Erasing Disk taking 2 1/2 days +??

freaky

OSXer
I've done this many times and it normally takes a few hours. My wife's iMac is 3 years old and has never been reformatted. About 4 hours ago, I used Disk Utility and selected the option to do One Pass of Writing Zeros (not 7). The estimated time keeps getting longer and longer and now it says 2 days 12 hours.

Does anyone have any idea why this is taking so long? The hard drive isn't that big. If I turn off the iMac and try to restart the process, do you think that would make it run faster?

She needs to use it for work tomorrow and we cannot wait until Tuesday night before installing OS X and all of the Applications that she needs.
 
There's no good reason to erase your hard drive, just because it has never been erased. That should not be part of routine Mac maintenance - unless you are actually experiencing problems where a "nuke & pave" might help...
In addition, the Write-zeroes erase is quite hard on the hard drive. Give it 6-8 hours. A one-pass should be done within that time. I would be suspicious of the health of the hard drive when it takes that long. The single- (or multiple-) pass does little to help you, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really need to clear a hard drive for security purposes. It _will_ succeed in exacerbating an existing condition, accelerating the potential death of the hard drive that is already having problems.
I would suggest that if you have any suspicion about the hard drive, you should just replace it. New hard drives are too cheap to bother with trying to extend the life of a 'questionable' older hard drive. I have seen a few folks who post here, suggesting that hard drives should be replaced every two years. I don't know if I would go that far, but it's part of one approach to keep your system performance level as high as possible.
 
I usually just do the one-pass option just to start with a fresh hard drive before installing OS X.

Any idea how much of a challenge it is to install in an iMac (3 years old model)? I've installed a bunch in PCs and a few Mac Pros, but never in an iMac.

Do you know of any apps that can report what kind of health the drive is in / whether it should be replaced?
 
Any idea how much of a challenge it is to install in an iMac (3 years old model)? I've installed a bunch in PCs and a few Mac Pros, but never in an iMac.

I install HDs daily in those iMacs and it took me a little while to get used to. But it is far from as simple as opening the side panel and popping the drive into a drive bay like on a tower. A lot of delicate components that need to be unplugged/removed before you can even get to the drive. Then the way those drives are mounted there is an artful technique I came up with for removing the stubborn drives that you won't see posted in any take apart manual. So you have to way the cost of having a professional replace the drive as opposed to doing it your yourself in which there are definite possibilities of;
  • damaging front glass
  • damaging LCD (extremely expensive to replace)
  • damaging one of many cables that do need to be unplugged like inverter cables, LCD temp sensor cable, HDD temp sensor cable, LVDS cable, SATA cable, or HDD drive power cable
  • damaging HDD mounting pieces (relatively cheap pieces and break often, but good luck finding a supplier outside of Apple to sell you replacements)
 
Ugggh. What a pain in the ass.

I just tried skipping the Zero Out option and went to install OS X. Now it says that OS X cannot be installed on this system/disk/machine etc.

I guess I'm going to have to replace the drive. Would the WD Caviar Green 500 GB be a good option? Would going from 5400 to 7200 RPMs be an issue with heat?
 
Would the WD Caviar Green 500 GB be a good option? Would going from 5400 to 7200 RPMs be an issue with heat?

Most of those machines come with 7200RPM drives or are at least an option. I'm sure the faster spinning drive will generate more heat. Maybe that's why most failed drives I see in those are the 7200RPM drives.
 
Ugggh. What a pain in the ass.

I just tried skipping the Zero Out option and went to install OS X. Now it says that OS X cannot be installed on this system/disk/machine etc.

I guess I'm going to have to replace the drive. Would the WD Caviar Green 500 GB be a good option? Would going from 5400 to 7200 RPMs be an issue with heat?
After 'Skipping" the zero out option, did you think to create and format a 'Partition' to install OS X onto?
The message you refer to is what you would get if there was no available partition to use.
 
Yep, I created "one" partition (which is now 232.57 GBs), but it still keeps coming up saying that Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer.

I tried verifying/repairing the drive and it says everything is okay. WTF
 
Are you trying either the original set of grey disks that came with this iMac, or do you have a commercial OS X installer?
If a grey DVD, is it possible that it belongs to your other Mac? The grey ones are model-specific, and won't install on other models. You can boot and run some utilities, but the install won't continue on the wrong model.
 
Thank you DeltaMac -- I believe you have solved my issue with the installer.

Actually, I am using the gray disk that came with my MacBook Pro. Could I upgrade to Snow Leopard with this disk after I use the gray disk that came with my iMac?
 
No - as I said, the installer won't work on a different model.
The Snow Leopard install that you have belongs to your other Mac, and the user license doesn't cover installing on a second Mac.

A retail Snow Leopard DVD is only $30. :D
 
Dag, I bought a new one the day it came out, then sold it when I bought a MacBook Pro. Guess I'll be buying another one. ;-)
 
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