Hard drive died - want to create bootable external

The hard drive on my spare laptop - and old PowerBook G4 - just died, and I'll probably wind up getting a new HD installed. In the meantime, I was thinking of booting it from an external drive, of which I have several. But none are clones of the old HD. They're just empty drives sitting in the closet.
Can I make one of those external drives bootable so I can use the old G4 until I take it in for a new internal HD?
Another question: I have been backing up this old G4 with Time Machine to an external drive. I'm assuming that isn't a bootable clone ... or is it?

Roger Barre wrote:
The hard drive on my spare laptop - and old PowerBook G4 - just died, and I'll probably wind up getting a new HD installed. In the meantime, I was thinking of booting it from an external drive, of which I have several. But none are clones of the old HD. They're just empty drives sitting in the closet.
Can I make one of those external drives bootable so I can use the old G4 until I take it in for a new internal HD?
Another question: I have been backing up this old G4 with Time Machine to an external drive. I'm assuming that isn't a bootable clone ... or is it?
No, TM backups are not bootable.
And since your HD is dead, you cannot clone it.
However, this might work - I say "might"
Connect both the TM drive and a blank external drive to the computer and boot up with the Leopard DVD - hold down "C" key on boot.
After language screen, in the menu, top left under Utilities you will find "Restore from TM backup" or something to that effect.
See if it allows you to select the second, empty drive as the target. If it does, you can restore your OS to that drive. Whether or not it's bootable depends on your hardware.

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Hard drive died, want to upload music from iPod

my hard drive died a nasty death a few weeks ago and so far, no one has been able to recover any data. (Yes, I am one of those fools who hadn't backed up.)
I have a new (blank) hard drive installed now. My iPod has all my music, audiobooks, and photos on it. Is there any way to use the iPod to upload that data onto my new hard drive? When I plug it in, it gives me a message saying that an iPod can only be synced to one iTunes at a time, and do I want to erase (clearly not), or transfer purchases.
The problem is, only a small portion of my music are purchased. The rest have been copied from my old CDs. How can I transfer those songs/playlists to my new hard drive?
And likewise with the photos. In fact, I realize this is really two questions: 1) how do I transfer music and 2) how do I transfer photos? In both cases, I want to use the iPod to overwrite the new (blank) iTunes and iPhoto.
Since my iPod contains the only copies of my music and photos I have left, I really don't want to do anything wrong that might erase them. Help!

Copying from iPod to Computer threads...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1534227&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=893334&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=797432&#797432
Also these useful internet articles...
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/copying-music-from-ipod-to-co mputer/
http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/
http://playlistmag.com/secrets/2006/12/twowaystreet20/index.php
http://playlistmag.com/help/2005/01/2waystreet/
Patrick

I have WD 1TB and use Time Machine for the past 2 years. Now I have multiple folders in my external hard drive and want to know how to condense all folders into yearly folders instead. Anyone know how to do this?

Now I have multiple folders in my external hard drive and want to know how to condense all folders into yearly folders instead. Anyone know how to do this?

anthonycancel wrote:
I want the folders I already backed up to come together into one folder when that year is over. Is there a way to manually do that or automatic through TM?
I'm quite sure there is no "automatic" way to do this. I've never heard of anyone trying it either. I suppose if you wanted try it, you could simply create a new folder in the same partition TM is on, label it for that year, then gather all the days for that year and drag/drop them into the folder. I suspect (but do not know) you'd be risking the continuity of your backups, meaning TM would simply start over again, meaning that next back up would start a new series of backups, with the first one roughly equalling the entire capacity of your internal HD, instead of adding only the new data to the previous backup. Once again, I would recommend against it, unless you're fine with TM starting a new series of backups if it doesn't work out the way you want it to. Hope you'll post back with results so we can learn from it.

My hard drive died. How can I start my computer with my Time Machine external drive?

My hard drive died. How can I start my computer with my Time Machine external drive?

Pondini wrote:
If you're on 10.7.2, yes, you can boot from the TM drive.
Beep, beep, beep....
Hold ON! Getting a call on the red phone.
"Yes...yes.... ok!"
It's confirmed, H.e.l.l. has finally frozen over! TM drives are now bootable!
Still it's not a real bootable clone, can't run the computer off the external drive for long in only Recovery mode, still requires the boot drive to be replaced if it not functional, and with TM backing up every hour, isn't going to offer much software protection as the TM drive is just as likely to be as messed up as the internal boot drive.
For a iMac it still requires the computer to be taken in to Apple for a drive replacement, as ONLY Apple can do it due to proprietary connections and firmware on the iMac hard drives.
But it is bootable!
The backup time factor can be controlled using TimeMachine Editor, from every hour to just when the user thinks it's necessary.
Apple lurches slightly forward! Hurray!
Question is, can one restore from earlier stable TM's or just the last one? In this bootable fashion?

I have itunes directory on an external hard drive and want to direct a new installation of itunes on windows 8 to use it. I tried holding down ctrl and clicking itunes and after many tries got it to work one time. When I went back in later it had reverted

I have itunes directory on an external hard drive and want to direct a new installation of itunes on windows 8 to use it. I tried holding down ctrl and clicking itunes and after many tries got it to work one time. When I went back in later it had reverted back to a blank version of itunes and I cant get ctrl to work again. Any other ideas?

This is sometimes caused by a problem with the iTunesPrefs.xml file, normally found at C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunesPrefs.xml. Try dragging this to the desktop and trying again.
Alternatively the problem may be that you have McAfee AV and it is preventing iTunes from updating the same file and thus causing the problem. See Why does iTunes delete my itunesprefs.xml? for details.
tt2

I have a new hard drive on my imac I want to sync my ipad(which has the files I lost when my old hard drive died), which holds the files I lost when my old hard drive died. How can I sync my ipad with my new hard drive?

