iMac 27" - Starting to slow down, 4 years old - don't know what to

By swissdude
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swissdude

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Hi guys, I have a 27" iMac which is like 4 years old

Now it's starting to die. I don't know what it is.

When it's on, after 10 minutes it starts getting really slow and gets worse and worse where I'm foruced to just shut it down from behind.

Sometimes it starts and the Apple logo doesn't come and instead I get a flashing folder icon. I have to shut it down and then wait some hours for it then start it again then it's ok but it's getting more and more frequent.

--

I don't know what to do. Buy a new hard-drive? Or just use the money on a new machine?

I don't have any papers or CD's for it, I moved countries in the 4 years and lost everything

What to do?

Grand Master

.Neo

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It's impossible you have a 4-year-old 27-inch iMac since the model has been introduced less than three years ago. ;)

It does sound like a defective hard drive though. You could try and replace it yourself, take it in for repairs or buy a new iMac. That's up to you.

An extremely easy option is to buy an external FireWire 800 hard drive, install OS X onto that and wipe the internal HDD and stop using the latter indefinitely. Simply hide the internal drive from the desktop and Finder sidebar and pretend it doesn't exist. You'll hardly notice a difference, if any at all, between running the system off a FireWire 800 drive or internal. It's definitely a viable stopgap solution until you decide to buy a new iMac.

In any case you'll need a retail OS X Snow Leopard DVD or OS X Lion disc image restored to a USB stick (or whatever) to reinstall the system.

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swissdude

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Ok cool - but I have a strange problem.

I went into Disk Utility and tried to "Format" my hard-drive. But the "Erase" button isn't visible, I can't click it. Only "Erase Free Disk Space" is there but I can't click "Erase" on the hard-drive so how will I do that, and how can I make the iMac understand to boot off a external hard drive?

Further more how do I install a copy of the OS onto the hard drive?

Thanks for your help

Grand Master

.Neo

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Obviously you can't erase the startup disk you're currently booting off from. You'll have to boot off the OS X Install DVD (pre OS X Lion) or recovery partition (OS X Lion or newer).

To startup from an Install DVD press and hold "C" after you hear the startup chime or select it in System Preferences > Startup Disk. To startup from an external drive press and hold "Option" / "Alt" after you here the startup chime and select startup drive of choice. Or select it in System Preferences > Startup Disk.

To install OS X onto an external drive you just install the system as you would normally, only select the external drive instead of the internal one. Easy peasy. :) Be sure you format the external drive using a GUID Partition Table and as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). (See screen shot for instructions)

In any case I would first try to make a backup of your internal HDD, reinstall OS X and see if that fixes the problem. If a clean installation of OS X still fails at improving things you're probably looking at a defective HDD. But first rule out a software issue.

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Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Before you go ahead with a reformat, etc., have you tried the basics of verifying permissions/disk using Disk Utility? That sometimes can go a long way and address some performance issues.

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.Neo

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Before you go ahead with a reformat, etc., have you tried the basics of verifying permissions/disk using Disk Utility? That sometimes can go a long way and address some performance issues.

It's highly unlikely wrong permissions will cause your Mac to give out a "startup disk not found " error through the means of a flashing folder with question mark icon. If not impossible. Frequently that's a sign of the internal HDD going bad.

It couldn't do any more damage though. :p

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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It's highly unlikely wrong permissions will cause your Mac to give out a "startup disk not found " error through the means of a flashing folder with question mark icon. If not impossible. Frequently that's a sign of the internal HDD going bad.

It couldn't do any more damage though. :p

While highly unlikely, I was having the same exact issue a few years back, and repairing the permissions did fix it. At least enough to the point I could grab my files and it died completely about a week later that is. :laugh:

Larry, I Tried that already - no luck :(

Well, as noted above, it was worth a shot at least.

My advice would be get all your files off if it, and get a new HDD.

If you can afford a new machine, then go for it, but at the very least a HDD is rather inexpensive, and it could wind up being fine minus the HDD. If you are hesitant about spending the money on an HDD and would rather put it towards a whole new comp, I say why not. There is a pretty vast difference in the components between now and then. I know, I pretty much have the same exact iMac as you do, mine may even be a bit older actually, and it definitely is showing its age. Not the fastest machine out there, even when performing as it should. So I pretty much now use it as a station to sync my iPad and iPhone and keep all my music and photos on. Have a Macbook Pro for my day to day stuff, and there is a big difference in performance, definitely. Good luck regardless. (Y)

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Gocom

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Last question, how do I go about the process of installing LION OS X on a seperate hard-drive? I don't get how I'm supposed to install it precisely - thanks

As long as the current old drive is still in somewhat working state and data on it can be read and is intact, I would just clone the drive. That way you don't need to do any installing or configuration even. I myself use SuperDuper to do clones/backups of Mac OS installations, and I do run Lion from a portable SSD.

Is this ok to try and make my imac boot of that? If I format that and put OSX Lion on it

You can, but I would highly recommend at least a Firewire 800 instead of a USB drive. A quality HDD/SSD would be good too and a decent enclosure, one which doesn't seal all heat in, error out or fry itself from constant use. You can't have write/read errors with a system drive.

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swissdude

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Thank you all for all your help!

This is what I did -

I got a USB 2.0 500GB one, installed OS LION on it as helped to me by NEO

I then went into my slow ass iMac and told it to boot from there

Then once booted from there, I erased the main Mac HD ... It took like 1 minute to erase/format it, is that normal? I'm used to massive PC formats ;p

Now I'm starting up like normal from the Mac HD - and so far everything seems normal again, not perfect but much better ... now lastly what can I do to improve this iMac? I'm heavy graphic designer so use it alot

Grand Master

.Neo

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Then once booted from there, I erased the main Mac HD ... It took like 1 minute to erase/format it, is that normal? I'm used to massive PC formats ;p

It's the same as a quick format on Windows. If you enable security options it will take a lot longer depending on the security level.

Now I'm starting up like normal from the Mac HD - and so far everything seems normal again, not perfect but much better ... now lastly what can I do to improve this iMac? I'm heavy graphic designer so use it alot

Glad to hear I was wrong about your HDD being shot. I'm afraid there's not much you can do. In your iMac both the processor and graphics are most likely the biggest bottleneck. How much memory have you got installed?

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swissdude

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Hey Neo, well looks like my HDD is shot! ;p

I just turned on my iMac this morning, and it's doing same thing again - once loaded up and on the desktop screen, when I try to click something or do something it's not responding and like everything is frozen again.

It took so long so then I just powered it off and powered it on again, and now again I've got the flashing folder icon when starting up.

So I guess it's really the HDD is gone.

So have to buy a good external one and run it off there

What's better 800 Firewire or is USB 3.0 also a possibility?

Thanks

Experienced

muzzle79

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If you have an apple store near you, they usually only charge for the hard drive repair out of warranty (Varies on their rate usually around $100 in the U.S.)

If you're adventurous and want to swap the hard drive out yourself, the following is a decent guide. If you do this, make sure you read through all the instructions first, have all the tools needed, and most importantly the replacement drive.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-iMac-Intel-24-Inch-EMC-2134-and-2211-Hard-Drive/8600/1

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Co-ords

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I would advice using a program like CleanMyMac. I've used it for many years and it helps cleanup a lot of accumulated junk. Stuff like caches, unused language resources, old stuff in your library folder etc etc. A lot cheaper than a new Mac! You can find it on http://www.macpaw.com there are other tools like this, but so far I've been very happy with this one!

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