Data recovery likely?

My mother's iBook G4 died two weeks ago. From her description, it sounds like her hard drive froze or died while she was attempting to load images from her camera. She couldn't get the computer to respond and ended up unplugging the charger and removing the iBook's battery -- then apparently cracked something while trying to reinsert the battery and thereafter wasn't even able to get the computer to power on. She took it to the local PC shop in her small town. They were not able to help, but did remove the hard drive. I think the iBook has been recycled already (before I became involved).
I have put her hard drive in a USB-IDE enclosure with no success. Each time I connect the enclosure to my PowerBook, the hard drive makes a sound (like a tiny Harley revving or a small rotary phone being dialed) for about 1 minute, then nothing. Neither Disk Utility, System Profiler nor Prosoft Data Rescue 3 (demo) can see the hard drive. I've tried freezing, tapping and dropping the hard drive.
I guess my question at this point is whether there is any point in sending the HDD a place like Mac Medics for a data retrieval attempt, or are they just going to take my $99 and recommend a clean room firm? My mother has about 5 years of photo images (and no back-ups, ever) she would like to retreive.
Thanks! Scott

Hello, I'm the owner of MacMedics. I saw that we were mentioned in your forum post. The other poster is correct in suggesting that you try a FireWire enclosure. If your USB is not 2.0, it might not be powerful enough to "bus power" your USB drive sled without external power. Many cases have an extra USB to power connector that will allow you plug into a second USB port on your computer to give it enough juice to run. Some also have a small power brick, but most do not, and many offer that as an extra option you can pay for.
In terms of Tier 1 data recovery fee, we only charge the $99 if A. our Tier 1 data recovery is successful, or B. if our Tier 2 data recovery is unsuccessful. FYI: Tier 2 is $398 ($99 Tier 1 and $299 Tier 2).
If your drive is not spinning or has other issues that that make it a bad candidate for the type of recovery we do at MacMedics, then there is no charge except for return shipping.
Our process recovers a ton of data for our clients and I tell folks that we're a great data recovery test to see if you really do need clean room recovery.
Once your drive goes to "clean room" you're paying clean room prices even if your drive has a minor problem. You might pay less than if you drive was in a fire or under water, but clean room firms often quote a wide range in advance. Usually At least $1000 to $2000. Often lots more.
Our fees cap at $398 and that's only if we get all your data under our Tier 2. If we can grab data in Tier 1 then that's all you pay. We'll copy to your own hard drive, your computer, or a hard drive you can buy from us for $99.
If your data is worth $99, don't mess with it. send it to us or someone else who knows what they are doing. When a drive is "dying" every second you tinker with it, it dies more. The more life in the drive when we get it, the more time we can spend with it extracting data.
No data recovery case is the same as the one before, and it's really hard to give general advice that applies to everyone. If you want to see more info I have three places to send you:
General info on hard drives:
http://www.HardDrivesDie.com
Our data recovery page:
http://www.macmedics.com/recovery.htm
Our data recovery FAQ's as a PDF:
http://www.macmedics.com/dr.pdf
I hope that helps. Call us if you like. 1-866-MAC-MEDICS
Dana Stibolt
MacMedics

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    G4 933 mhz Quicksilver   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   Wacom Intuos 2 tablet; Epson 2400 Photo; HP Deskjet 6840; LaCie 80gb D2 FWDV

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    So 707MB of horrible panic and regret later, I've found myself reading about and using the wonderful TestDisk and PhotoRec programs to recover my files. Things are going well, and I'm recovering my photos (and other data) using PhotoRec with the help of jhead and the recommended sorting scripts. While my vacation photos are the most important things on that drive, there are some documents and programming projects I'd really like to recover too, which brings me to my main question:
    Is there any way to recover the directory structure or filenames by using TestDisk to make a "dummy" NTFS filesystem (which is the format it was previously)? The way I understand it, dd should have overwritten roughly the first 707MB on the drive, byte by byte, which would eliminate all partition data soundly, but not the further up inodes and structures. Running TestDisk [analyze] doesn't yield any immediate results, but I have not done the deeper scan. The whole 160GB drive was a single NTFS partition, most of which was being used, so it would seem with part (most of) of the disk structure intact, remaking the superblock to recover the data shouldn't be terribly out of reach. I'm not sure exactly what 707MB were destroyed, but recovering the file structure and names would make my current situation much, much better!
    Most instructions on using TestDisk are focused on a simple partition-delete or dying drive; I was wondering if anyone had experience or advice on doing what I have described above; restoring the superblock(s) so I could access my old file structure. My plan of action is to remove all recoverable files using PhotoRec, then try to use the TestDisk deep scan to try and recover the whole NTFS partition. I've decided to ask this of Arch users as you seem to all have good input on issues; I'll try a post to the Ubuntu Forums as well (though that often seems to degenerate into chaos). I'm actually open to using any OS, including Windows if people have suggestions there.
    Thanks for reading this, and possibly helping. On my end, consider the Lesson Learned. Backup, for real, and always always check before doing something irreversible.
    Last edited by ninesharp (2010-01-27 05:42:12)

    Thanks for the responses!
    A quick update: I was able to get all of my data (that I was concerned about) off the drive using PhotoRec, which is a wonderful, wonderful program. Though, that doesn't really solve the filesystem restore issue, so I'm going to keep updating this with my results in trying to accomplish that.
    I don't think mkfs would work, that will likely overwrite any fs data that might still be around; I don't think mkfs.ntfs checks for a currently residing fs (it also forcibly zero's out information by default).
    I will try chkdsk. I have been reading about where the backup MFT is stored on NTFS, depending on what OS you formatted it under. It is possible that the backup remains somewhere out of where "Data Destroyer" touched. 
    First I think I'm going to do a deep TestDisk scan and see what it finds. I hear chkdsk can sometime be destructive, so I'll use that if TestDisk finds nothing (which means it's likely chkdsk won't succeed either).
    I'm very pleased to have recovered my data, thanks to PhotoRec! I highly recommend it (and/or TestDisk) to anyone attempting data recovery.
    Last edited by ninesharp (2010-01-28 19:11:18)

  • Hard drive failure - options for data recovery and AppleCare coverage

    I have been handed a relative's 12 month old MacBook Pro with a factory-installed 500GB hard drive which appears to have failed. When attempting to boot the MacBook I am met with the classic clicking and grating noise which I know is a tell-tale sign of hard drive failure. The drive will not boot and I am shown the question mark folder icon, indicating that the operating system cannot be found. Have booted into internet recovery mode, Disk Utility appears to have found no sign of the hard drive's existence and shows none of its partitions. I have attempted putting the MacBook into FW target-mode and mounting the disk from another laptop, but to no avail; while it will go into target mode the drive simply isn't visible. The SATA connection to the drive is definitely OK - I have tested with another 2.5 inch hard drive which showed up fine in Disk Utility and was bootable. Have run Apple Hardware Test/Diagnostics but this returned no errors. It seems like a pretty clear cut case of drive failure.
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    1, Data recovery software is your only alternative if there is no backup. It may or may not be able to revoker anything from that hard drive. If it does then the only other choice is to go to a data recovery service. If have to go that route expect to pay for it, like $$$$.
    2, Yes. They will at least tell him what the problem is and the cost if any to fix. There is a good chance they will fix it for nothing and only charge for data recovery if they can do it.

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