running disk repair over and over

[kellie]

I'm running a late 2011 15" MacBook Pro with a fully updated version of Lion. Over the past several weeks, I've had the spinning rainbow wheel pop up for 5-10 seconds or so more and more frequently. It now shows up about 3-5 times in a row every 10 minutes or so. It's making me nuts. So I did a disk verify and disk repair...said disk was corrupt but repaired successfully. But it keeps happening, then says corrupt again, then successfully repaired again.

This is my first Apple product, so I'm not entirely familiar with all the nooks and crannies. But I used to be pretty techy with my pc's, so I can find my way around. Console shows these three things rather often, usually coinciding with the lags:
6/27/13 8:32:41.270 AM com.apple.mtmd: low priority thinning needed for volume Macintosh HD (/) with 13.5 <= 20.0 pct free space
6/27/13 8:33:09.000 AM kernel: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
6/27/13 8:39:07.000 AM kernel: disk0s2: I/O error.
I am purchasing an additional external to dump a bunch of photos (I'm a photographer, so I have TONS) and free up space (I currently just have one external as my Time Machine back-up). But would the space issue cause corruption on the hard disk? It seems odd to need continued repairs because of solely that. My diagnostics attempts haven't gone much further than that. I'd like to see if I can find out if my hard drive is failing or if there is some software or something causing the repeated corruption. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[oldscribe]

Hi and welcome,

I'd like to see if I can find out if my hard drive is failing or if there is some software or something causing the repeated corruption.

My personal feeling is that your disk I/O errors indicate a problem with the drive, i'd guess that you have a bad block or blocks on the hard drive. You could try running Disk Repair from Disk Utility to get more information if there is a problem with the disk.​

Of course there may not be, or if so it may correct the error if it can.​

Insert the Install Disk 1 into the drive and then select Restart; when you hear the chime hold down C key until the apple logo appears.​

This will take you to the installation software, but you do not want to install.​

Select your language, then go up to the top menu bar to Utilities and navigate to the Disk Utility application.​

Select the start up drive, then go to the First Aid pane where you can click on ​

Repair Disk.​

If it finds errors, repeat the process until it reports no errors.​

After these repairs, quit the Installer, and restart normally.​

Possibly​

you may have to ​

re-format the hard drive.​

​

I am purchasing an additional external to dump a bunch of photos (I'm a photographer, so I have TONS) and free up space (I currently just have one external as my Time Machine back-up).

That is defiantly the first and best thing to do, also how much free space do you have on the HD at present?

 

[kellie]

This is what I have been doing, over and over. Running Disk Repair on start-up from Disk Utility (using ctrl R while starting up to get to Disk Utility...all the install/repair stuff is already on my drive). Each time it says the disk is repaired successfully. Then within hours, after more lagging, Verify Disk shows corruption again.
I currently am using about 100gb of a 750gb drive. So less than 15%.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

You could run the Apple hardware test, but still feel it is a drive issue.
Test info here
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
As photos are your life would definatly book a Genius Bar appointment ASAP at your nearest Apple store. If you have Apple care all the better.

 

[kellie]

Thanks! I forgot to mention that I also ran AHT last night. I only did the quick version (I didn't have the "hours" it said it might take for the extended check), but it didn't find any issue. From what I understand, though, this doesn't really mean much?
To err on the safe side, I will be purchasing my extra external tonight to dump all my archived photos, and then I'll be taking my macbook in to the nearest repair center tomorrow for more extensive diagnostics.
Thanks again!

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Yes that really is the safest option, as being a photographer is your livelihood, you can't afford to loose anything.
In the mean time if you have not already done it try a SMC reset, have a look here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Keep us posted re Apple diagnostic.

 

[kellie]

Update from my iPod. Turned out MacBook had several bad sectors and was indeed failing. Thank goodness we had the extended warranty (I didn't think we had purchased it). Got it in early enough that they might even be able to clone the drive before it totally fails and restore my machine for me...saves me a couple hours with Time Machine. Thanks for the tips! Glad I took it in.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi Kellie,

Sorry to hear it was HD but is as I thought, good also you had Apple Care. With new HD and cloning + engineers time think it has paid for itself.
Thanks for posting back with info.