Getting data off of broken hard drives

There are basically two choices for data recovery. Software and hardware. Hardware means sending the drive out to a company that specializes in data recovery. Some will partner with you, giving you discounts and possibly a commission.
For software there are a lot of options out there. If you want something to do all the work for you, you might be interested in Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery.... Whatever you choose, never, ever, boot a failing drive. Don't do anything that might be able to write to the drive, ever.
Don't forget, though, that if a drive has physical damage you can cause it to get worse every time you apply power.

When you find it please let me know - We just spent a lot of money with a professional recovery outfit on recovering a raid array!
In any case, I very much doubt the process would be anything like automatic, and will need a great deal of knowledge about disk hardware and file systems.
Good luck!
==EDIT== P.S. This was no use to me but it might be of use to you - some very useful tips about recovery here http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-a-Dead-Hard-Disk

Similar Messages

Getting data off of internal hard drive

my G4 tower is not responding. Rather than try and fix it, all I really need is the data on the two internal hard drives. How do I do this?
Is there a way to remove the internal hard drives, connect with a SCSI (and a power supply?) to my G4 laptop?

This is probably the cheapest and fastest way to move the data:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/USB2PATA/
Remove the hard drive, connect the widget, and plug into another computer's USB port. Then you can move stuff to that computer or the external drive attached to computer #2. The adaptor requires no enclosure. I use one and place the bare drive on a clean newspaper or magazine to prevent shorting any of the open connection on the bottom of the drive.

How do I get info off my iMac hard drive now that it's out of the computer?

I was in a car accident recently. I'm okay, but I'm afraid my iMac did not survive. Before taking it to the insurance company to drop off the computer for reimbursement, I brought my computer to my local Apple Store to see if they could extract the data from the hard drive. (I've had this thing for years, so one can see that I would like to have what's on it.)
The Apple Store regretfully told me that they did not do this type of work and referred me to a nearby tech store that specialized in extracting data. I went there and they quoted me $80 for the hard drive's physical extraction and then another $30 for the information to be transferred onto a USB drive (or the equivalent). I was called a day later to be told that the mission was impossible, but I could go somewhere else that would charge me $1699 without tax and without a guarantee that they could actually perform the job.
Let's face it - that's a lot of money.
I went home and researched how to get my hard drive out of the computer and did so without much hassle. I've since then turned in the other parts to the insurance company as they were broken and useless.
Now I have a hard drive sitting on my counter without any idea how to get the information off and onto an external storage unit. Is there any way I can get the data myself?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Whether or not you are able to recover the data off the drive yourself will depend on if the drive suffered any impact damage in the crash. You can buy USB SATA or IDE adapters (Intel and almost all G5 use SATA) that will let you connect your hard drive to a computer (like a flash drive) to see if you can recover the data. If the drive has suffered physical damage if may not mount.
If you know someone who has one of these adapters you could try using theirs, otherwise you could buy one but you take the risk of the data on the drive being non recoverable. Regardless, both are much cheaper than $1699!
(Alternatively, if you know of someone with a Mac Pro or PowerMac G5 they may be able to install the drive in their machine and try to boot from or mount it and copy the data off.)

How to get data off old LC III drive

I have our first LC III computer that I gave to our in-laws...now they want data off of it and I don't know how to get it off easily. The HD is a SCSI interface I think...can I use a SCSI to usb cable? This machine was pre-ethernet, so no communication interface other than the printer port and a port for and old style modem.

Hi,
It is not so easy to gain direct access to data on an old SCSI hard drive via a modern computer.
An alternative could be to use 1.44 MB floppy disks for transfers. Another semi-old (pre-1998) Mac with Ethernet could then read these floppies and forward the data files over a network. A newer Mac would require a USB floppy drive.
A Windows PC, with a floppy drive and a utility such as TransMac for the handling of Mac disks, could also be used.
Yet another solution could be a serial null-modem transfer. See the following discussion for details:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4974860?start=0&tstart=
Jan

How can I get information off my old hard drive?

Recently my old mac book died. The genius bar said that it would be 750$ for repairs and since it had been 5 years since I'd gotten the laptop, I opted to buy a new MacBook Pro. The problem is I have stuff on my old hard drive that I want to keep (mostly the pictures from my iphoto), so the genius bar took the hard drive out for me. So now I have the hard drive from my old laptop and I'm not sure how I get the information off of it.
I tried to look it up online and saw something about a hard drive caddy? I have no idea what these are/ how they work. Do you just put the hard drive inside of it and connect it with a usb chord? Are all of these compatible with the macbook hard drives and will it work with my new macbook pro?
Or could/should I just go to best buy or something to see if they could put it on a CD for me?
What are my options/how can I go about getting the information from the old hard drive onto my new laptop?
Thanks!

