IMac :: Hard Drive Spins Up - Crunches A Bit And Power Down Again
May 1, 2010
I've noticed recently that when my imac is sleeping it's HDD spins up, crunches a bit like it does and then power down again. The screen and everything else is off, just the HDD comes on. Does anyone know what this could be? It's happened a couple of times in the last week. It's the Seagate drive BTW.
My friend gave me his old Apple cube G4 + 15" Cinema display in like 1000 pieces. Its completely teared apart. I tried a lot, but it doesn't work. The original IDE cable wasn't included, so I bought one for 2 cents. It should work or not? Maybe the powersupply. I'm not sure. I don't believe actually that the hardware itself, like the motherboard is broken. When everything is into place and I connect the cube to the powersupply it boots immediately. I don't have to do anything. Harddrive spins and the superdrive makes some noise as well. This repeats itself every 5 seconds. The screen is connected and gets power through DVI, but no display. Both the cube and display have touch enabled buttons to switch it on, but they do not respond (I guess).. Motherboard gives 2 light. DS1 is green, DS2 is red.
Why does the internal hard drive in my MacBook Pro spin up at seemingly random times? The activity monitor shows high data rates to and from the drive.
So my girlfriend boss wanted me to fix her computer. So I brought it home turned it on, and it didnt chime but it booted to the gray screen with apple logo/ slashed circle/and folder with a "?" So I made a USB Mac OS x bootable drive (FLASH) held down alt (try using a windows keyboard its fun) was able to select option and install a fresh copy. all seemed well was running really hot so I poped of the screen. HOLY MOLY! this thing is CAKED with dust, and I am not kidding it has literally piles of dust. So I ran updates, and did firmware updates. Turned it off for the night. Â
The next morning I went to radio shack and got Dust remove spray, opened it up made sure I was carful taking off the screen, and blew the sucker out. now its NICE and CLEAN. then i made sure I plugged everything in and turned it on. Drive spun like normal, Optical checked for a CD, and fans are also running normally. but no chime, no nothing stays as silent as normal but doesnt budge, it is like it hangs. Â
So I have an external hard drive hooked up to my MBP via USB. I've noticed that every now and then (maybe every half hour or hour?) the drive spins up. It's actually really annoying, as the drive makes a loud sound as it spins up.
I can't figure out why it does this; the drive spins up and then goes back idle. Time machine is DISABLED, spotlight index on the drive is DISABLED as well. I use the drive solely for storing movies/music. There are NO applications installed on it. The only apps I have open are finder/preview/safari/firefox/adium/itunes. My guess is that some process is trying to access the drive for whatever reason now and then.
I have a LaCie 320 GB external hdd (USB 2.0) that worked perfectly until last night. Now it won't mount when I connect it to my computer, nor can I see it in Disk Utility. Disk Warrior can't see it either. I tried connecting it to my roommate's MBP with no luck.
It spins up just fine and doesn't make any clicking noises or anything like that, so I feel like there might just be some hope yet; I'm thinking it might just be a faulty USB cable or something, but I don't have a spare one to try it with.
A while back I was running low on hard disk space so decided to upgrade my hard drive. Went ahead and upgraded to 320Gb. Then after some time, I noticed that the hard drive was making a large spinning noise so I thought it was a bad drive and RMA'd it. I just recently got the new drive and installed it and the drive was making that same loud spinning noise. Now I'm frustrated with this and want to get to the end of it. I'm thinking it might be the rubbers are out of place that holds the drive.
My hard drive crashed after about a year and a half. So I bought a new one and installed it myself. When I turn on my mac now and hold C with the install disk in the drive it just spins for a while below the apple and then goes to the gray please restart your computer screen.
I have a 2008 Mac Pro with the original OSX drive and then two other hard drives, one I use for Boot Camp/Fusion and the other for my work files. Under Energy Save in system preferences, I have it so that the drives will sleep whenever possible. The issue I'm having is one of the drives, I think the one with my work files, will wake from sleep every 15 minutes or so even if I'm not accessing any of the files. I haven't timed it exactly but it's around 15-20 minutes and happens throughout the day. What is causing the drive to wake? I disabled iStat Pro because before the drives would spin every time I checked my dashboard so that's not the problem anymore.
