Which is hosed?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Ok, I have been having some trouble with my Powerbook Titanium:

1ghz // 1g RAM // Tiger 10.4.x (latest)



A bit ago, it started hanging up frequently. Any task could bring up the beachball. I re-installed the OS after writing zeros to disk which i do every 6 months or so. I tend to create/download/delete large files regularly (design/music/video work). So, after reinstall, everything seems fine... for a while.



Now it was doing it again -- hanging up on anything I did. This time I tried some things before wiping:

Here are some notes:



........................

BOOT to Tiger Install Disk

REPAIR DISK:

couldn't unmount disks (2 partitions)



attempted REPAIR DISK again:

working, but on the main partition:

Keys out of order

rebuilding catalog B tree

Volume could not be repaired

ERROR: The underlying task reported failure on exit





But other partition was fine and I hadn't used it in anyway, SO:

booted to Tiger disc. Installed OSX on second partition

Still troubles everywhere, cant boot into either partition now





Disk Warrior disc wont boot up





LATEST REPAIR DISK:

invalid sibling link

Volume check failed



Reset PMU



Tried OPEN FIRMWARE:

reset-nvram

set-defaults

reset-all



TRIED boot in SAFE MODE:

never gets past grey apple and spinning

never says Safe Mode

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''



So, I finally just wipe // write zeros // reinstall

And again, things seem back to normal. I wonder if I have some serious Drive trouble and it doesn't notice it until I start to really use it and write/read/delete more files where it has to use those bad blocks.



Now I am trying to run Drive Genius (SCAN) on the hard drive (no partitions) from my desktop machine with the Powerbook in Target Disk Mode. It has been running for almost a day with 540,000 of 116,000,000 read and 5 blocks bad. The progress bar looks like it could take a month at this rate.



Any Ideas? I think the HD is hosed. After 4 years of heavy use, it would make sense. But could it be Bad RAM or Logic Board or something?



Any help is greatly appreciated.

* joesepi

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    Open the info on the drive from disk utility and see what the smart status is. Also try running the Apple hardware test.. those can give indications on how it's doing physically. Seems odd you can't boot to disk warrior.. I would check those two things and get back. If you have the APP on that computer that seems like something they would replace under that. Also the AHT will tell you more if theres failing ram or logic board as well.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    Ok, forgot about Apple Hardware Test. Dont have the disc with me at work, but will try it tonight. (unless there is somewhere I can DL a bootable disc?)



    DiskUtility: Smart Status>> Verified

    DiskWarrior: hardware diagnostics >> smart diag indicate drive is functioning normally

    (app on computer, not on boot disc. -- I dont know why it wont boot to the disc now, it used to??)



    booted to Tiger disc >> Disk Utility >> >> Repair Disk >> "Volume appears to be OK"



    Will try AHT at home tonight, but in the meantime if anyone else has any suggestions/ideas, I am all ears.
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