iMac hard drive failure

[kptFlash]

Hi there. I use an iMac 24inch approx. 2008 with 2.8Ghz processor on Leopard 10.6.4.

A couple of days ago my mac started to behave strange. Firstly, some of the apps disappeared from my HD. I reinstalled the OS (Leopard) and after tried to secure my files by encripting them (as I thought someone may have had hack in). The encription sheduled for 45 minutes was left for the night, and next day in the morning I found it hanged. After it wouldn´t boot again. I quickly figured out that the hard drive died (specific sound, and obviously not detected in Disk Utility). I decided to install OS on external hard drive for the time of waiting for replacement HD I already ordered. It was working fine until today.
Disk Utility sees the external HD fine, it is selected as startup disk, but the kernel panic occurs when booting (it reads the external HD for a moment and then tries to run the internal HD, which still keeps dying inside).

I cannot figure out what is going on now. I don´t know whether it is just the HD now, or maybe something more. I need some advice on what to do. Any advice please?

 

[djackmac]

Disk Utility sees the external HD fine, it is selected as startup disk, but the kernel panic occurs when booting (it reads the external HD for a moment and then tries to run the internal HD, which still keeps dying inside).

I cannot figure out what is going on now. I don´t know whether it is just the HD now, or maybe something more. I need some advice on what to do. Any advice please?

If the OS is installed correctly on the external and it really is set as the start-up disk, then the machine won't revert back to the internal HD to boot. If you are not sure which volume its trying to start from, go to boot manager to and pick the external to be sure. Otherwise the next step is to open the machine up and unplug the internal drive and then see if it still kernel panics while trying to boot the external HD.