried booting from installation disc but my hard drive doesn't even appear in disk utility. Not sure what else I can try as nothing has worked.
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Aug 30, 2009
I haven't upgraded yet but I was wondering if anyone could provide some feedback concerning the EFI 1.7 update and SL. #1. Is there anyone here who had installed the EFI 1.7 update, experienced those dreaded HDD issues and has now updated to SL? If you did have you noticed any changes? #2. Is there anyone who hasn't taken the EFI 1.7 plunge and recently installed SL? If you did was the update forced upon upgrade and have you noticed any issues?
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Oct 15, 2009
I got the 3 dreaded blinking lights on a PowerMac G5 dual 1.8ghz. Turns out the memory is OK but it's the physical slots that are screwy.I found that applying pressure to one of the banks gets it to boot with no problem but then I remove that pressure and the Mac freezes .
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Mar 7, 2012
My Mail application and all associated mailboxes have the dreaded triangle sign with the exclamation point in it. I can't send or receive mail in any of the mailboxes although AOL works through the AOL website. It happened while I was sending an EPS file to someone. They received it but I'm dead in the water since then. Any help available? I checked all my setting snad they appear to be right on.
Info:
Mail, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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May 2, 2012
It started only recently. I don't have any new software installation. I was trying to upload my resume to dice. I clicked on the choose file and boom! The finder window came up and the so did the spinning ball. I force quit safari - everytime.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Version 5.1.5
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Aug 7, 2009
How hard is it to replace the hard drive? I have a disaster recovery company step up to get all my info off of it if they can. But I really don't want to spend the money to have someone pull out the HD and put a new one in if I can do it myself. I have experience building pc towers but I haven't ever pulled apart an iMAC. Its an iMac 23(or 24) inch from Dec 2007 (I don't have the model info on hand as the box is in storage).
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Apr 17, 2010
Macbook Pro 15". Product #: Z0GG
Backstory: Sunday the updates window popped up so I let it run and reboot. Boot screen is stuck on the white screen with apple logo and spinning icon. None of the typical hotkeys were working like the Shift key to go to Safe Mode. I decided to resinstall Snow Leopard which went perfectly fine since I was able to boot off of the Install DVD. Everything seemed fine after the install and I had all of my previous programs and files.
It worked fine all day yesterday until I shut the lid to leave work. I got home, opened the lid and the spinning mouse icon was continuously spinning. I could move the mouse but couldn't click anything. I shut it down using the power button. Upon booting it up I did not hear the boot up sound but a white screen displayed and didn't do anything from there. I rebooted it again, inserted the Snow Leopard DVD to try and boot off of that and it won't even boot off of the DVD. None of the typical hotkeys work either, not even to eject the DVD. I do hear the DVD spinning up but it doesn't do anything; just a white screen.
I did reset the PRAM which forced it to reboot and I got the startup sound back but it still only shows a white screen. Any ideas? I forgot to purchase Apple Care last month before my 1 year warranty ran out so I'm 1.5 months out of that.
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Dec 30, 2010
I am trying to format a clickfree external hard drive, but disk utility cannot do it. I even tried one partition, but it doesn't work either. It was formerly used on Vista or XP (unsure). It includes a virtual cdrom partition that is about 300MB. No matter what I do (format or partition), I cannot get this drive clean. I want to make it an external drive for time machine backups. Is there any way I can get rid of this virtual cdrom, and actually wipe the drive clean, so it will work 100% on a Mac (without this annoying error message that the virtual cdrom drive cannot be read on a Mac - it asks whether I want to ignore or eject). The website is bare with facts/help about this. It says that OS X is supported, but I cannot format the damn drive. Here is a screenshot. I just want to format the entire drive and have one partition (250GB drive) to use for backups: [URL:...] Are there any other tools that will do this job, since Disk Utility cannot?
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Jun 6, 2010
I just got an external LaCie DVD burner (long story). It works great, but as of right now I can apparently only eject it by right-click > eject or drag it to the "trash." Is there any way to allow me to just use the button on the drive or tie it to the eject button on the keyboard when it's connected, or even another key command like Opt-Eject?
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Jun 7, 2012
I have a 1TB GTech GRaid external hard drive, which seems to have gone on the blink. When I start it up it spins into action but then following a small clicking sound winds back down again. It then spins up again, and then with a click winds back down again. This goes on and on and on. What is the best way of hooking up the internals of this drive directly to the Mac Pro? Or is there a better option to start the drive as it stands, without having to open it up?
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Apr 25, 2009
Last week or so my Mac (10.3 or 10.4, I think, was the model.) froze up while I was surfing the web. I clicked all over the place, let it sit for fifteen minutes, and came back to find nothing had changed. After shutting it off with that little button on the tower you're not supposed to use to shut it off (but it was frozen, so..) and leaving it to sit for another five or six minutes, I came back and turned it on. That's where I had issues. It only boots up to that gray screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel that means it's loading (lies. It never does. I thought it might just be slow so i left it like that for an hour; came back, still there.), and then it just stays there.