You want to buy an enclosure that will accept a 2.5" IDE hard drive(I think that is what your computer probably had). Once you put the old hard drive into the enclosure, just connect it to your new computer using USB or Firewire(if the enclosure has Firewire ports) and copy your stuff over.
Now is a GOOD time for you to buy another external hard drive and back up your new computer to it often. This will save you the trouble of recovering your information in the future. It is always recommended that you back up your important files to several places.

How to get video off my computers hard drive?

After trashing preferences I forgot to change the scratch disks, to my external hard drive, and all the video was put on my computers hard drive.
Can someone tell me where to find the video on my hard drive, and then how to delete it off, it is about 100 GB of stuff.
Thanks,
Michael

Make sure you know exactly where you put it, and what the clip names are, because you'll have to reconnect media in any project this footage has been used in.

Can't get things off my external hard drive

When I purchased my Macbook, it had OS X 10.4.11. I upgraded to Leopard, and started backing up my files using Time Machine. My hard drive crashed, and when they fixed it, they but OS X back on my computer. I really want to get all of my files and settings from my external hard drive back onto my computer, but I don't know how. Help?

try...
Apple.com > Support > Discussions > Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard > Time Machine
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227

Need to get files off of a hard drive.

I had a powerbook 17' and it crashed due to a faulty power supply. I now have a Macbook and the Powerbook is deemed useless, however I want to recovery files from the hard drive. It won't turn on at all...I plan on opening it up and taking the hard drive out, but what are my options from there? will i be able to recover files from it through another computer or do I need to leave it in? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
Since your Powerbook is dead, you can remove the hard drive and put it into an external case. For example, one like http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MOTGFWU2/ would do it for you. Any case that accepts a 2.5" IDE/ATA hard drive will work. Assuming the hard drive itself is good, you can plug it into the Macbook via USB or firewire and recover your files.

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.
I have an old Sawtooth G4 450 that has the Classic environment still on it inside OS X 10.2 and can be booted to OS 9. Also have old Adobe software and fonts on the machine, from using the machine for freelance design before getting my Mac Pro. So, what I'm hoping is that I can take the drive from his Quadra 650 (SCSI-based) and connect it to something I have and get the data off of it. With the 650's drive being old and SCSI, I'm not sure what options I have.
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.

I've cleared almost 30 gig off of my hard drive in the past 2 weeks, and it will temporarily show that in the Get Info box. But hours later, I am still getting a disk full error and all of the memory has disappeared.

I've cleared almost 30 gig off of my hard drive in the past 2 weeks, and it will temporarily show that in the Get Info box. But hours later, I am still getting a disk full error and all of the memory has disappeared. I have cleared my backup logs from Time Machine, checked the mail folder, cleaned out tons of photos and videos and it still keeps filling back up.
In checking the log files, here is the message repeated over and over....
Jul 4 07:18:13 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local CalendarAgent[213]: CoreData: error: (21) I/O error for database at /Users/donjr/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache. SQLite error code:21, 'unable to open database file'
Jul 4 07:18:13 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local CalendarAgent[213]: Core Data: annotation: -executeRequest: encountered exception = I/O error for database at /Users/donjr/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache. SQLite error code:21, 'unable to open database file' with userInfo = {
NSFilePath = "/Users/donjr/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache";
NSSQLiteErrorDomain = 21;
Jul 4 07:18:14 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local cfprefsd[180]: CFPreferences: error creating file /Users/donjr/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist.t3l894p: 28
Jul 4 07:18:30 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local Printer Pro Desktop[275]: Empty task
Jul 4 07:18:33 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local Microsoft Sync Services[8149]: [0x16697c0] |ISyncSession|Warning| com.microsoft.Entourage2008: transitioning to cancel - session cancelled by server: Client 'com.microsoft.Entourage2008' tried to start a session for the plan 45AD80C3-0D52-4CF2-8CBA-103564B6C47C and the plan no longer exists.
Jul 4 07:18:33 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local Microsoft Sync Services[8149]: Warning: NSBundle NSBundle </Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/Microsoft Sync Services.app/Contents/Resources/MicrosoftOfficeNotes.syncschema> (not yet loaded) was released too many times. For compatibility, it will not be deallocated, but this may change in the future. Set a breakpoint on __NSBundleOverreleased() to debug
Jul 4 07:18:33 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local Microsoft Sync Services[8149]: Warning: NSBundle NSBundle </Users/donjr/Library/Sync Services/Schemas/MicrosoftOfficeNotes.syncschema> (not yet loaded) was released too many times. For compatibility, it will not be deallocated, but this may change in the future. Set a breakpoint on __NSBundleOverreleased() to debug
Jul 4 07:18:45 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123 kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: default_pager_backing_store_monitor - send LO_WAT_ALERT
Jul 4 07:18:45 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123 kernel[0]: macx_swapoff SUCCESS
Jul 4 07:19:31 Donald-Keele-Jrs-iMac-123.local Printer Pro Desktop[275]: Empty task
Any ideas on what to do next?
I'm running and iMac 20-inch early 2009
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB
Software OS X 10.8.4 (12E55)

