Hard drive unbootable, trying to recover data so I can start over.

basically my computer was running slow for a while (freezes for 30sec), so I ran verify disk in DiskUtility, which told me to boot from the install disk to repair.
well, the install disk can't repair it so it told me to recover as much data as I could then reinstall. problem is, I can no longer boot into the OS, and:
1. this is the only Mac in the house
2. there are no external drives that I can install to to boot from
3. while I COULD connect to a Windows computer and transfer files that way, some brilliant developer decided that the Finder was noit neccissary.
so, how can I get the important data off (about <1GB)
I can boot to single user, but i don't know what to do here as fsck fails and mount works but with errors
Message was edited by: grahamfluet

True, but
a) You will have to copy everything on the source volume to the destination (so a thumb drive will almost certainly not be big enough)
b) If Disk Utility can't repair the damage to the source volume to begin with, there is a fairly high probability that the restore will fail. This is most likely if the restore uses the file copy method instead of the block copy method. (For more about this see the man page for asr, particularly the "HOW TO GET THE FASTEST RESTORES" section.) A block copy will preserve any internal file system damage on the source volume, so you still need to extract the useable files from the copy after making it.

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Hard drive failing, need to recover data before it fully crashes

Tried these things:
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--disk warrior three times, which of course took like a week total (all times it said could not be repaired; got error codes 2160 and 2304, which after researching led me to the next step)
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I can easily replace the hard drive, and will do so... as soon as I get this woman's data off her corrupt drive. Is it possible to do that at this point? I don't get how I can see the drive but can't get to the files on it!!!

General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
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Hard drive crashed, having trouble recovering photos. How can I do this?

My hard drive crahsed a while ago, so I had to buy an external one to hook up to my mac to replace it. After the crash, I used this external hard drive as my new computer. The old hard drive was broken, it wouldn't let you edit or change any files on it, but it let you view all of its contents, and open it. You just couldn't delete, remove, or change anything, it's like a read-only file. All of my photos were on that hard drive, and I found the iPhoto Library, where they were all stored. Like I said, I can open these files on my new hard drive, so that's what I tried to do, but it says that it can't open the Library, because the version of iPhoto I have is a later version than what the iPhoto library is. This is probably because my OS went through many updates on my new hard drive, after the old one broke.
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FIrst off it sound like you might have a permissions problem with your old drive - you could try the support forum for your computer to see if anyone there can assist in actually fixing that problem
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Hard Drive failed - Trying to Use Data Rescue II

I am trying to recover some photos and videos of my first child's first 20 months alive. My MacBook crashed while I was checking my gmail one night. I have a friend's iBook G4 connected to my MacBook via FireWire right now and am trying to use Data Rescue II to possibly recover my photos and videos. I can live without everything else. When I use the install disc to boot up my MacBook, all the iBook is seeing is the install disc, not the hard drive. Why? and what am I doing wrong? Why can't I see/scan the hard drive, too? Do I have other options?
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When I hook the FireWire up, should something automatically pop up on the iBook, showing me that it recognizes the MacBook is now connected?
The drive in the MacBook would mount like any other hard drive.
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Given that Disk Utility in the installer disk won't see the drive, I think it most likely that the drive has failed, in which case Data Rescue will not be able to recover anything (it won't work if the drive won't even mount). Probably the only way you're going to be able to recover any files would be by sending the drive to a data recovery service, and those are very expensive.
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Macbook Pro hard drive failing, how to recover data?

My 2 year old MBP refused to boot up this morning. I was told at the Genius Bar that the hard drive is on its way out.
It is still able to mount when hooked up to another machine but apparently the geniuses don't do data recovery. I was refferred to a data recovery service or another option was to "hook the drive up to another machine" via some sort of docking station to lift the data off myself.
I have no idea where to start with this, does anyone know how I could accomplish this myself? Thanks in advance for any tips.

I hope that will work out for you, but I have very little confidence that all will go well that way.
Your situation is one in which it makes very good sense to ignore the warranty on your hard drive, replace it yourself at your own expense, and thus be able to keep the old drive — which Apple will keep, if Apple replaces it. Once you have a new drive in your MBP and an OS up and running on it, then you can connect the old drive to it and see what can be recovered. If you hand the machine over to Apple for the replacement and lose the old drive, and then you discover that some of your files in Mac-only formats have been corrupted by being written to a Windows file system on your HP computer, you'll have no chance of recovering them.
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"Disk drive recovery" is always a hot topic on http://www.macintouch.com
At leas DR3 is demo to see if it can find files.
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My MacBook was damaged. 2011 Late Model. I removed the hard drive and placed it in a sabrent enclosure. Plugged in to a PC and learned that i cannot get the data from it. Any help? Thank you.

If you have a friend with Mac, you could copy the data to another USB disk formatted as FAT32. You can then read it on your PC. The problem with this is that FAT32 requires all files to be smaller than 4GB and there are restrictions on the file names. This might be OK depending on whether you have any big files.
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New hard drive on this computer cause pc crashed so itunes starting over.

How do I get my purchases back someone told me they have a history of my purchases and they can send them to me without me haveing to buy them all over again I did not have a backup disc I should have I had it backed up to so far but not backed up far enough to where it counted and some of the disc has some missing and I had some changes I had made with itunes purchases, I would like to get my purches back, without having to use up all my itunes cards to pay for them., thanks
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If you didn't make a back-up of your purchases to restore from then I'm sorry to say that the policy on lost purchases is that you have to pay to download them again:
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Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

Trying to copy iPhoto Library to external hard drive for backup. Error message: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "iPhoto Library" can't be read or written (Error code -36).

That code is
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ioErr
I/O error (bummers)
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Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
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Click on the Create button.
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Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

I'm trying to backup a my harddrive with disk utility but I'm getting an error Unable to create Backup.dmg" (input/output error). Is there any other way to save my data? I believe my hard drive is failing or corrupt file. I can't boot up. Grey screen

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Check here. Also have you done a TimeMachine back up?
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

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Contact Apple Support:
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
Apple - How to Contact Us:
http://www.apple.com/contact/
Be sure to refer to the repair ticket number.
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Hard drive unbootable, trying to recover data so I can start over.

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