Help! hard drive failure and data recovery

I am a happy PC-traitor who has been using my Macbook successfully for over a year now. I love the Mac.
Until now.
Last night, while downloading torrents onto my computer, it froze. I restarted. A blinking folder with a question mark was displayed. I tried resetting the PRAM. Disk Utility does not see my hard drive, so I cannot attempt to repair it.
In short, I think it's dead.
Disk recovery is so incredibly expensive! Can I stick the hard drive into an external housing and access the data via Firewire? Can I freeze it overnight? I'm desperate! I can't afford a data recovery service. Help!

If she's dead, she's dead. Could be a loose cable. If you boot from a DVD and DU can;t see the HD, that's usually a really bad sign.
If you are comfortable removing it, you can try something like
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/
which will allow you to mount just about any HD via USB.
You can try stuff like
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/download-mac-data-recovery.php
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
http://prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
And then there's DiskWarrior and TechTool.
Some of these may see HD's that won't mount and allow you to recover data.
Others may chime in with more detailed experiences.
hth
Jeff

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Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

I am pretty sure I am SOL - but thought I'd try one last "Hail Mary" before throwing in the towel - to see if anyone here might have a solution I haven't thought of or am not aware of:
My wife's Macbook wouldn't boot today - instead she was greeted by the dreaded blinking question mark.
Macbook (2006) 4 gb ram - OSX 10.6.6 120GB internal HD (the internal HD is the problem).
I shut it down and attached a USB external HD that has a copy of OSX on it and it booted fine - but the internal HD would not mount. I tried both Drive Genius and Disk Warrior - neither program sees the damaged hard drive. I then launched Disk Utility - it sees the damaged HD as an UNINITIALIZED disk - and the only options are to initialize it - all the repair options are grayed out.
So I went poking around on the net looking for hard drive problems that the leading disk recovery programs can not fix and stumbled on to a thread discussing invalid sibling links - which is apparently the Achilles Heal of the OSX HFS file system - and can render the data on a HD inaccessible.
The thread went on to discuss a possible fix by running a series of fsck_hfs commands from the terminal window - or if the HD will mount - via single user mode or verbose login. Other options included attaching the problem Mac to another Mac via Target Disk Mode and many had success being able to see and repair the drive that way.
If anyone is interested in the details of this fix you can sift through this thread on Mac OSX Hints:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888
Unfortunately for me - nothing is working. The only way I can get Disk Utility to see the damaged drive is if I boot from the external USB HD. And As I mentioned above - Disk Utility only sees it as an uninitialized drive.
If I attach the Macbook to my MacPro in Target Disk Mode - the Macbook starts up in TDM but of course the HD never mounts on my MacPro and neither Disk Utility, Drive Genius or Disk Warrior are able to see the damaged macbook drive - in TDM none of these programs even show that the physical drive exists.
So, short of re-initializing the drive and thus loosing all the data - anyone out there in cyber space have any suggestions?
Thanks!

Just an update and a new question - I decided to go ahead a reformat the drive - but Disk Utility is giving me the following error message:
Disk Erase Failed with Error:
POSIX reports: The operation couldn't be completed.
Cannot allocate memory.
So, does this sound like a hardware problem as oppossed to just a corrupted file system?
Thanks!

Trying to restore my Mac OS after a hard drive failure and my password is no longer recognized, however I can log in by double clicking on the Lion Icon? How can I reset my password

I am trying to restore my Mac OS after a hard drive failure and my password is no longer recognized, however I can log in by double clicking on the Lion Icon? How can I reset my password

First, make sure caps lock is not on.
Another reason why your password might not be recognized is that the keyboard layout (input source) has been switched without your realizing it. At the login screen, you can cycle through the available layouts by pressing the key combinationcommand-space or command-option-space. See this support article.
If the user account is associated with an Apple ID, and you know the Apple ID password, then maybe the Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
Otherwise*, boot into Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. In the window that opens, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window opens. Close the Terminal window to get it out of the way.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.
You should now be able to log in with the new password, but your Keychain will be reset (empty.) If you've forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as your login password), there's no way to recover it.
*Note: If you've activated FileVault, this procedure doesn't apply. Follow instead these instructions.

I recently had a catastrophic hard drive failure and had to replace it. At the time, I had a VERY extensive music library and it is now lost. This entire library was also on iTunes. Is it possible to recover that library, or do I have to download again?

I recently had a catastrophic hard drive failure and had to replace it. At the time, I had a VERY extensive music library and it is now lost. This entire library was also on iTunes. Is it possible to recover that library, or do I have to download again?