Step 1
Quit Calendar. Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a file named "Calendar Cache" selected.
Move the selected file to the Trash. There may be one or two other files in the same folder with names that begin in "Calendar Cache". If so, delete those files too.
Step 2
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash as well:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Mac-format to PC-format: How can I get my music off an external hard drive?

I had a mac-formatted iPod for years, and all of my music is on an external hard drive that is hooked up to that computer. When I got a new iPod after mine was stolen, I had to get a PC-formatted iPod. How can I get my music off of the hard drive and onto my PC (and eventually my iPod)? I tried uploading the files into my iTunes account on the Mac, but they don't show up in my account on the PC. Most of the music are CDs that I copied onto my computer years ago, and had on my old iPod. Help!

Your Firefox profile would have the data. You can find it at:
*C:\Users\<Windows login/user name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>
**The file you want is called ''places.sqlite''
You can copy that file if you want to restore your bookmarks to your current Firefox by going back to ''C:\Users\<Windows login/user name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>'' and overwriting the current file. Keep in mind, doing this will erase your current bookmarks.

I transferred data from my external hard drive to my restored Mac Book Pro via migration assistant and now my external hard drive in time capsule has red minus signs. How do I get rid of that without getting rid of any of my data?

I used Migration Assistant to transfer my data from my external hard drive via Time Capsule to my restored Mac Book Pro. When I now go into Time Capsule I there are red minus signs in the corner of all the folders that are contained in my back up. How do I get rid of this and access my previous back-ups?

Select the drive and Finder > Get info and at the bottom "ignore permissions on this volume"
You can copy the files, but the ownership on the files still belongs to the other user account, once your done copying, then perform a #6 Reset Users Permissions and that will set all the ownership to that account.
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Another method is to copy the entire folder, then change it's permissions.

I need to replace my laptop Hard drive. How do I get my iTunes off the old hard drive to an external so I can put it back on the new hard drive?

I need to replace my laptop Hard drive. How do I get my iTunes off the old hard drive to an external so I can put it back on the new hard drive?

Type move itunes library into the google serach bar.
It has always been very basic to always maintain abackup copy of your computer. Do you not have a backup copy?

How to properly recover data from "broken" hard drive?

Hello Mac users,
I have a mid 2012 Mountain Lion MacBook Pro. My hard drive recently failed. As I have been working in Thailand, I decided to bring my laptop an Authorized Service Provider (Macintosh Center Co., Ltd.) in Bangkok. Their diagnostic was that my hard drive wasnt working anymore, and I had to change it. The problem is, since I had no backup, I asked them to recover my data and transfer to the new hard drive. But, this Apple Authorized Service Provider told me I had to go somewherelse because they have no software to recover my data! So, I went to the local Joe's repair computer store who retrieved my data from the problematic hard drive to the new one. Now, the problem is that all my "old" data is located in "orphan folders". In other words, counteless files were retrieved without folders and settings.
So, I would like to know if it is possible to recover my data with all the settings I had and then transfer it to my new hard drive. If it's possible, what software should I use to properly recover my data? If it's not possible, how should I deal with the "orphan folders" and my current settings?
Thanks in advance for your help.

First stop using your system, then get a copy of a program that will recover files like Data Rescue 3. If you have a time machine backup you may be able to restore them.

I just need to know how you get an iTunes library off the original hard drive of a mac and onto an external hard drive and still have it work normally?

I just need to know how you get an iTunes library off the original hard drive of an imac and onto an external hard drive and still have it work as it normally would?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Getting data off of broken hard drives

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