Data recovery/Disk repair options

Hi guys,
My hard drive appears to have kicked the can this weekend. All I can get at startup is the blank gray screen. When I boot from the OS X Install Disc and attempt to repair permissions, I either get "The underlying task reported failure (-9972)" error, or a "Keys out of order" error. Both of which seem pretty serious from what I've been reading.
Sadly (or ironicly) my system had been slowing down quite a bit over the last couple weeks, and Friday I bought a Lacie external drive to back up on, but didn't have any time to work on it over the weekend!! ugh.
Anyway, being able to only go as far as I can, do I have any options to save any of the data? I've read a lot of recommendations on here for Data Rescue II, but I can't tell from their website if this is something I'd be able to boot from? If that would work, would I be able to use my Lacie drive straight out of the box without any setup??
Mac OS X (10.3.9)
powerbook g4 15" aluminum Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Update:
So I stopped at a retail store on my way home from work and talked to a Genius who also recommended DiskWarrior. So as i'm buying it he says "Oh, but first you should check and see if you still have time left on your AppleCare."
Now I'm home, with a yet unopened DiskWarrior, realizing that I still do have time left on my AppleCare, wondering if I'm stupid for still wanting to do this myself right now instead of bringing it in......

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Data recovery / disc repair help

can anyone recommend the best data recovery and repair program to use with ext hard drives ?
thanks

Check out File Salvage
Regards
TD

Unable to access disk repair option on OSX Install CD

I tried to do a disk repair from the Install CD - I opened Disk Utility from the Installer menu, clicked on the Mac Harddrive in the left hand column and clicked on First Aid.
While the Repair Permissions was accessible, the Disk Repair option was greyed out.
I did not see any option to choose language during this process.
Can someone please help?
Thanks

That IS the version for some iBook G4s anyway, not certain which one you have though. Did this come from Apple with those Disks?
I don't understand why the Language never showed, or why it "thinks" the Hard Drive is in use, which is what causes that grayed out thing.
Does it Verify from the DVD?
Do you have an Open Firmware Password set perchance?
Tough without the Install disc, but some things to try...
Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Tough without the Tiger Disk problems, but try fsck...
To use fsck, you must run it from the command line. Unlike using your mouse to open an application to do something, you'll need to type a text command at the prompt (#) to tell fsck what to do. The Terminal application (/Applications/Utilities) and single-user mode are two examples of command-line interfaces in which you can type such commands. To use fsck:
1. Start up your computer in single-user mode to reach the command line. Hold CMD+s keys down at bootup. Note: If necessary, perform a forced restart as described in the Emergency Troubleshooting Handbook that came with your computer. On desktop computers, you can do this by pressing the reset/interrupt button (if there is one) or holding down the power button for several seconds. On portable computers, simultaneously press the Command-Control-power keys. If your portable computer doesn't restart with this method, you may need to reset the Power Manager.
2. At the command-line prompt, type /sbin/fsck -fy
(SPACE between fsck AND -fy important)
3. Press Return. fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found: 
The volume (nameofvolume) appears to be OK  If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message: *** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***   Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2 until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).
4. When fsck reports that your volume is OK, type reboot at the prompt and then press Return.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

