Help with data recovery on Mac ATA HArd Drive

[KMG_365]

Any reliable/reasonable self-help info on trying to recover a possibly crashed Seagate 100GB Ultra ATA HD? Leslie's PowerBook G4 (1.67GHz Hi-Res) slowly died and then wouldn't boot and I thought the hard drive had crashed. Hooked it up to my MacBook Pro and tried to boot it in target disk mode to recover her PW's and mail. Showed the FW icon on the screen but the drive never mounted on the MacBook pro's desktop. I bought another HD and swapped it out, but the PowerBook still won't boot with different HD and passes all the Apple Hardware Tests.

 

I then thought the original HD might still be good but something on the MB is keeping me from the data, so I bought a cheap USB enclosure to try to recover the data (Kingwin KH-200U), but it won't mount on my MacBook Pro or the replacement MacBook I bought Leslie. I saw some "shareware" software from stellar phoenix, but it wants me to enter my password. Don't trust it.

 

Thoughts?

[ghaverkamp]

If the drive is not visible to any system, it may be its logic board. The "easiest" (i.e., not so easy on an older drive) fix is to find a near-identical model and swap boards.

 

If it's not visible because the heads have crashed or its mechanicals have failed, you might be able to temporarily save it by swapping the mechanicals with a near-identical model. That suffers from the same problem of finding the near-identical drive.

 

Near-identical may mean different things. I've managed to find years-old drives in new versions that works just fine with the former solution. It might be more difficult with the latter solution.

 

If you can't get anything to spin up the drive and can't get find a near-identical drive, you might see if you can find a sole proprietor running a computer forensics company who can do failed hardware recoveries and see if, esp, in Coronado, the proprietor doesn't want his business with his customer's evidence to burn down or something. (I'm going to be in Vegas in a few weeks for a SANS Institute course, and one of the courses is one to prepare for failed hardware recovery. Maybe make it to Vegas and hang around outside the door looking for someone needing a project. Unfortunately, that's not the class I'm taking...)

[ghaverkamp]

Oh... And have you tried throwing it in the freezer for a while before hooking it up? Every now and then...

[eddd]

I didn't want to be the one who pointed this out. But after listening to Jaime, I was under the impression that NOTHING ever went wrong with a Mac.

 

 

On edit: I'll be saving this post for futher reference...on the flawless hard drive in my PC.

[Selden]

Try booting the Macbook from the OS X restore/system disc that came with it. If the machine will boot, you should be able to run Disk Utility, and look for the built-in HDD. Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk. Insert the disc, restart the computer, and hold the C key when you hear the startup sound. You can release the key when the gray Apple appears. If Disk Utility can't find the internal drive, you have a hardware failure -- possibly on the motherboard, rather than the drive itself (assuming that I understand your problem description, and a new HDD isn't recognized).

 

I suspect that cheap external USB enclosures are somewhat of a crapshoot. I swapped out the 160gb HDD on my netbook for a 32gb SSD, I decided to put the HD in an enclosure so that I would have a portable drive that I could use to boot the machine under Windows, if necessary. Ubuntu 9.04 boots fine; XP dies about 30 seconds into the boot routine. Ubuntu 10.04 on the SSD in the enclosure won't start at all. Go figure.

[Dennis Andress]

Like Greg said, swap the external board. If that doesn't get it you can take it apart to move the platters to a know good drive. You'll need a few special tools, and a clean room.

 

Sometimes, you can "spin" a drive with your wrist around the axis of the disks to free up a sticking bearing. If this works it will generally be the last time the drive ever runs, so be ready to quickly copy the data.

 

There's a place that does this in Riverside. I used them a few years ago. I think they got $900 to recover the one directory with Quickbooks data...

 

Dennis

[Bob Palin]

I didn't want to be the one who pointed this out. But after listening to Jaime, I was under the impression that NOTHING ever went wrong with a Mac.

 

 

On edit: I'll be saving this post for futher reference...on the flawless hard drive in my PC.

Where is the LIKE button when you need it?

 

Hope you can recover the data Jamie.

[Woodie]

Well, I'd love to help a brother out, but you're on the wrong platform for that. Data recovery is expensive, and not always successful. It really depends on what exactly broke on it.

 

I'm much more help on the PC side, where I routinely do data recoveries of crashed (but not dead) devices.

 

If you can get it to mount once, copy the data first, then worry about trying to recover or fix the drive. Software can't fix a hardware problem.

[Green RT]

How valuable is the data on the drive? The most reliable way to recover data is to give the drive to one of the companies that recovers data. All of your efforts to read it can be destroying the data and making the problem worse. If it would just be "nice to recover" rather than "need to recover", then by all means try whatever you can. The drive recovery companies are not cheap.

[Bill_Walker]

If the system won't recognize it, it's probably toast. Time to restore your data from backup. You DO have a backup, right?

[KMG_365]

Thanks for all the help (mostly, and you know who you are)!

 

I backed up all of her "important" stuff a while back, so there's nothing critical lost. What hadn't been backed up in awhile are things like donors to the site, who all got thanked personally via email, but she was collating a list to update the page here. Also, her email was all downloaded locally to her Thunderbird client, but she also left it all on the server (even when deleted locally). The problem there is she just (re)downloaded 32,000 messages to her new computer as the files saying which ones were already read and deleted locally and stored in which different folders is gone. Now she has to go through them all again to filter out the wheat from the chaff. Not the end of the world, just a PITA.

 

All the photos are backed up and other stuff exists elsewhere and can be recreated. I just thought if there was an easy thing to try. I like the freezer idea especially!

 

I first bought another used drive to see if the PB would boot with a new drive. Looks coincidentally like the MB on the PB is also toast since it won't boot at all from any HD or disk. It'll run Apple Hardware Utility, though and it passes every check with flying colors!

 

But if the new(er) HD is not now also ruined, I can try to swap the external boards from those two and see if that works. One is a stock 80GB from the exact same machine and hers is the 100GB upgraded one for the same model. Problem is finding another reliable computer to put it in to test it as especially as Selden mentioned I don't know that the USB enclosure even works properly. I can borrow the old Pismo from my son and swap the drive out in a flash on that machine. I guess if the external board is an easy swap it's worth the try there. Can't tell you all how many hours/days I've wasted on this already chasing this problem down--hours that I really didn't have. Grrrrr.

 

Bob, all these problems with Macs started when MS bought into Apple to get the G'mint off their monopolistic back! They've been poisoning the apple since before they even put Intel chips in them! The old Pismo and my old clamshell are STILL going strong!