Getting data off a working External HDD without Initializing / Formatting it?

I had an external Hard Drive that I use for work, but the USB port went bad on the little chip inside the external case. I've removed the HDD from the case and put it my computer. My Computer recognizes the drive, but won't let me open the drive or see what
is on it / doesn't even show up in "My Computer".
Every form I've found says to Initialize the Drive in the Disk Manager, but I can't do that because I need the information off the drive before it can be formatted, other forms say to do different things that don't even show up as options in the menus.
I already have a new external drive to transfer everything to...is there a way to get files to transfer without Initializing the drive in the Disk Manager? Or a way to allow me to get into the drive? (I've also considered getting a Internal HD Dock that
plugs in with a USB, but didn't really have the time to order one / not sure if that would still run into the same issue)

check this .. May be useful
for your situation.
External USB drive error "You must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it"
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/2b069948-82e9-49ef-bbb7-e44ec7bfebdb/forum-faq-external-usb-drive-error-you-must-initialize-the-disk-before-logical-disk-manager-can?forum=w7itprohardware

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Getting Data Off Performa 577

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If you could give the name of a city near you we could maybefind a user group near you. Several people have found local help by connecting up with old timerswho keep spare computers around.
Computer recycling companies will sometimes have oldexternal SCSI optical drives. Pullthe optical drive out and you have a hard drive bay.
As for the computer, have you tried the keyboard powerswitch? It may sound like a dumbquestion but those computers did not come on with the power switch. They turned on with the keyboard, afterthe power was supplied to the motherboard. That is the first noise you are hearing, the CRT respondingto power on.
Ji~m
(not sure what was going on with the text but I had to strip it back to text in Word.)

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To completely remove Apple Configurator from a Mac, you need to delete the application along with the following:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator.
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The only way to get data onto the phone is by syncing. To get some photos off the phone you can connect the phone to the computer with USB cable and use windows explorer to view and copy the photos from the phone to the computer. You could use a program like ibackupbot or something similar on your computer and get data off the phone to your computer using that

HT1391 downloaded itunes and when it synched it took all my music off of an external hdd and I would like it back?

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How do I get data off my phone? when I plug phone into the wall and hold down the button i can get into photos and messages etc but when I plug into laptop it goes to recovery mode........therefore the data is not yet wiped? HELP!

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Hello there stidhambr15,
I was researching the issue you are having and recommend a couple of things. First it might be a good idea to reset the device following iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Turning off and on (restarting) and resetting found here http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
Resetting your device
Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button together for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
If that doesn't quite get the device going again, I recommend restoring the device.
iTunes: Restoring iOS software
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414
Might even be a good idea to turn off the phone, reseat the SIM card, and turn it back on.
iPhone and iPad: How to remove the SIM card
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5163
iPhone 4 (GSM model)
iPhone 4S
Cheers,
Sterling

How get data off Time Capsule that otherwise doesn't work

I think a power surge caused our Time Capsule to stop working. I took it to the Apple Store today and they couldn't get it to come up and be recognized. While Apple will replace it, they said they don't help get the data off (and referred me to a couple of Apple consultants). But, they were pretty sure the data was in good shape.. just most everything else apparently wasn't working.
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Thanks.

I am having the exact same problem. I have a bunch of video on my time capsule and im in the middle of editing it and now I cant access the video and in final cut it just says media off line and there is no way to reconnect to it. Could somebody please tell us if there is a way to fix this without too much work.

How can i get data off my dead hdd

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If it failed *that* badly, experts are needed to extract the platters and couple them with identical controllers.
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Some assistance needed on getting data off of a Time Machine backup

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While waiting on the PS to arrive, I've decided to change backup strategy a bit and purchased a RAID array set up as RAID1. At least this way a drive failure won't screw me. I know, I still need to be careful since the drives are mirror's of each other so if the data is corrupted...anyway.
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And that is the other problem. I don't think TM will give me access to that drives data since the drive is no longer connected to my system. I'm hoping I'm wrong on that and that there is a simple solution to get at the data.
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How do i move some of the folders in iphoto library ( to an external HDD) without actually having to move the whole library and without affecting the albums i have already created in iPhoto.????

I have been storing my photos separately in folder and importing it in iphoto without actually copying them. Now to free some space in my hdd i want to move some of those folders to an external hdd. How do i do that without affecting my iphoto albums. ????

Well, strictly speaking, you can do this.Two ways. One is tricky:
How are you at editing SQL databases?
This user found a way:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3216539?tstart=30
But tread very carefully - get it wrong and you'll hose everything. Make a back up first.
The other is expensive:
Purchase Aperture, and if you have the latest versions of both these apps, then you can open the Library with Aperture, and use the relocate Masters command.
Or, in the end, make a managed Library. A Referenced Library is more work for zero gain.
Regards
TD

Getting data off harddrive when logic board is bad.