Data recovery help and options

If you don't want to read the entire diatribe, please answer: Any suggestions as to which data recovery app is appropriate for a ThunderBolt Seagate GoFlex 1TB? It's been 21 hours, should I stop and restart First Aid?
I have a MBP15R that is about a month old. With it, I purchased a Seagate GoFlex 1TB drive with Thunderbolt adapter. I was away from the house for 24hrs, and had shut my MBP off prior to leaving. Upon return, I started the MBP and began my work. About an hour in, I realized I couldn't find a few recent files. I went to Finder, and realized the SGF wasn't mounted. It would not mount, and prompted me to run First aid. The log for this so far is:
2012-12-17 15:27:13 -0800: Disk Utility started.
2012-12-17 15:27:58 -0800: Mount of “FreeAgent GoFlex Drive” failed
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800: Verifying volume “FreeAgent GoFlex Drive”
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800: Starting verification tool:
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800: Checking file system
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800: Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800:
2012-12-17 15:28:12 -0800: Disk Utility stopped verifying “FreeAgent GoFlex Drive”: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
2012-12-17 15:28:43 -0800:
2012-12-17 15:28:51 -0800: Verify and Repair volume “FreeAgent GoFlex Drive”
2012-12-17 15:28:51 -0800: Starting repair tool:
2012-12-17 15:28:51 -0800: Checking file system
2012-12-17 15:28:51 -0800: Volume repair complete.
2012-12-17 15:28:51 -0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
It's now been 21 hours, and the boot support partitions for the volume as required has not completed.
I live-chatted with Seagate. The pertinant text is:
You: The question: with approximately 90% of the drive filled from backup, etc., how long should the process of 'updating boot support partitions for the volume as required' take? we're pushing 21hrs now.
Jason H: That is really hard to say. There is not a way to give a time on that, but I can tell you that it should not exceed 5 hours. At that point either the drive is unrepairable, or may be corrupted.
Jason H: It could be a bad drive.
You: ...hmm...your recommended course of action at this point? i'm an it director, am familiar with seatools, but unless i'm mistaken, you don't have a version of seatools for mac
Jason H: That is correct. The only thing we recommend on Mac is to use Mac First Aid Repair to try and correct any issues. I would still wait a little longer even though it has been some time. With the drive being 2TB and depending on the system, and what type of data, it could still be updating the partitions.
You: 1TB
You: video, audio, and documents/spreadsheets. the time machine backups took up over .5 the drive in just under a month. ok, so if another 24hrs doesn't resolve it, 3rd party tools to attempt a repair?
Jason H: The only other program that I can suggest, is even though Mac is not listed for Seatools, if you have an Intel based chipset on your Mac, Seatools for DOS can work. Otherwise, the only other thing I can suggest would be to search online for free recovery programs.
You: seagate will charge for data recovery even though the drive is 35 days old from purchase, correct?
Jason H: Correct, data recovery is not covered under warranty.
I'm getting a 2nd Goflex and USB adapter to push the data to once I get the drive operational, then exchanging the 'bad' drive and TB adapter.
Any suggestions as to which data recovery app is appropriate?

Sorry to hear your problem.
IMHO what you should of done was Shut down the Mac, Disconnected the drive from the Mac (Pull out the TB cord), Restarted the Mac and tried to Reconnect it once the Mac had started.
Could of simply been the drive was trying to draw to much power from the TB port, that is IF that drive did not have it own AC adapter, while the MBP was starting. But once it was up and running it may of been able to supply the correct power to the drive.
sorry I don't have any suggestions for Data recovery.

Data recovery disk

When I try and start up my pc or reboot it, I gat an error msg asking me to put in the recovery disk and press enter. I cannot find my recovery disk anywhere and wanted to know if there is somewhere I can download it from so I can get my pc started again. I have windows Vista.

if your product is HP Notebook PC, this is the process of creating a recovery disk
First insert a blank dvd on your optical drive
1. click start
2. start search field type Recovery disc creation or u can also go to recovery manager
3. if the welcome to recovery manager screen appears, click advanced option
4. in the advanced option, choose recovery disc creation
5. then click next, follow the on screen instruction
you will have the cd now!!ok!! see ya!

Disk Repair Options?

My machine will not boot.
I get a grey screen,an apple, and then silent black stillness.
I can boot from my install disk and run Disk Utility.
I select the Macintosh HD, and get a First Aid failed message with the following info:
Invalid Key Length
Volume Check Failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
Before I throw in the towel, I want to try other tools.
Disk Warrior and Tech Tools sites report that their bootable CDs will not support Macbook Pro 2.2 and 2.4 GHz.
Do you have any suggestions???
Thanks in advance.
MBP 15" 2.4GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
You can still run Disk Warrior from a bootable external hard drive. To create a bootable external hard drive, first format it with GUID partitioning using Disk Utility from the Utilities menu of the installer disk which came with your MacBook Pro that appears after you select the installer. You will find a Partition tab with options how to partition. Choose the GUID partition method after selecting the external hard drive, and before erasing the external hard drive, and partition it for two partitions (one for at least 10 GB, one for at least the size of the internal hard drive). Once that is done, restart the computer from the installer disk again, and install the operating system on the external hard drive's 10 GB partition customizing the install to only install the basic operating system and nothing else. I would put both a copy of Prosoft Data Rescue and Disk Warrior on the 10 GB partition. Once that is done, attempt recovering your internal drive to the larger partition with Prosoft Data Rescue. If you are able to get usable data or already have a backup, then go ahead and try to run Disk Warrior on the internal drive.
If Disk Warrior can't fix it, you may be due for a new drive.

