[dice]

Hi

I have what I suspect is a hard drive issue.

I have just been lent(for the next 6 months) a 700MHz slot-loading iMac. It had 10.2 installed and when I turned it on it took ages to boot up and login. So I zeroed the drive in preparation for 10.3 and proceeded to install it when the machine restarted after the first CD I got a kernel panic before it got past the Apple logo.

At this point I went hmm and booted into the Apple diagnostic CD, it gave an error when it checked Mass Storage but when I restarted and ran the test again it said it was fine.

I then tried to boot off a OS9 CD and it took ages, it got to the desktop with the menubar and clock but nothing else, it sat here for a long time until eventually it finished starting up. I tried to test the HD from on of the utilities but it said 'could not read disk!'. Is it possible a dying hard disk could affect booting from CDs??

Again I went hmm and zapped the PRAM and again zeroed the data (from the OSX CD) and tried to install panther again but near the end of the first CD I got a message saying 'Installation failed for some reason'.

I ran the Apple diagnostic CD again and it passed all the tests in the Extended Test but gave an error in the Quick Test for mass storage, the error was:
ata 1/6/8 HD:2,0

So what do you think? Do you reckon I should try and change the HD, i don't feel like forking out money if I don't have to. Would a 7200rpm be OK in it?


thanks for any help.