Apple fixes Snow Leopard hard drive error

Apple has released a "performance update" for a hard drive problem with its Snow Leopard operating system.

The company said in a statement that a feature in Snow Leopard causes the hard drive to "pause".

The statement said that the problem affects only a small number of users.

The list of affected machines was as follows: MacBook Pro (17in Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (15in Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (15in 2.53GHz Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (13in Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (17in Early 2009), MacBook Pro (15in Late 2008), MacBook (13in Mid 2009), MacBook (13in Early 2009, MacBook (13in Aluminum Late 2008), MacBook Air (Mid 2009), MacBook Air (Late 2008), iMac (20in Mid 2009), iMac (24in Early 2009) iMac (20in Early 2009) and Mac Mini (Early 2009).

Earlier this week, some Snow Leopard users reported that their personal data had been deleted when they logged in using a guest account.