Issues with iMac hard drive

[Lucy L]

Hi there, I'm looking for advice on fixing an issue with my iMac 2.9 GHz 8 GB desktop. It's a late 2013 model (bought April 2014) and I've been having issues with it in recent months, particularly with connecting to the internet wirelessly and internet speed when connected (however when I tether to my phone's 4G it's much faster). All other devices (iPad, macbook, iPhones) in my house connect and run on wifi without issue. In addition the computer is generally sluggish with applications such as adobe photoshop, indesign and microsoft office. I have used less than 2gb of memory.

I asked a local computer specialist to take a look and see if he could fix it and he suggests the hard drive must have a fault and that it needs to be replaced. He performed a diagnostic test and said the hard drive was so problematic it wouldn't even run, however I did the same after he left and it ran and said there were no issues?

So, my questions are - is it common for a hard drive to fail within such a short space of time (and with very low use) and are there other checks I can make to see if there could be other issues? I thought it might be struggling to cope with all the applications (adobe cloud, for instance)? Would people recommend going ahead and getting the specialist to replace with a generic hard drive (I don't have a warranty anymore)?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[honestone]

The hard drive having issues after "only" almost 4 years is not typical, but of course there is some dependency on how one takes care of the drive. It's just like owning a car. If one does not take care of it, issues will just about certainly arise.

So, a couple of questions:

1. Although not "directly" critical. what exact Mac OS are you using? And was that OS on the machine when you got it? If you subsequently upgraded to a newer OS, how exactly did you do that?

2. Have you ever done any disk cleanup. maintenance, and repairs, from a software perspective to your machine, and specifically the hard drive? You actually can do some effective disk cleanup yourself, and there are some excellent programs out there to help you with those efforts, both free and commercial.

3. Are you making backups to an external device? And (hopefully you are) if you are, what software are you using for that?

 

[Lucy L]

Hi Honestone, thanks for your reply.

To answer, I'm using El Capitan, and upgraded to it through a software update online. I haven't done a disk cleanup - would love to try and would welcome any recommendations. We are not backing up using any software (I used to use time machine with my macbook), but save all photos and documents on an external hard drive, iCloud and dropbox, rather than on the computer itself.

 

[honestone]

Hi Honestone, thanks for your reply.

To answer, I'm using El Capitan, and upgraded to it through a software update online. I haven't done a disk cleanup - would love to try and would welcome any recommendations. We are not backing up using any software (I used to use time machine with my macbook), but save all photos and documents on an external hard drive, iCloud and dropbox, rather than on the computer itself.

OK, a couple of things stick out as potential issues:

1. When you say "I'm using El Capitan, and upgraded to it through a software update online", I'm assuming there was a prior Mac OS on the machine when you purchased it, and you just upgraded to El Capitan "in place". Is that accurate?

2. Not doing any kind of disk maintenance is definitely bad. Again, you can start by doing some on your own. Like get rid of prior versions of software, having deleted EMails permanently removed/deleted, getting rid of duplicate files, etc. Also, two other excellent products you can use to do more cleanup/maintenance are 1) the excellent freeware program Onyx, available from here:

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

Given that you are using El Capitan, you need to get version 3.1.9 from that link.

2) the excellent commercial program TechTool Pro, and here is information about it:

https://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro

Both of those can help you out a lot.

3. Not doing any backups is also bad, bad, bad. It's definitely not enough to just save some files/folders, etc. You need a dedicated backup program. Time Machine is OK, but a backup/cloning program like SuperDuper! (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html), or Carbon Copy Cloner (https://bombich.com), are better, as they make bootable backups. It's almost like having another computer.

So, the steps you need to initially take are:

1. Answer my question above as to how you "arrived" at El Capitan.

2. Do as much disk cleanup on your own as possible.

3. Download Onyx, and purchase TechTool Pro.

4. Purchase either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. You can actually use SuperDuper! in (free) demo mode, and for basic backup/cloning functionality, that is enough. I use SuperDuper! religiously (I have the paid version), and I would not be without it. Same with Onyx and TechTool pro, along with making a dedicated, daily effort to do as much disk cleanup on my own.

Once you do that, we can work on a series of steps that you can take.