If your hard drive was not backed up then you can download items purchased from the iTunes Store.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519 - enabled with iTunes 10.3 and newer; not available in all countries; apps, books (not audiobooks), music, t.v. shows, and movies (some - not all studios have permitted this). Movies currently available in the USA only. Downloading previously purchased movies and TV shows requires iTunes 10.6 or later. Discontinued items not available. For items not included in the iCloud list, or locations or computer systems where iCloud is not (yet?) available, you only get one download per fee paid. Apple notes it is your responsibility to back up your purchases.
Did you subscribe to iTunes Match service? If you did, your other music would be available too.
Note, this restores the music files themselves, not playlists, playcount, ratings, or other things associated with the actual library file structure.
You really should consider getting a backup drive. Hard drives failures are a certainty and it saves a lot of grief.

HP Pavillion DV7 Hard Drive failure and replacement

Hi all,
As the title mentions, I have an HP Pavillion DV7, p/n: NB406AV. The SMART is showing an imminent hard drive failure. The primary hard disk quick test stops at 4% and shows a code "303" for hard disk 1. It also stops at 4% when doing a full HD scan.
So, I'll be replacing the HD. I have no idea what to buy, and I plan on buying a non HP HD. Can anyone tell me the specs I should look for? I'd like to get the biggest GB HD that will be compatible as well. Thanks for your help!

Hi,
It usesSATA HDD. Some dv7 models use SATA II but many later models use SATA III. SATA III is backwrd compatible but more expensive. DV7 is a series of hundreds different models and you won't go wrong with SATA III drive. It can accept current generation HDD's. The following HHD is a good choice with a good price/performance ratio per Gb:
http://www.seagate.com/au/en/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/laptop-solid-state-hybrid-drive...
You can use 1Tb on your machine. New HDD's are thinner but the screws will be lined up and should be strong enough to hold the HDD in place.
Regards.
BH
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Can I sync from iPad to a Mac as hard drive crashed and data lost

My iMac hard drive crashed and the data cannot be recovered. Can I sync the iTunes data on my iPad or iPhone back onto the new hard drive?

You should be able to recover data that is in the backup. That does not included some items like music. See the following for what is in the backup:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079
First in iTunes preferences check the box for prevent automatic syncing when a device is connected.
They connect your iPod to the computer and transfer iTunes purchases to the computer. See:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848
Then right click on the iPad listed under Devices in the left hand side and click on "Back Up". After backup is complete I think you will have to restore the iPad from backup to complete the process of using your iPad to the "new" computer.

How do I move my current hard drive OS and data to a new drive for internal installation?

I want to replace my Macbook Pro 500GB Hard Drive with a 2TB Hard Drive. How do I make this new drive bootable and a replica of my current drive programs and data? I also want to upgrade the OS. Is it best to mirror the drive and then upgrade the OS, or can I put the new OS on the new drive and then clone the old drive onto it?

For starters I would do this one step at a time. It is far easier to check out where the problems are when they develop that way.
My first step would be to backup everything that you have now as a first step. Just in case of problems later.
Next, I would suggest to place the new 2TB disk drive in an enclosure and format it to Mac OS Extended and GUID partition mapping first.
Once that is done you can create a bootable clone on the 2TB disk drive using either CCC or SuperDuper.
Then test to be sure the 2TB is bootable.
Then move the 2TN disk drive into the Mac.
Once you have done that and it boots them you can upgrade the operating system.

Time Machine back-up/restore after hard drive failure - lost data

Our iMac was subject to a hard drive recall. So before getting the hard drive replaced, I did a full Time Machine backup (over wifi to a HD connected to Airport Extreme). Once done, I took the iMac to the Genius Bar and they sent me home with a machine with a new copy of the OS installed.
Came home and upon setting up OSX, I selected something like "restore from Time Machine backup." Told it where the drive was.
I now realize that the most recent back-up that is on that drive is from January 2012. So I lost ten months of data. When I look at Finder at the external drive, in the Backups.backupdb folder, all of the dates there are 2012-01-10-XXXXXXX. There is also a "latest" folder in there, but that also looks old.
So first, does anyone have any suggestions on where to look for this full backup I did? When I enter Time Machine, the time bar on the right only shows "latest" and "January 2012." Interestingly, it does not have older backups either.
Note - the backup I did was a manual one. I stopped having Time Machine do automatic backups because they took way too long over the air. So I would start manual backups about once per month. I never thought to check the hard drive to see if they were there.
Thanks for any help.