I put it on Craig's list so wanted to wipe the drive and figure I'd play around with OS 9 a little just for fun. While in OS 9 it prompted me to upgrade the firmware on the DVD-ROM drive. I thought that sounded like a good idea since it makes some terrible noises when a disc is in... anyway, I did the firmware upgrade and everything went fine. That's the only real change I can think of that might have contributed to this new issue.Anyway, after that I put 10.3 on it again (I had 10.4 on it before) and it wouldn't sleep correctly. Everything looks like its going to sleep ok, then the hard drive spins up, then back down, over and over again endlessly.
I am enjoying my Time Capsule and have kept it in front of me for the last week to see how it behaves. I have noticed that when I attach my other external hard drive to it it will behave exactly like the Time Capsule. By this I mean that after 2 minutes of inactivity they will both spin down but when it is backup time in an hour both will start up simultaneously and my attached external hard drive will get to speed and instantly shut off again while the TC does it's thing. My questions are, can this be stopped and why is it doing this? Surely it would not spin up the external drive along with the TC as spinning it up 12 times a day isn't doing the external drive any favors...
I have two user accounts. On my one account (the main one) Safari works fine but on the other account just today it started loading real slow. then once it finally pops up with the home apple screen and you click anything, the wheel spins and spins for like 3 min then safari quits unexpectedly. When i click to report to apple and then send it, again the wheel spins for a long time and then it says it was unable to send to apple please check internet connection and try again. But, there is nothing wrong with my internet connection because if i switch to my other account internet works just fine!
I have a 2009 MacPro with an OS/apps main drive, and internal Data drive, and Firewire external backup drive. Time Machine points to the backup drive (partitioned for main and data), and SuperDuper clone/copies to it at night. At occasional and upredictable times, while I'm working, the backup drive spins up. The Mac Pro waits. The TimeMachine icon is not turning. Not sure why this happens, but its very frustrating since I have to stop and wait for the Apple 'pinwheel' to stop before I can continue what I was doing, or typing.
I just tried to play a legit DVD and it won't play. It accepts the DVD, spins for a bit then spits it back out. I've tried several ones. All legitimate dvd's (not burnt ones) and none of them work. I've played DVD's on here before.
Here is what is going on with my MacBook: -If I insert a music CD, the CD drive spins it and makes noise. It does not open iTunes or even show it on the desktop. It is not recognized. Then the computer ejects the disc. -My iDVD software seems to have taken a crap. I am prompted every time the computer boots up that iDVD has quit unexpectedly and gives the options of "relaunch" "cancel" or "report to Apple". -This is the weird part: I was going to reinstall Leopard OSX from the disc. The computer reads the discs and the "X" screen pops up. I then try to go through to reinstall the software as it tells me that it will restart.
It restarts and then ejects the disc when the Apple logo pops up. Therefore I cannot reinstall the software. Does this sound like a software or hardware problem? Can the fact that iDVD is not working mean that my CD's would not play? Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do here? I am desperate and would like to know what other approach I should take before I put a new drive in.
My original "home" hard drive in my G5 died and I'm in the process of attempting to replace it, and I figured I would install Leopard as long as I was at it.I purchased a 500GB Maxtor MaXLine Pro Enterprise 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA I/II 3.0G hard drive and installed it, no problem. However, when attempting to install Leopard, the installation DVD doesn't see it as a volume.I'm thinking I have to initialize my new hard drive first, but since I have no other internal drive available (the old one is dead), I can't launch Disk Utility to do this.I have Tech Tools Pro, but it doesn't appear to come with a tool to initialize a drive.
I tried booting up using the AppleCare CD to see if that had a tool on it, but the computer wouldn't boot up with it (although it did boot up with Tech Tools Pro).Is there another tool I need to be able to boot up from the CD-ROM and perform an initialization on my new hard drive?
I got a powermac G5 Quadcore with 1 internal harddrive. I wanted to replace the drive + add a second drive and then install Leopard on two ultra fast drives preferable in raid0 if possible.
But when I add the second drive Disk Util can't find the drive. I tried swaping the drives and it's always the hd sitting in the bottom tray that can't be found and not a specific harddrive. Therefore I'm thinking it's the motherboard / power supply, sata power cable or sata data cable. I tried to swap the sata data cable did not help anything. I tried just having 1 hd in the computer in the bottom slot still not possible to find the drive, therefore I'm thinking it's not a powersupply problem but I might be wrong.
Anything I could have forgot to check or do with the new drives to make it visiable?
