# Is my Mac Pro Hard Drive toast? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179 "2009-07-16T01:39:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quasimodal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/57b2e6/32.png) [@Quasimodal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodal)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/1 "2009-07-16T01:39:06Z")
I keep booting up my computer, and once I start doing some more search related tasks (like browsing songs on Itunes) I get the loading icon. Nothing ever happens. When I force quit Itunes the window closes but the application bar keeps showing it as open and I can’t reopen or close it. This happens with every application I use, and once one program goes, soon the whole system freezes. My hunch is it’s the hard drive. Does anyone know how I can test it out? Most of my stuff is backed up fortunately. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/2 "2009-07-16T01:47:35Z")
Have you tried the disk utility? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/3 "2009-07-16T02:28:57Z")
Disk Utility will show you the SMART status, which is a good place to start. You can also use it (DU) to “repair” your drive. I suspect it’s not a bad drive. Try creating a new user, and booting logging in as that user, and see what happens. There third-party tools (e.g. DiskWarrior) which can repair directory damage that Du can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Simmerdown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simmerdown/32/14859_2.png) [@Simmerdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simmerdown)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/4 "2009-07-16T02:36:24Z")
Before you create a new user, disable all but your system fonts to see if it isn’t a font incompatibiliy or corrupt font. They can still be a source of great woe. If everything works, add them back in one at a time to discover the culprit. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/57b2e6/32.png) [@Quasimodal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodal)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/5 "2009-07-16T02:41:03Z")
Yeah I tried disk utility to check / fix permissions and it stalled there too. Fonts eh? I’ll give that a try. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/6 "2009-07-16T05:16:58Z")
Check your Console for error messages. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/7 "2009-07-16T06:51:28Z")
Also, look at [this page for help.](http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417) You may have to start up in single user mode and run fsck. One more thing to check, although usually this causes weird kernal errors and panics, is your RAM. I’ve had all sorts of unpredictable weirdness, some similar to what you describe, happen because one of my RAM sticks have started going. You may want to download a RAM testing utility (ideally) or check About This Mac \> More Info \> Memory in the top left apple menu and see if anything looks weird in the status column. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-mac-pro-hard-drive-toast/503179/8 "2009-07-16T11:47:15Z")
The symptoms the OP describes are consistent with bad hard drives on Mac OS X, in my experience. The first time I was having the problem, I installed SmartReporter (which I use full time and is great!), and it indicated SMART errors. Apple replaced it for me under warranty. On the same machine (now very much older) just about a month ago, the same symptoms started occurring. This time, there were not SMART errors, but fsck kept failing, and a format and re-image didn’t help. Not sure why the SMART status indicated everything was okay, but a new hard drive (and new DVD burner while I had the case open) fixed it right up.