iMac Specifics…

Okay, here’s what I know about the iMac and its woes.

The first time the iMac had troubles, I thought that it was related to my having recently repaired the permissions on the internal hard drive. Upon using the disk utility software that comes with OS X Panther, I discovered that my “B-tree” was corrupted (don’t know exactly what a “B-tree” is, but everyone who did know what it was said that it was bad news to have a corrupted one).

Symptoms: Slow access to files on hard drive; inability to write to the hard drive (disabling journaling allowed read-only access to the drive); several corrupt folders (well, technically the file that tells the computer how that particular folder should behave).

Diagnosis: After talking to people much smarter than myself, the corrupt “B-tree” really did seem to be the root of the problem (no pun intended).

Proposed solution to this problem: Back up our information on a removable hard drive (thanks mom and dad Knight) and re-install the system software.

Outcome: The computer ran smoothly for about a week, then unexpectedly would not boot up.

Re-inspecting with Disk Utility uncovered the same “B-tree” problem. At this point, Jennifer was in Minnesota, and we had just recently backed up all of our information, so I didn’t really spend time talking to people about the problem, I just came to my own conclusion (the plausibility of the conclusion is still uncertain to me). My conclusion was that when I re-formatted the internal hard drive, the corrupt information technically still existed on the drive, and therefore could still corrupt the drive.

Proposed Solution: Zero out the hard drive, and re-install the system software.

Outcome: The iMac worked as it should for the next month.

Two days ago, the iMac started demonstrating some of the aforementioned symptoms (slow access to drive, non-bootable-ness etc.). But this time is a little different, in that I can find no problems with the drive or software with Disk Utility. We have received no error messages, and since journaling is active, we can still write to the drive. The iMac just feels like it is about to self destruct each time we use it. I would absolutely love to take the thing apart and replace any malfunctioning parts (specifically the internal drive), but as of now, nothing is “wrong” with it.

Proposed solutions: Take the iMac to the Apple store and have some Geniuses take a look at the little tyke; Purchase more advanced Disk Utility Software; Buy a new Mac.

The three solutions all require money which, at this time, we are short on. We will be saving over the coming months, and using CPMS’ iBook until we can afford to solve this problem. I do not plan on re-formatting the hard drive, as this plan of action has been unsuccessful on two previous occasions. I may, however, make the removable drive bootable, and see if that helps in further diagnosis of the problem.

Until then, I’ll teach Jen about the secret button that turns on our iMac, but I’ll just let all of you guess what it is. G’Bye