I think I have solved half of this. Upon starting the Mac after the disk swap, when I went to restore from Time Machine, I disconnected the drive from Airport Extreme and connected it directly to the Mac via USB. Apparently, this is not ok.
I reconnected the drive to Airport Extreme and now can see all of the backups.
So my question now is whether (1) do I revert to the week-old Time Machine (I want to do this) and (2) do I have to do it over wifi or is there a way for me to access this backup via a direct connection? I'm worried that over wifi, it will take days to restore (it's only 100 GB, but it seems to take forever).
Thanks in advance.

Need new Windows 8.1 activation key after hard drive replacement and system recovery

I am new to this board but a very long time ThinkPad user.
Bought a new T540p and the hard drive failed within five days of receipt; Lenovo sent me a new drive, recovery disks, machine is fully restored. With a new hard drive, the machine's "finger print" no longer matches the original Microsoft OEM activation. I have been on the phone with Lenovo six times and they promise to send me a new activation code, they have transferred me to Microsoft twice (they actually tried to help but concluded it was an OEM copy so they couldn't do anything). Still no activation code and I really can't finish building out this machine. Short of sending the machine back to Lenovo, is there a way to legimately get this valid OEM license activated? How do you get a new activation code from Lenovo? I was transferred back and forth between hardware and software support three times. I searched the forum but did not see this problem exactly.
Thank you for you help.

@2014anonon...
Good day and welcome to the community.
On an outside chance of an embedded key / recovery dvd version (pro vs std) mismatch, please have a look at the first screen of your UEFI / BIOS. What value do you see listed as the Preinstalled OS License? Whether it's defined as Std or Pro in UEFI / BIOS, it should match the type of W8 Genuine sticker on the bottom of your machine. Then check the labeling of the recovery DVDs you received from Lenovo to compare.
Please let us know what you find.
Regards.
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Safari fails to open after recent hard drive replacement and data transfer from time machine

The hard drive was replaced by apple under replacement scheme due to seagate failures. It was reloaded with latest ios, but safari would not open, reported failure.
I had re -installed my backed up info from time machine. i did go into back ups and copied previous safari app, and dropped it on my desk top. It opened ok. Is there an easy way to get this app onto the system and delete the faulty safari file.
Hope this makes sense.

guess what, all fixed, the safari app installed by apple on new hard drive was 5 something, but 6.02 was needed, i installed 6.02 but it told me i needed OSX10.8.2 which cost me £13.99 but it now works.
happy days

Hard drive performance and data throughput

I am using my macbook pro for work primarily and part of that entails creating/restoring images of other macs. I've had the best luck with SuperDuper however the process is still VERY slow. For instance at this moment with no other applications open other than S.D. and firefox the copy speed is under 5MB/s from my MBP to an iMAC via fire wire.
I am looking for suggestions to increase the performance/IO in the hopes to speed up the process. When purchasing this system the 7200rpm drive was not an option (15") which is unfortunate. I realize that both hard drives in the operation will cause the variable in speed but I want the sending drive as fast as possible.
My thoughts right now are to purchase a 7200rpm external drive to store backup images and also send from. This would cut out any possible IO on the drive that my mac is performing to run the operating system. Another thought was to upgrade my mac to a 7200rpm drive and use the current 5400rpm drive as the storage for images...in the hopes that it would still provide an increase in restoration speed since it wouldn't be running OSX on it.
Any thoughts or ideas? Experiences? My MBP has the 5400rpm I believe and 2GB of ram.
Thanks

I'll try and explain a bit better. I'm not restoring
the same image to different types of macs. I create
images of OTHER macs using my macbook pro to perform
the process as well as store the backup image.
Thanks for the clarification. I do that too, but when I do I use my Mac Pro to clone a Mac via Target Disk Mode to an external FireWire 800 drive.
it helps but its a usb2 enclosure with a somewhat
older hard drive that is only 30Gb. I am looking at
purchasing a firewire 800 external drive but I will
see how this other unit works for now since we
already have it.
Part of your throughput problem may be the overhead issues with USB 2. FireWire uses its own chipset so is more independent of the CPU, and FireWire can sustain high-speed transfers at a higher level. USB is CPU-bound and is more vulnerable to CPU demands from other apps or background processes or other USB devices. So even though USB 2 has a higher theoretical peak (480Mbps), FireWire (400Mbps) actually does better in the real world.
About USB 2 vs. FireWire 400 performance
I'm not sure if FireWire 800 would help because your slowest drive in the chain may not be fast enough to take advantage.

Pavilion Dv7 4165dx Hard drive failure and performance issues?