Downloaded Lion - No Disk Repair Option and No Lion OS Disk

I just purchased Mac OS Lion in the App Store and downloaded it and my computer has been having problems since the download. I ran the disk utility and it is saying I need to repair but the option is greyed out and to use the start up disk. Can I use the start up disk now that I have a new operating system? How can I repair with out the Lion Disk?

You did install Lion as an upgrade from Snow leopard?
If you still have your SL install disk, boot from it (insert CD, and hold down C key while restarting). Go to Disk Utility and repair disk. Note: you should make sure to have a full backup first.
Or, you should have the new recovery partition installed automatically. Restart while holding the Command and R keys and then follow on screen instructions. (Not entirely sure though if that works on systems that were upgraded to Lion or only if it was pre-installed - but booting with Command + R won't do any harm; you can always dismiss and boot back into your regular system).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

Power Mac G4 MDD data recovery ftom corrupted hard drive

After my previous post on 4/7, my mac started new symptoms. When I press the power button, the mac starts up with the familiar chime showing the Apple Logo. The daisy spins and spins for a long time, and then the screen goes black and it sounds the chime again and repeats the same thing. It seems the hard drive can't be found. I'm thinking of replacing the hard drive hoping this will solve the problem.
Regretably I don't have a backup copy of recent photos. Is there anyway I can recover data from this diseased hard drive? Can commercial disk repair softwares normaly do this? Has anyone successfully recovered data this way? Any suggestion? Please let me know.

Your hard drive may have hardware and/or electronic problems or it may have a corrupted directory. Can you hear it spinning? If it has a malfunctioning component, software solutions won't be able to repair it. Professional data recovery is an option for dead hard drives, but it's very expensive. If the drive has a badly corrupted directory, a utility like Alsoft's "DiskWarrior" would be worth a try. Prosoft's utility "DataRescue" may also be worth checking out.

Data recovery options if drive not accessible through Target Disk Mode

I have the classic data recovery question: my computer seems to have failed, and I'd like to save some data. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Details:
- Most recent backup was about a month ago to Time Machine (unfortunately, this laptop went off on a long trip and didn't have access to the destination disk, and then when it came home was running very slowly and my wife halted the TM backup thinking it was slowing the computer down). Some documents have been backed up more recently via Dropbox and/or Mozy, but not a couple important ones
- When booted in Target Disk Mode, no drive shows up on the computer to which I connect it
- When I boot from an OS X CD, a drive appears in Disk Utility with no volumes on it, and the options to 'repair disk' and 'verify disk' are greyed out.
- When I try to just start the computer up, it gets to the grey screen with the apple and just spins.
Questions:
- Should I attempt anything else myself? I've never learned about Lion's Recovery Mode; can it be used to copy some data off, in the unlikely case that this computer would boot into that Mode? Would any further attempts to boot, etc. potentially reduce the chances of a professional company recovering data?
- I'm planning to take this to an Apple Store today to confirm that this is indeed a hard drive problem and not a failed mother board or something; is there a way for me to do this myself? In the past I've used Hardware Test CDs from Apple and stuff; I don't know if those still work on modern computers.
Thanks again for any help!

I know I used to have a copy of Disk Warrior, but can't find it and it's probably out of date. I downloaded the Data Rescue demo, but it only got partway through scanning the disk and then failed. It told me to 'clone' the disk, but after about three days of trying still wasn't making much progress on it, so I gave up.
However, I was able to recover the few important files I needed simply by removing the drive, putting it in an enclosure, and connecting it via USB. After 10 or 20 minutes, Finder gave me a message that said something like, "this disk cannot be repaired, and is probably damaged. You can still access the disk, but copy everything off ASAP because it will probably fail soon." Some files indeed couldn't be copied, but I could copy the things I needed.
I assume that this is a hardware problem. To confirm, I assume that I can check it without having DiskWarrior simply by trying to reformat it? If it can't be reformatted, I assume there's no chance that it is a functioning drive. Is that right?

