Is Your MAC Working Properly???

Checking the Hard Drive

Hard drives, and even SSDs, are susceptible to failure. You never know when a drive will fail, but when it does, you’ll definitely feel the effects of it. You should always have a good backup of your Mac’s drive by using either Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the drive. Having a good backup will ensure that when your drive does fail, you’ll be back up and running in no time.

The majority of drives include a feature called S.M.A.R.T. (or Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology). By checking on the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive, you will be alerted to potential upcoming drive failures.

To check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard drive, open Disk Utility and select your drive in the sidebar. At the bottom of the screen, you will see “S.M.A.R.T. Status.” If everything is fine, then you’ll see “Verified” here.

If your drive reports a problem, then you’ll see “Failing” as the status. If you get this “Failing” message, then you should create a new backup of your drive, and replace the drive as soon as possible.

Apple Hardware Test

The Apple Hardware Test (AHT) is a way to check the status of your memory, logic board, and other important system failure points. AHT is an automated process that will go through and check the various system components on your Mac to ensure they are operating properly.

To launch AHT, you will need to hold down a key combination on your Mac during startup. The key combination varies between systems, but should be one of the following on your Mac:

- Option + D (Early 2011 and newer; Mountain Lion tested)
- Command + D
- D

Note that some older systems use an Apple Hardware Test CD or DVD that is included with your Mac.

During startup on newer systems running Mountain Lion, you will see an “Internet Recovery Mode” loading message on the screen before the AHT loads.

After AHT loads, it will probe your system to check the hardware. After the probe is finished, you will be able to click the Test button to start the simple test (you can also check the box labeled, “Perform extended testing” to test your system longer). After the test completes, you will be notified of any errors that occur.