I have a pavilion dv7 4165dx notebook that was working great until a couple of months when the performance of my machine started to decrease rapidly. I have performance issues with the machine because it takes 1 to 2 minutes to get from the welcome screen to the actual desktop and another 3 to 4 minutes for it to be ready to use. I already upgrade the memory from 4gb to 8gb but instead of going faster it goes slower and i also did a clean install of windows but it didn't help. Before i have problems it took maybe 30 to 50 seconds to go from the welcome screen to the actual desktop and 1 minute and 30 seconds to be ready to use and by the way i use soluto to tell me when the machine is ready for use.Then last week i notice that the headphone jack wasn't working properly so i contact hp and they told me to send them the laptop so i did, they replace the motherboard and they send it back to me and i just got it today it got a little better but it still lags on the welcome screen and to open programs. I check the memory using memtest 86 and the memory it's fine, but i check the hard drive with HDD Regenerator 2011 and it show i have one delayed sector. Then i check on hd tune pro and it show me some WARNING on section Calibration retry count( as you can see on the picture below) so my question is should i be worry and send it back to hp or what can i do to fix the problem i am having with this notebook?

I have the same laptop and have had issues with it since the day i brought it home. I have had it for a year now and am now replacing the hard drive for the 3rd time. My guess would be its your hard drive because most of the issues you seem to be having ar the same ones ive been dealing with for a while. I can say I'm very mad about the quality of this laptop and am in the process of battling with HP over this issue. If you have a chance go online and look at all the hard drive issues that this laptop has had and even look at the HP forums for this issue it will irritate you and make you wonder why this hasn't been fixed yet!

Restoring picture and movie files after hard drive failure and repair

I need some help restoring photo/movie files from my external hard drives after my iBook was repaired following a storm. I have backups hidden all over my external hard drives. I have unburned burn folders that may have pictures on them. I was using iPhoto from iLife 05 and iLife 08, and Kodak Easy Share. I have searched on spotlight using ".jpg", "pics", and ".mov" and titles of various images, but I am still missing images that I am fairly sure I duplicated to external hard drives. Any ideas for searching?

Thanks, I just downloaded EasyFind. I ran an initial search and it looked very effective. I will have to manually check the search results to see if it is getting any files I haven't already been able to find.

Leopard-induced hard drive failure and support options

I purchased a copy of Leopard a couple weeks back and installed it on my Macbook. Everything seemed fine at first, but within a few days I began experiencing sudden, inexplicable crashes. I could be checking my email, editing a word doc or simply browsing the Finder when the OS would completely crash and the computer would reboot.
This began happening more frequently, and a few days ago the computer crashed for the last time—I can no longer boot up at all. When I power on the Macbook the sleep indicator light comes on steady, but the screen remains dark, and there is no hard drive activity. I suspect at this point that my hard drive has died.
My question is, before I bring in my Macbook to get the hard drive replaced (the one-year warranty has expired), is there anything Apple Support can do for me? It seems ridiculous that I paid for a new OS which destroyed my hard drive, and then will have to pay for repairs and a new drive. Any suggestions?

Hi Cloudneuf.
Hope I can bring clarity on a few points :
0 : If you have not done so, perform the steps described in this article : http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303234
1 : Don't be afraid if the DVD/CD gets swallowed. If that happens : shut down your Mac (pressing 5 seconds the power button always does) than start it up while pressing the trackpad or mouse button : this will eject the disk -it used to eject the floppy disk back in 1984
2 While a backup disk is very useful, DIskWarrior is useful in case of emergency but most Mac users do not have it (I have to confess I have it though)
3 Start with Leopard' install DVD : Shut down if necessary by pressing 5 seconds on the power button? Then Start the Mac while pressing the C key (C was for CD). The Mac will start using the CD or DVD. By the way, if you want to select a startup drive, hold the option/alt key when starting
4 Once in the installer, (I think after the primary language screen) you can access the Disk Utility through a menu. In the DIsk Utility, you can repair your drive.
5 If Disk repairing is not enough, start using Leopard's DVD and perform an "Archive and Install" (that's in one of the oprions button if I remember correctly). This will install a clean version of Leopard but will keep all your personal data intact.
6 If that does not work,, start using Léopard's DVD and perforem an "erase and install". You will lose all your data and will have to collect it back from your external drive afterwards.
7 If Erase and install does not work, your Mac needs service.

Hard drive corrupted and no recovery for new ssd

Hey guys, recently my hard drive became corrupt and I just bought a new ssd to replace it but I do not have any recovery to install windows to it... My laptop did not came with a installation media nor product key (Toshiba Radius 15") so I don't know if I I stall a ISO of win8 will it validate automatically or what do I do as I don't have a product key for the installation?

Your product key is embedded on the motherboard. All you need is the recovery media, You can order it from here.

Help! hard drive failure and data recovery

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