Filevault repair failed, need advice on data recovery options.

As you may have seen from my previous posting, my main user Filevault account was corrupted and every attempt to repair it has failed. Since the repair was a failure, I would like some advice on what the best data recovery software would be. Since I don't feel like paying money for anything I would prefer you to give advice on software I can get for free. However if its absolutely necessary to use a purchased software to get best results then feel free to tell me. Often I hear that a lot of the Linux software have a great reputation in data recovery ability. I am able to get Linux on my Mac because I have a Knoppix CD and a Qemu emulator that would enable it to work so be sure to mention any of those options. Just try to tell me what the best way to recover the data would be. Thanks.

Internal SATA drives, preferably in a RAID configuration. You can fit up to 4 in a macpro, including the system drive. They're cheap and reliable, and you could easily fit the capacity you currently have with your externals into the three spare slots.
If you can't get enough capacity this way then you need to look into an external RAID like the G-RAID.
A firewire daisy chain is far from the ideal storage solution for HD.

Recovery disk Creator & data partition won't work - Satellite L300

My niece asked me to re-install her Toshiba Satellite L300 laptop, because the windows installation is rather buggy. She didn't have a recovery disk. Using Toshiba's Recovery Disk Creator I tried creating a recovery disk.
However, the program wouldn't start. Checking the directory of the program, it would seem that the program simply isn't there. Afterwards, I checked the data partition of the laptop.
There was a map with HDD recovery. However when using Windows' advanced boot (F8 before Windows startup) there was no choice of repairing the notebook. They only choices were the standard windows options (Save mode, normal start, etc.).
In short, it seems impossible to re-install the notebook with the current information at hand.
What would be the next course of action? Is it possible to order a recovery CD from Toshiba?
Another niece has the same notebook, would it be possible to use that notebook to create a recovery disk?
I'll appreciate and look forward to your reactions.

Hi
It looks like something has been changed on the HDD
However, fact is youve no Recovery disk and you cannot use HDD recovery option.
This means you need to order a new Recovery disk from Toshiba.
You can do this here:
https://backupmedia.toshiba.eu/landing.aspx
PS: one tip if you would use a search option of this forum, you would find the right answer too ;)

Finding parts to repair drive for data recovery

I have had a hard drive on a Powerbook 12" go down. I bought it in 2004, and it seems that the data recovery company I have sent it to are having problems sourcing another drive so they use parts to repair it and recover the data. They seem top have gone to lengths to try and source what they need, but I thought the discussion forum here might have some experience with this. The disk is Fujitsu Model mht2060at, the original 60Gb disk that was in the laptop. It now lives(?) outside of the laptop which has had a replacement disk fitted...
...Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Well, as far as they have said, they need to find comparable donor parts to repair the disk in order to recover the data, and so far they have not, in spite of an extensive search.
Also, they were not quoting cheap either. They have given me the option of simply having the drive returned, which I am inclined to accept, or else go and collect it in person. They have after all had 2 months. I think my real problem has been that at the start I was really hesitant in choosing a company as I could verify the quality or value of any of them: I took quite a while to pick one, and I picked this one finally after asking around, and finding there wasn't really anyone who had a better idea than myself.
Now I am in the position of potentially being back where I started, 1 down, all the rest to go, with a carriage fee every time I send it back out, and with the prospect of losing the disk in transit, or stumbling across a completely rogue operation.
Here I am therefore, needing to find a company with an established reputation...
... if there are some testimonials for the company you suggest from other apple users, I would really app[reciate them. I know it isn't cheap. I need to be convinced on the next choice though before I part with another bean, and I would appreciate anyone with advice on what process may take place, and what I should reasonably expect to pay...

