AppleInsider › Forums › General › Genius Bar › Directory problems on new HD
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Directory problems on new HD

post #1 of 12
3/25/10 at 8:05pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all. I replaced the drive in my MBP with a WD 640GB model. I used Superduper to clone the old drive to the new one before installation. Everything ran fine for a week or so and then I started having trouble booting and waking from sleep (extremely slow boot/wake). I fired up Diskwarrior and rebuilt the directory. This solved my problem for about two days and then symptoms came back, with occasional system lockups. Over and over I've rebuilt the directory a half dozen times in the past couple weeks, which makes things work fine again each time but only temporarily.

Suggestions? Should I erase/repartition the disk? Why does the directory rebuild not stick? Did I get a faulty drive? Thanks for any advice.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 12
3/26/10 at 9:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undo Redo View Post

Hi all. I replaced the drive in my MBP with a WD 640GB model. I used Superduper to clone the old drive to the new one before installation. Everything ran fine for a week or so and then I started having trouble booting and waking from sleep (extremely slow boot/wake). I fired up Diskwarrior and rebuilt the directory. This solved my problem for about two days and then symptoms came back, with occasional system lockups. Over and over I've rebuilt the directory a half dozen times in the past couple weeks, which makes things work fine again each time but only temporarily.

Suggestions? Should I erase/repartition the disk? Why does the directory rebuild not stick? Did I get a faulty drive? Thanks for any advice.


Hopefully you still have that old drive with the previous working OS on it. Backup your files and any needed info.

C boot from the MBP OS X install disk and select Disk Utility and Erase with Zero Option the WD 640GB

Hook up the original boot drive and this time use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone over.


If that doesn't work, Erase again (Zero only needed once for a new drive) and partition the drive into a 500GB partition and the rest whatever. Clone the OS to the 500GB partition and see how that goes.

If that doesn't work, Archive and Install.

If that doesn't work, contact WD and exchange the drive.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 12
3/26/10 at 9:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpotOn View Post

C boot from the MBP OS X install disk and select Disk Utility and Erase with Zero Option the WD 640GB

Hook up the original boot drive and this time use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone over.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Zeroing the drive sounds like the best plan. I've always found Superduper to be reliable. Do you think CCC is better?
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 12
3/26/10 at 3:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undo Redo View Post

Thanks for all the suggestions. Zeroing the drive sounds like the best plan. I've always found Superduper to be reliable. Do you think CCC is better?


Zeroing will check every bit on the drive and map off the bad sectors that might be causing your problems.

There really isn't much difference between the two software's, so it's a personal choice for me.

I like the stability that the owner of CCC is the programmer, provides his software for free for educational uses, only asks for donations or for you to watch a ad or two if you choose.

I'm old school Mac, we used to be able to copy our System Folders to other drives and boot from them.

It didn't cost us anything and I don't think it was right for Apple to do away with that and substitute some stupid Time Machine concept where we can't even boot from it. (but it's better than nothing for early learners)

I feel if it wasn't for CCC being so popular, then SuperDuper would be fully payware, they are a for-profit company after all.

I believe people should be encouraged to backup their whole drive in a boot able fashion like the old days, to recover from hard drive crashes faster and not discouraged in the least bit because they are unable to pay for the privilege.


And your directory problems might actually be caused by DiskWarrior in the first place, it could be outdated, a glitch, a bad disk or Apple could have changed something with a update and thrown DiskWarrior off.

I tend to use utility software only if it has been updated for the latest OS release, then I give it some time for others to report bugs.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 12
3/27/10 at 11:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpotOn View Post

Zeroing will check every bit on the drive and map off the bad sectors that might be causing your problems.

There really isn't much difference between the two software's, so it's a personal choice for me.

<snip>

And your directory problems might actually be caused by DiskWarrior in the first place, it could be outdated, a glitch, a bad disk or Apple could have changed something with a update and thrown DiskWarrior off.

Thanks again for the input. I erased and zeroed the drive yesterday and reloaded. So far so good but it has usually taken two or three days for problems to reoccur. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I had not used Diskwarrior on this disk until problems first cropped up. I don't run it as a regular routine. The version of DW I have is supposed to be compatible with Snow Leopard but who knows about 10.6.2.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 12
3/29/10 at 5:10pm
Thread Starter 
Ugh, they're back. This time Diskwarrior won't get me a bootable disk.

I will now attempt to partition the drive as you suggested and install the OS on the larger partition. This is getting old.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 12
3/29/10 at 5:54pm
If the step/s you are taking now don't work. There is a chance the drive maybe failing. I have had WD drives fail within weeks of purchase and for me never again.

As the drive is possibly under the 12 month warranty take it back and say it suddenly stopped working and they should replace the drive without to many hassles.

Prior to the above copy any data that you can.

Also another option to try which may work by the off chance is to find someone with a PC and format the drive via a PC. Also you should be able to get drive checking software which is PC only from WD.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 12
3/29/10 at 10:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob_06 View Post

If the step/s you are taking now don't work. There is a chance the drive maybe failing. I have had WD drives fail within weeks of purchase and for me never again.

Also another option to try which may work by the off chance is to find someone with a PC and format the drive via a PC. Also you should be able to get drive checking software which is PC only from WD.

Thanks. I have a WinPC so I'll keep that in mind. The strange thing is it seems to work normally, it just won't boot my Mac after a couple of days use. I've read and written several hundred GB of data to it over and over.

Anyway, I just finished partitioning it as SpotOn suggested. It's working great now; booting up nice and quick. I'll see in two or three days whether or not that continues.

Reply
Reply
post #9 of 12
3/31/10 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
Same problem again. I guess it's a faulty drive.

Here's a progress bar I've never seen before on startup. This appears on screen for a minute or so then the progress bar disappears before completion and the Apple logo and spinning icon stay there, forever. Sorry about the lousy picture quality.

Reply
Reply
post #10 of 12
3/31/10 at 3:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undo Redo View Post

Same problem again. I guess it's a faulty drive.

Here's a progress bar I've never seen before on startup. This appears on screen for a minute or so then the progress bar disappears before completion and the Apple logo and spinning icon stay there, forever. Sorry about the lousy picture quality.



Well before you take it in, you should try a fresh OS X install. Perhaps somewhere along the way a OS X update occurred and SD! wasn't up to date/data corruption/pwnage etc.

Now it's even possible that the OS X install disk is bad, but that's been happening less now that it checks itself.

After trying all these things and it still not working, you can honestly say it's the drive.


I got a WD external that likes to go to sleep on it's own, pain in the arse, but I don't use it too often.


Check over at Accelerate Your Mac for any info about your drive in your machine.

I tend to buy the very best drives, Hitachi, for my MBP as I certainly don't want to reopen the machine twice.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 12
4/5/10 at 2:33pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpotOn View Post

Well before you take it in, you should try a fresh OS X install. Perhaps somewhere along the way a OS X update occurred and SD! wasn't up to date/data corruption/pwnage etc.

Now it's even possible that the OS X install disk is bad, but that's been happening less now that it checks itself.

After trying all these things and it still not working, you can honestly say it's the drive.

Did a fresh install of the OS without cloning this time. Worked better for longer but only lasted two days extra before extended beachballs, long wake from sleep and long boot times reared their ugly heads again. Back it goes. Thanks for the help.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 12
4/5/10 at 8:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undo Redo View Post

Did a fresh install of the OS without cloning this time. Worked better for longer but only lasted two days extra before extended beachballs, long wake from sleep and long boot times reared their ugly heads again. Back it goes. Thanks for the help.

We tried.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Genius Bar
AppleInsider › Forums › General › Genius Bar › Directory problems on new HD