I tried to install Leopard on the drive I could se (after trying for a day to find both hd's from the installer disk util to make the raid) - but it did not help anything in Leopard I still can't se the second drive.
Sata = no jumpers right? Could filesystem on the new drives have anything to say? Anything else?
I'm affraid it looks like I need to have the computer to service to have it fixed for something that never worked appraently and I don't have warrenty anymore
I've have an extra internal 500GB in my G5 and I would like to mirror it to my external 500GB HD (FW400) and repeat this process once a week. Don't want backups just want to mirror. Is it possible? If so what software should I use?
Information: Powermac 2xG5 MacBook 2.0 MacbookPro Mac OS X (10.5) Airport Extreme
About 2 years ago, I added a hard drive in the second hard drive compartment. I would like to replace it with a recently purchased 1 TB SATA hard drive that is desperately needed, but the hard drive in the second compartment will NOT budge whatsoever. I've tried wiggling the hard drive side to side for hours, bloody scratched up hands, screwdriver method Apple suggests, chop sticks that another reader suggested, even a string with a knot to no avail. I don't have rubber clamps as one reader suggested. Does anyone else have any other suggestions besides going to a store and paying them to remove it?
Information: Powermac G5 2G, G4 1.2, Powerbook G3, 500 Mac OS X (10.4.11)
Have successfully installed a Seagate Barracuda 160GB internal HD (2nd HD) and it's icon is mounted on the desktop. I used Disc Utility to format the drive (Mac OS Extended-Journal), but was unable to install Tiger because of a faulty install DVD (I think). I tried the Panther install DVD's that came with the G5, but am unable to open the the first DVD of that set either (get the grey screen with no wheel, with strange color lines).
More importantly, the drive somehow has a complete duplicate of my other drive. Everything! Also, it updates with things that that I download or add to my Panther drive. How is this, if I did an erase and format using Utility? I'd like to use this 2nd HD as a backup HD (if I can ever get an install DVD to open). Why doesn't the 2nd HD show in the Start up Disc Window? How do I successfully erase it and format this 2nd HD? How would I run a different OS on this 2nd HD?
Information: G5 dual 2.0GHz Mac OS X (10.3.x) Powerbook G4 1.5 - OS 10.4
I have royally screwed up! I want to erase the hard drive on my Power Mac G4 to prepare it to go to my son. I thought I was doing it right, but had forgotten to put the energy saver on "never turn off" so the screen dims when I try to continue with the erasing. Tried to start over with an install disk in the tray. Now can't access the original disk.
I've had a lot of problems with my iMac G5 power supply and since I have newer computers I've decided to get rid of this computer.Â
I want to save the hard drive and put it in a case, then use it as an external drive on my other Macs.Â
What sort of case do I need to shop for? Should I look for SATA or what exactly is the proper nomenclature.Â
Is USB 2 the preferred choice, or Firewire, or what? Is there a USB 3? I use a mid-2010 27 inch iMac with the intel processor, and I needed to buy an adapter to use my older Firewire external drive. Is Firewire a dodo?Â
I am a photographer. I use 4 X 1TB LaCie external hard drives to store my digital images. 2 as masters for different business segments and 2 as their back-ups. They are daisy-chained using Firewire 800. Recently my G5 has stopped recognizing one of the drives. Is there any way to get my machine to re-recognize the missing drive? I have rewired the four drives to see if there was a problem with the cabling, but this does not appear to be the case. I am coming up to the 1 year warranty period on this drive and need to get it back to LaCie if there is no other solution.
I've had my G5 for a couple years. I keep it under my desk, so I don't hear much from it, but I have noticed that the hard drive is constantly spinning. It's been doing it for as long as I can remember. Any ideas why, and whether I should expect a failure because of it?
i tried the online support procedure and all i get is a message to fill in my serial number followed by "your model is no longer under waranty. contact a dealer..." although the link that brought me to that page is supposed to be for do-it-yourself-instructions. thx for a lead. my G5 is sitting in pieces til then.
Information: Dual Core G5, 4GB, 20" Cinema Display, NV7800GT, 4GBRAM Mac OS X (10.4.10)
I defraged my hard drive with Tech Tool and when doing the reboot, the G5 powers back on, the grey apple shows up then the screen goes to a blue background with just the mouse pointer showing.
Information: iMac, G5 Mac OS X (10.5) 5th Generation iPod 80gb, 16gb iPod Touch