Michio's Death Drive Mac OS

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You read that right.

Quick link to the fix before I get to my usual rambling: hdapm. Install it and it will automatically set itself to auto-start on each boot and disable the auto park feature for all your drives.

Under Linux you can also use the hdparm command. Please note that you still need to fix your Mac OS X system with hdapm though as it will by default reset the power management on each boot!!
hdparm -B 255 [device]
or, if that throws an error
hdparm -B 254 [device]

device is usually /dev/sda.

My usual rambling as to the background on this problem follows…. 🙂

Inside each of your modern hard disk drives, there is a head “lifter” ramp that the heads are parked on when the disks are not spinning. On older drives, they parked on the media, but times were different back then… the bit densities were lower, the heads floated on a thicker cushion of air, and more importantly, there was room for a layer of lubricant material to be baked onto the disks, kind of like the nonstick coating on cookware. This prevented a condition known as ‘stiction’ which causes the heads to stick to a disc once they settle down. On a modern drive, if you get the heads onto the platter somehow with it spun down, they will stick instantly and tenaciously. The drive usually has firmware routines that induce vibration and make all sorts of silly noises to shake them loose if it happens…

The Chimes of Death are the Macintosh equivalent of a beep code on IBM PC compatibles. On all Macintosh models predating the adoption of PCI and Open Firmware, the Chimes of Death are often accompanied by a Sad Mac icon in the middle of the screen. Different Macintosh series have different death. Fixed: System crash when using Mac volumes with names longer than 32 characters Fixed: In rare situations, activation claims to be successful but isn’t Improved: Simplified activation wizard Improved: Maintaining activation after reinstalling Windows Improved: Protects Mac disks when attempting to reformat a Mac volume in Explorer.

Anyway, the lifter ramp is not a bad idea in itself. Mobile hard drives used it for years to keep the heads safely locked away and prevent scratching / head “crashes” when the drive experiences shock and vibe in handling while powered off. Later drives would also retract the heads if they detected vibration nearing limits using a small accelerometer on the drive. Another variant also used the accelerometer to detect if the system was entering a free fall and would park the heads before impact.

Unfortunately, some goofbag, probably at Western Digital, did some testing and figured out that a drive left spinning with the heads unloaded used less power due to reduced aerodynamic drag but was still reasonably fast to return to service on user interaction. They based the Caviar Green series drives on this “feature” and it seemed okay….

  • The 'classic' Mac OS is the original Macintosh operating system that was introduced in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh and remained in primary use on Macs until the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001. Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984; its early system software was partially based on the Lisa OS and the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
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Until the hundreds of thousands of load/unload cycles destroyed the drives in very very short order. OOPSIE NOODLES!!

Many other hard drives also support this same method of operation but do not enable it by default, under the Advanced Power Management feature set. The Western Decrepit drives enforce it by default unless you hit them with the wdidle utility and disable it.

Welp, guess what Apple decided to enable, by default, to be all “helpful”?

Here are SMART readouts from a potpourri of Mac systems and drives stewing in my pot.

Drive

Note that many hard drives are specified for 300,000 lifetime load/unload cycles. Under aggressive power management settings in average use, the drive may reach this in only a couple of months!!

When the load mechanism wears out, the drive usually exhibits a rapidly increasing amount of read errors. You can usually get your data back, but no guarantees here – I did see one just show up stone dead suddenly when the ramps wore through and the heads BROKE RIGHT OFF.

Where it gets worrisome and silly: the latter set of SMART results are from a Mac Mini *SERVER*, running Mac OS X *SERVER*. Why, Apple? Why did you feel the need to make a SERVER OS aggressively try to save power at the expense of turning the whole thing prematurely into e-waste? WAS THIS REALLY AN IMPROVEMENT?!

update: this little freakshow. OVER ONE MILLION. SUUUUUPER JAAAACKPOT!!! YOU RULE THE UNIVERSE! TROLL, DAMSEL, PEASANT, CATAPULT, JOUST MULTIBALL MADNESS! THE STORM IS COMING, RETURN TO YOUR HOME! DO NOT PANIC! DOHO!!

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

The name of your macOS user account and the name of your home folder must both be the same. Changing these names does not change or reset the password of your user account.

Because doing this incorrectly could damage your account and prevent you from logging in, you should back up your important data before proceeding.

Michio's Death Drive Mac Os X

First rename the home folder

  1. Log out of the account you're renaming, then log in to a different administrator account. (If you don't have another administrator account, you can create one in Users & Groups preferences.)
  2. Open the Users folder on the startup disk. It contains the home folder for each user. To get there, you can choose Go > Go to Folder from the menu bar, then enter /Users.
  3. Rename the user's home folder without using any spaces in the new name. You'll be prompted to enter the administrator name and password that you used to log in. If you're using file sharing to share the home folder, you won't be able to rename it until you stop sharing the folder.

Then rename the account

Michio's Death Drive Mac Os Download

While still logged out of the account you're renaming, follow these additional steps:

Michio's Death Drive Mac Os Catalina

  1. Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups.
  2. Click , then enter the administrator name and password that you used to log in.
  3. From the list of users on the left, Control-click the user you're renaming, then choose Advanced Options.
  4. Change the “Account name” field to match the new name of the home folder. It should have no spaces.
  5. The account name also appears in the “Home directory” field, after /Users/. Change that account name to match the new name of the home folder.
  6. If you want to change the full name associated with your account, update the ”Full name” field as well. It can be any name, and you can use either the full name or the account name to log in to your Mac or make changes that require your name and password.
  7. Click OK, then restart your Mac.
  8. Log in to the renamed account, then verify that your old files and folders are visible and the account is working as expected.