Now, I looked on the web for some suggestions and tried the stuff here: [URL] and went some other places that told me I needed some system CD that I don't have. Also, I looked on here and found someone with a similar problem (computer froze, turned it off, turned it on, got stuck on screen with apple and spinning wheel), and they told them to try something with the CD. They didn't have one either, and no one really commented after that. Does that mean I'm seriously up a creek with fixing my computer? I've left it unplugged for a few days at a time, too, just in case it needed some serious cooling down time, but nothing happened then, either. I'm not very computer savvy, but my Mac's future looks pretty bleak.
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May 14, 2012
I had the dreaded blue screen a week ago, thanks to a bit of research here I booted from disk, then disk utility, permisions and then finally a reinstall.but now unfortunatly I seem to have a shadow or some kind of screen burn for lack of better words on the bottom left side of my 27" LED imac Â
Info:
Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Mar 13, 2009
My workflow entails repetitive tasks that would be so much easier if I could set Leopard's (Safari's) default double-click functionality to select ALL text within the Google search box instead of having to use a triple-click. Does anyone know how to make this change to Leopard/Safari?
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Aug 9, 2010
I had to dissassemble my wireless Mighty Mouse to clean it properly, as the trackball was unable to scroll up and down. As I had cleaned the trackball, I attached the two internal cables to their respective "slots" again and assembled the mouse.
Now my right button does the same as the left button (right click = left click). I tried dissassembling the mouse again, but I cannot see what I could have done wrong. After all, there are only two cables to attach and de-attach inside it.
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Feb 12, 2007
I just bought a mighty mouse, happy as I was, plugged it in and started my ibook running OS X 10.3.9.I know the mighty mouse shouldn't have full functionality (as the software delivered with it is >10.4.2).The problem is that the right click doesn't work right. When I try to right click it sometimes takes the right click, sometimes takes it as a left click (which is extremely annoying in firefox or finder).
I have SteerMouse (I'm a windows/linux user too) installed but when I de�nstalled it the problem remained.
When I plugged the mighty mouse in my pc (at that time running windows) right click just worked.When using a cheap mouse (from pleomax) the right click on the ibook (with Steermouse installed) works all the time.
I find this al really confusing. Seems like it can't be the hardware because it works on windows, but it can't be the software because another mouse does work.
I noticed that when right clicking at the total right side near the "expose-button" (not a position my fingers lay naturally) right click works all the time. I don't hope this is normal?
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Apr 20, 2012
I'll try and click on a link and nothing, then I click bookmrks in the menu bar, it works, then i can go back and be to click on the link and it'll work.
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Jan 16, 2010
Is the right click noise supposed to sound different to the left click? Mine does, is that normal?
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May 3, 2009
so for some reason i cant click on my icons, u know the Macintosh HD and folders on desktop. Basically icant click on anything on the desktop and i cant drag anything to the desktop but i can drag things to the trash. everything else is clickable except anything on the desktop
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Aug 26, 2008
I click shut down and nothing happens.
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Jan 31, 2009
I'm not able to right click in any method I've tried. I installed the Windows 7 Build 7000 64 iso file. I'm using the unibody aluminum Macbook 2gig. This is my first Mac so please forgive me if I'm being an idiot. I installed the BootCamp64 from the OS X DVD without a problem but since I can't right click I wasn't able to install it as an admin. I also downloaded the newest version from apple directly. I tried following everything in this link : [URL] I can't use the two finger method as that just acts like a single finger. I can't use the control-click option as that does nothing. I've tried Shift-F10 and that does nothing. I even found a program written 3 years ago, [URL] let me do the control-click but I can't get the optino to run anything as an admin so it isn't a fully functional right click. Does anyone have a clue what I've done wrong? Oh and I am able to use a two finger movement on the trackpad to scroll up and down, so that part of the track pad is working after the boot camp64 ran. I'm also able to use all of the function keys.
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Sep 11, 2009
I updated to 10.6.1 last night...ever since then, I've noticed that tap-to-click seems to be much less responsive, if that makes sense. I guess it seems less sensitive, in that before it never "missed" a click when I tapped my finger anywhere on the trackpad. Now it seems like I'm tapping 2-3 times to get it to recognize. Has anyone else noticed this? There is no where to adjust the sensitivity, and since I am a big use of this feature I'm finding it really, really annoying.
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Nov 29, 2009
I'm always reading/hearing people say/telling people to right click. But Macs only have one button. And "Control click" or "Two-finger click" sounds really wanky.
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Jun 21, 2010
i've been having a problem with my iMac that i just noticed recently. when i click on the desktop it used to make the finder my active application and would let me right click for the context menu with add folder etc. but i noticed the other day that it no longer does this. i don't know if i've disabled it somehow or if there's some kind of bug/glitch going on.
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