My Mac has stopped booting and I am curently waiting for a replacement logic board to fix the issue. However until it arrives, is there a way I can get the data off of the harddrive? The ccomputer will not start in target mode so that option does not work. I can't think of any other way.
Any ideas would be helpful.

If the issue is with the logic board (and, thus you can't start target disk mode), you need to take the system to a Mac service center (such as your local Mac store) and have them remove the drive for you so that you can put it in an external enclosure and access the data from another computer.
That will cost you money. You can do it yourself (there's instructions on the net), but in doing so you's void your warrantly. If there's one thing I'd nit-pick about the Mac (er, Apple), is that they don't make things (other than the Mac Pro) user-servicable. I think it they could actually reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction by making it so. Swapping out hard-disks is really necessary for all sorts of reasons today, not the least of which is that the bigger they get the more likely (and more frequently) they fail.

Getting data off G4 Power Mac

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Thanks for any help you may have.
Bruce

That will only work if you have an AGP based PowerMac G4. PCI based, you'll want to pull out the hard drive and put it inside an external Firewire hard drive case that supports Parallel ATA. http://www.macsales.com/ offers such cases. Make sure you get it for Parallel ATA/IDE, the SATA will not work. Alternatively, you may be able to setup a network with your newer machine via ethernet.

Getting data off of a dead Mac mini

I have a two year old Mac mini. It's never been the fastest horse in the stable. Tuesday night, I was getting even more spinning beach ball that usual. On Monday morning, it was even worse. I had a spinning beach ball for 10 minutes, and I shut the computer down by holding down the on button for 5 seconds. I ran the Apple Hardware Test. Very quickly, it told me that I had error "2STF/8/3:ATA-100 ata-6-Master" in "Mass Storage." Using a different computer, I looked around a bit on this forum, and figured that this wasn't going to be a cheap and easy fix. Today I bought a new iMac (which I'm working from right now). I want to know if I can get any data off of my old mac mini, and then if I can eventually fix it so that it can be a back-up computer for me to leave at home.
I borrowed a firewire from a friend, and tried to use my mac mini as a target drive. Unfortunately, the Mac OS 10.4 startup/apple hardware test disk seems to be irretrievably stuck in my mac mini. When I connected the computers with the firewire (and started the mac mini up, pressing T), all I got was an icon of the startup disk on my iMac's desktop. Is there another way I can try to access the data on my Mac mini?
My Mac mini is running 10.4.11 and my brand new iMac is running 10.5.
Any ideas?

2.5" IDE hard drives which can be put into a Mac mini aren't all that expensive (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST94811AB/ has a $50 40Gb example, and the same supplier has other options for more storage) but replacing the drive yourself is a bit fiddly and not for the faint-hearted! It's not all that difficult however, so resurrecting your mini may not be all that expensive or hard.
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How to get data off Quadra 650's hard drive

My brother has an old Quadra 650 that has some old design projects on it that he would like to get off. The hard drive won't boot and he is frustrated with the task of trying to figure out why. I am hoping to help him get to his old design files another way.
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Any advice?

There are several difficult ways to transfer the files, once you establish that the drive is alive and the files are there.
AppleTalk-
This requires a Mac with a built-in serial port running 9 or earlier, OR an AppleTalk-over-Ethernet adapter such as AsanteTalk or Farallon EtherMac iPrint LT.
Ethernet-
This requires your Ethernet capable Quarda 650 to have a cheap Transceiver to convert its built-in AAUI-15 Ethernet port to the now-ubiquitous RJ45 twisted-pair Ethernet cable. Luckily, these are readily available on the used market:
eBay search for: (apple,mac) (AAUI,transceiver, RJ45,twisted) -(usb,coax,bnc,RAID,fibre,10base2,thinet,AppleTalk)
Dialup-
If you have a modem connection to the Internet, you could email the files to yourself.
SCSI on another Mac-
Getting a SCSI card, drive enclosure, cable, Terminator, and getting it all to work may be too daunting for a one-off data transfer, but is doable.
Floppy disk-
You would need a USB diskette drive on another Mac. These USB drives are capable of reading 1.4MB Mac-formatted floppies only (not 800K diskettes).
USB thumb drive-
USB support probably requires 8.6, which you may not have and your Mac may or may not run, plus you need a PCI-slot card.
FireWire-
Firewire support probably requires 8.6, which you may not have and your Mac may or may not run, plus you need a PCI-slot card. Your Mac does not support Firewire Target Disk mode.

Replacing an imac and getting data off the backup drive with different OS

Hello. I have a 2008 imac 27 inch. i backup with a toshiba portable drive. When my machine dies, i may get an android tablet or a windows laptop. If i use a different OS, will i be able to get the data off my imac's backup drive? thanks.

Well, Pictures & photos should be easy enough, Documents depends what kind exactly, calendar I'm not sure what might work.
Other things like Bookmarks will be more work, on Address Book you need to Select All & Export a vCard for them all.

Getting data off a working External HDD without Initializing / Formatting it?

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