I need help!

F

funkinhell

Registered
Hey Guys,

I've had my macbook for almost 3 years now, I'm a sound engineer and mostly use it for music programs like GarageBand, Pro Tools, Melodyne etc....

Recently it crash, during start up it kept freezing, then I got the gray screen of death, the it froze again, then it wouldn't even let me start up from my start-up disk. I reset it to factory setting then I finally got to the disk utility via my start up disks.

I decided then only course of action was to wipe the system so I did a 7 pass erase but it finished It says there is still 3 files on the HD, what are these files? Should they be there? Can anyone help me?

In the last year my mac has crash 4 times, for no reason it just slows down then I go to turn it off and on again and it crashes and won't go past either the blue or gray screen. I have wiped the system each time the last time I did a 35 pass erase it took two days. this time I did a 7 pass because I didn't want to wait but the 3 files still oin my HD have my worried, should they be there?

(Sorry for the rant)
 
After wiping my Hard drive, I look to see what was left on the drive, I found a folder called "private" with 3 sub folders inside "etc" "var" and "mtp"! Inside of these are various files some called Agent X, run, installer, virusmails and more this seems suspicious!

Does anyone know if these files should even be here? Shouldn't the 7-Pass erase have deleted them? Have I stumbled across the first virus for OS X? Can anyone help?
 
a 35-pass wipe is very hard on the hard drive, and should only be used by the truly paranoid :D
But, even that task shouldn't take 2 days - 2 to 4 hours would be a better estimate.
And, the multi-pass wipe does map out damaged blocks on the hard drive - which might explain some of the extra time - and should also give you a clue that you should forget about trying to reuse this drive, and replace the hard drive with a new one.
Hard drives are cheap...

I don't know about the 'agentx' items - maybe someone else will chime in about that.
There's always a number of folders/files on a freshly formatted hard drive. It's part of the file system.
 
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Thanks for the reply, Apple have said to get The HD check too so I guess thats the next step. Its strange that this "private" folder is still there after the 7 pass erase! Shouldn't it delete everything? Also its buried well into the system I had to look deep to find it!
 
I have not noticed those particular folders before - but after checking the various Macs that I have, all have those folders and files. They're a normal part of your system files.
Of course, those are there on your hard drive (along with the 100,000 or so other files and folders) after you install OS X.
The 7-pass erase doesn't make the hard drive "somehow" more erased, although it would map out bad blocks, as I said.
Here's what I do in Disk Utility for preparing a hard drive:
Click on the hard drive (the line with manufacturer's info), and then click on the Partition tab. Choose '1 partition' from the Volume Scheme drop-down. Click the Apply button.
When that completes, which only takes a few seconds, the drive will have the bare minimum of files/folders. Notice that multiple passes are not required, but that's your choice.

As you already know (or you should know!), audio recording is also pretty hard on the hard drive. Another good reason to replace the hard drive, rather than continue to use one that seems to give you problems now.
And if you know that, it's why you would record directly to an external hard drive, rather than cause unnecessary wear and tear on your system drive, eh?

Anyway - I suggest you replace your hard drive - it's time to move on to the stuff that you want your MacBook to do.
I also suggest not using the 35-pass erase (or even the 7-pass erase) unless your security environment requires you to take such action. It's really very hard on the drive, unless it's really needed.
 
DeltaMac said:
a 35-pass wipe is very hard on the hard drive, and should only be used by the truly paranoid :D
But, even that task shouldn't take 2 days - 2 to 4 hours would be a better estimate.
Click to expand...

Most of the advice DeltaMac gives is spot on, however a 35-pass erase will take days in most cases. A more accurate assessment is a single pass zero of the drive alone will take 2-4 hours depending on the size of the drive.

I also would suspect a flaky drive considering the age of the machine and the added wear and tear from the 35-pass erase and 7-pass erase on top of that. As far as the files you are seeing, you shouldn't even be able to see those in most cases unless you have a 3rd party app installed for viewing those files or maybe the drive is really hosed. Also, what are the specs of the machine? It sounds like it may fall in the range for the models affected with the faulty NVidia GPU.
 
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