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I've been reorganising a partition of an internal SATA drive which I use for sample data. Basically copying everything off it onto another FW drive, deleting the SATA so it's totally clean (just delete not reformat obviously as it's partitioned) and filling it up again with some new data along with some of the original files copied back from the FW drive.

Now that I'm trying to fill it back up again - whether I'm installing from a DVD or trying to drag files accross from the FW drive - it's all suddenly got REALLY SLOW. A DVD which might normally take about 10 mins to install is now taking up to 2 hours! Also when dragging data from the FW drive I'm getting similar ridiculous transfer times.

I'm not using any other apps when tryiing to do this. I've tried restarting, I've even tried leaving the mac shut down for a few hours ncase it was a heat issue forcing the drive to stop wroking hard (which is ridiculous anyway) ..... at this rate it will take several days to fill up this drive instead of a couple of hours!

Does anyone have any ideas why it's slowed down so?

Thanks!

I have 3 GB RAM and I'm on 10.3.9

this can be a result of drive damage. When you launch Disk Utility check the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive. Anything other than a green 'Verified" means trouble.

Alternately - you can do a low-level reformat to see if that helps.

Holy **** you are right - it says 'failing' in red letters - totally missed that!

Thanks steve!

So what should I do? - does this mean the drive is physically failing or just that it is corrupted? I don't see any option to do a low level reformat. Would it be a good idea to totally reformat?

EDIT- hhhmmm I have a feeling this drive is going DOWN....

"Rose, do you remember what I said about the life boats.... "

"she's made of iron, she will sink"

"Is there anybody out there....?"

etc etc

yeah - thats bad. the drive itself is failing.

Back it up and then replace the drive. When it gets to that point there is no saving it.

Thanks Steve, I've wasted so much time already reshuffling this drive at a snails pace so am grateful for your SMART tip which I had totally overlooked. I've never had a drive die this way before - usually they scream and start having a fit instead of going all drowsy.

Well it is my BFD drive so I guess it's to be expected!

.... in fact I was using the new Andy Johns pack I just installed on the other partition all last night - it's 70GB and up to 250 velocity layers! enough to kill any drive LOL!