iMac HDD fail

[keith.rogers]

Well, it happened. And, I'm not happy about it. My (Apple Store) 2017 "refurb" that I've had for just short of 3 years had its hard drive just up and quit. I mean, stopped solid and no warning. I'm a little PO'd and a lot disappointed because it's not like it's been abused, or even moved more than an inch or two since planting it on my desk.

So, why am I waiting to complete assembly? Well, because the *first* time I put the panel back on, I'd apparently not got one of the devilishly tiny, complicated latching video connectors quite right, and after it was all together, and stuck quite well, the screen did not light up. Lesson learned, check the panel functionality while it's still suspended away from the rest of the thing. So, here it sits with an SSD replacement installed and waiting for the sticky tape to put the panel back on (tape is marooned in the snowbound upper midwest).

And, no, I didn't have a current backup because I disabled Time Machine a long time ago (Nov. 2021) and my cloud backup storage filled up quickly after adding this machine (even before Time Machine backup), but I have all my projects (audio and video) on external drives, so, largely thanks to pandemic idleness, the only thing I've lost is time to get apps and plugins updated back to the latest versions - mostly iZotope stuff, though working with the thing on its back and panel propped up with big rubber (yoga) blocks is a tedious way to work.

I will have a manual, monthly backup in my calendar from now on, but I'm hopeful that this SSD replacement will outlast my needs at this point...

 

[TalismanRich]

I remember a comment from years ago: There are two types of hard drives, those that have crashed, and those that are going to crash.

Backups are always good. I'm sure most of us are too lax about backing up data. Good luck getting things restored.

 

[keith.rogers]

I remember a comment from years ago: There are two types of hard drives, those that have crashed, and those that are going to crash.

Backups are always good. I'm sure most of us are too lax about backing up data. Good luck getting things restored.

Well, yeah, but in my, wow, 40 years or so of being a computer nerd, this is only the 2nd hard disk failure, and the first was early in my own PC history, probably Windows, but *way* back. For much of the last 20 years in by actual working career I carried at least one pre-SSD-tech notebook around all the time, and didn't even have a failure there (though accelerometer technology was quickly adopted there, at least in the "commercial" lines I was able to use). So, short-story long, I'd probably subconsciously decided that maxim didn't apply to me . Oops.