Data recovery from a disk that is unmounted

Here is my problem:
disk utility had indicated that I had a couple of bad blocks in my start up disk and recommended that it be replaced. Since I already had a second internal hard drive with plenty of room on it, I simply installed OS 10.4 on the second hard drive and designated it as the startup drive.
Then I ran maintenance on the problem drive. After spending an hour or more grinding through every sector it appeared that the drive would pass master. However for some reason it hung up, stopped making progress and disabled my computer, i.e., I could move the cursor but could not click anything or select anything. Finally my only choice was to manually shut down and restart. Restart seemed to work fine except the disk on which I was performing maintenance did not show up on the desktop.
Finally I was able to locate it using disk utility and discovered that the mount point was missing and it was not mounted. Of course this is what I should have expected since techtool pro unmounts a drive while it performs maintenance and when I had to interrupt, it did not remount.
I spent three days trying to find a way to remount it, including downloading MountMe. Strangely when I ran MountMe it recognized the drive and gave me a successful remount message, but the drive was not actually remounted according to disk utility.
I have moved the drive to a different G-4 with no more success.
my greatest problem -- I had used Backup from .Mac but apparently was not careful enough about where the backup file was located. Generally I download to my desktop and then if I want to save a download I move it to an appropriate location. Unwisely I had done the same with backup which means of course that when the old startup drive crashed it took my desktop files with it.
Included among those backups were all of my financial records (Quicken) for the year. Three checking accounts, all of my credit card accounts, all of my business accounts, etc. I am talking about days of contacting credit card companies and banks for replacement of records for the year and, worse yet, they don't have the details in their files regarding the accounts to be charged nor do they have any info about inter account transfer, etc., etc., etc.
So, I am looking for a reasonably priced service provider to copy my defective hard drive for me. I don't think there is any problem with the data on the drive, I just can't get it remounted.
Maybe someone knows how to work around the mount point problem????
My main desktop computer is a G-4 quicksilver with dual 800, OS 10.4.3 and 1.4 GB of memory.
thanks,
John Cleek

Whenever someone reports issues with their drive my first question is always, "Do you hear any unusual noises coming from the computer?"
What I'm listening for is anything like grinding, scraping, what we always call 'ping-ponging' or other unusual clicking noises that would indicate a mechanical problem inside the drive. If you don't hear anything unusual then the problem is more likely to be corrupt volume information or a broken hard drive controller board.
If you hear noises then my recommendation is to stop trying to get anything off the drive because any more attempts would do yet more damage.
The only data recovery company I've used is www.drivesavers.com. I've called them multiple times to get quotes and their reps always seems to actualy have an idea what they're talking about. It is very expensive to use a service such as theirs but sometimes it is the only option available.

Data recovery software that help recover lost partition due to using Disk Recovery Assistant on a 2TB HDD?

I Just use the Disk Recovery Assistant on my 2TB HDD and it wipe it clean. What are the best data recovery tool out there that allow me to recover the lost partition and see the file in folders view not files view like in some data recovery like Disk Drill?
using ML 10.8 something I tried appleXsoft but no luck.

My best suggestion is
Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/
Download the free trial version of the software and use the option "Search Lost/Deleted Volumes", It will scan the drive and show you all lost partitions list on preview. Once you click on the selected partition it will show you again 3 options ,
Quick Recovery- This option is very effective on case of volume corruption
Advanced Recovery- This option recovers data from formatted volume and scans each and every block of volume for lost data.
Deleted File Recovery.- It scans unused blocks of volume to recover deleted data.
On successful recovery the software will show the files in folders view with the folder structure..In case you are unable to see the desired results you would need to go for Raw Recovery which will show results on file basis.This option is only required incase the previous option does not give you the desired results.
Cheers !!

Recovery Disk wiped out all external HDD data.

On my western digital 1TB HDD, I have created a drive with name I: of size 20GB to take recovery partition. When start with Create Recovery disk and selected drive I:, it creates recovery partition backup however it wiped all other drives data of external
HDD. Now, what should I do to recover?? Can Microsoft help to get my 200 GBs data back due to its big bug??
Thanks & Regards, Ankur Mutha

It tells you that it's going to delete
all the data on that disk, in quite plain terms.
If your data is irreplaceable, chances are most of it is still there. There are commercial data recovery services that may be able to help you get it back, but they cost a good bit of money. Search for "disk drive data recovery" with
Google or Bing.
I suggest not trying to access the drive yourself as the more you do with it the more likely the sectors containing deleted data may be overwritten.
Good luck.
-Noel
Detailed how-to in my eBooks:
Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options
Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options

Data recovery/Disk repair options

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