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PHoynak · May 21, 2004, 11:31 PM

My eMac is acting weird. Slow boot, etc etc. I ran Disk Warrior and the SMART hard drive test reported that the drive is failing, but then I would test it again and it would report it fine. Is this normal?

I have had it only 10 months so I can still get it fixed by Apple. Will they let me take it to my local Apple Store to replace the hard drive?

tooki · May 22, 2004, 01:32 PM

By all means get the drive replaced: if you ever see a SMART warning*, replace the drive ASAP (well, back up your data first, BEFORE the drive fails!).

Apple should be able to replace your drive at the store, and it shouldn't take long, probably 2 or 3 days turnaround.

tooki

*It's my understanding that SMART keeps a log of all problems the drive finds. When you use an app like DiskWarrior, it clears that log, so an immediate subsequent test will show nothing. But normal use will again find errors, and they'll be stored until the next time you run a test.

PHoynak · May 22, 2004, 07:49 PM

I called Apple and I had 8 days left on my warranty so I am taking it to my local Apple Store for repair. Will they reload OS X or do I have to do it?

Thank God I have my 20 gigs of music backed up to my firewire drive.

Would a bad drive also make my Superdrive always give me a buffer underrun? This may explain a lot of weird stuff that has been going on for months.

I also got the Applecare for $119 (Ed price) so I am covered for 2 more years.

PHoynak · May 23, 2004, 06:40 PM

I got my eMac back from the store today. Not bad turn around (4 hrs) but they didn't replace the drive. Apple's tests did not show the hard drive to be failing. Could corruption in my old OS X installation have caused it?

PHoynak · May 24, 2004, 10:05 PM

I have 2 firewire hard drives. How can I set one up as a Raid to my eMac hard drive to duplicate it as changes occur. Is this even possible? Now I use a backup program from CMS but it is kind of buggy and sometimes locks the system up.

PHoynak · May 29, 2004, 08:42 PM

Well last night the hard drive gave the failure alert again so I called Apple and they will replace the hard drive for me Sunday. I hope to get it back Sunday. I have a new credit card and may get a new iPod. Maybe that is why they tried to just reformat it first...