My hard drive on my IMac died, so I have a new hard drive. I want to sync my Ipad(which has the files I lost when my old hard drive died) back with my IMac. How can I sync my Ipad with my new IMac hard drive without erasing my legacy files on the Ipad at the same time?

Copy everything from your backup copy of your cpomputer to your new hard drive.

So I am trying to copy my hard drive "Macintosh HD" to an external hard drive, i want to use Terminal and have tried many ways. For example cp -r /Volumes/"Macintosh HD" /Volumes/"NO NAME". When i do it says No such file or directory. Ideas?

So I am trying to copy my hard drive "Macintosh HD" to an external hard drive, i want to use Terminal and have tried many ways. For example cp -r /Volumes/"Macintosh HD" /Volumes/"NO NAME". When i do it says No such file or directory. Ideas?

The reason that threadjacking is frowned on (as mentioned in the terms use which you can read by clicking the link to the right on this page) is for the most part a practical one:
By starting your own thread your problem can get individual attention, focussed on your particular set of circumstances.
By joining somebody else's thread it becomes tricky to answer more than one question at the same time, and can lead to confusion for both parties.
So if you don't mind the minor inconvenience, please start your own thread (in the correct forum) so we can get to grips with your particular problem!

HT203167 external hard drive died and have new one. how can i get my old purchases onto new hard drive?

help! my external hard drive died. have tons of tv shows and movies on it. how can i get my old purchases from itunes onto my new hard drive?

Just plug it in and sync it.
(60463)

My macbook pro hard drive died. I only have a windows hard drive and an old powerbook G4 which of course you can't use to create a boot disk for my macbook. How can I solve this?

I can't get app store on my old power book to download OS X, My macbook pro hard drive died and all I have is a windows hard drive, still has windows os on it, a 500 Gb USB drive and this power book. How can I get my macbook back up without spending money? Thanks

And what happens if the OPs Mac is of a newer version that came with a version of Snow Leopard above the 10.6.3 version that is on that Retail, meant for Upgrade, disc? Like if it came with 10.6.4/.5/.6/.7? That disc you linked to would not work.
He needs to contact Apple and get a replacement set of Original System Reinstall Discs. That is the only way he can be assured it will work and he would also get the iLife apps which he wouldn't buying that DVD disc you linked to.
dwb wrote:
The Snow Leopard DVD is $20 from Apple. You'll just have to wait a few days. BTW this is a full installer that works with any model computer that can run SL. Apple used to ship recovery/installation disks that were tied to specific computer models so that a 15" MBP installer disk coudn't be used on a 13" MBP computer. So you need either full installer or the recovery disks for your specific model.
And BTW, I have a 2009 13" MBP w/8GB RAM that is running Mavericks. With a 5400 RPM drive I used to experience a bit of beach balling (think hour glassing) but an SSD has given it new life. It feels now slower than the newest MBPs - it obviously benchmarks considerably slower but in everyday use it doesn't feel like a 4 1/2 year old computer at all.

Hard drive died, but do i have a battery issue also?

Hello,
Well, my powerbook has been acting funny for the last few months and I think it finally died today. I've been doing weekly bootable backups on a smartdisk firelite 100GB external hard drive. Yesterday my computer was really slow, so today I updated the backup. Afterwards, I tried running disk repair in the disk utility on my internal hard drive, but it froze while doing that and I was forced to hit the kill switch. When I started it again I got the mini-folder with a blinking question mark. Luckily, I think the bootable backup works (although I've had issues with that drive mounting in the past) and for now it looks like I have all my files and applications. I tried running disk repair on the internal hard drive by got the error message: "invalid B-tree node size, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)".
My question though is about how HOT my powerbook had been running lately. I've been using a notebook cooler with a fan, but it's still very hot to the touch after a while above the keyboard and sometimes I've noticed it's hot on the lower right side (under my left wrist). The adapter on the AC plug/cord setup gets hot also. I'm wondering if the heat was because the hard drive was dying, OR if the hard drive died because of the heat? (Note: I checked my battery serial number a long time ago and it wasn't part of the mac recall.)
I want to get a new hard drive to install (at BestBuy or some other place I guess). I'll look around on the list for recommendations, but I'm open to suggestions. I don't know if it's worth wiping the hard drive I have now and restoring it from the backup, or just assume it's dead. I don't want to get a new hard drive and find out I have a battery overheating issue instead.
Thanks for your help!
Lisa

Lisa:
Before you purchase and install a new HDD, just hold a minute.
Great that you have a bootable backup of your HDD. Good thinking. Are you able to boot the computer from the external firewire HDD? (From a cold start, turn on external HDD, hit computer power button and immediately after chime hold down Option key. Select external HDD in screen and click right pointing arrow.)
When you ran Disk Utility, did you notice the S.M.A.R.T Status? If it says Verified, there is still hope. If it says failing, we'll need to find you a new HDD.
+"invalid B-tree node size, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)".+
This indicates serious directory issues for which you will need a utility like Disk Warrior, Tech Tool Pro, or DriveGenius. Take a look at Disk Utility reports "Underlying task reported failure" when repairing a volume for details about the issue.
One of the above utilities has a good chance of repairing the directories. However, there is an even chance that the drive may be too damaged to be repaired. However, you won't know that until after you have run one of those utilities.
Your computer will support a 2.5" (P)ATA/IDE HDD up to 160 GB. Here are some HDDs that will work for you at OWC. If you are handy with a screw driver and have the time and patience you can probably install it yourself using these step by step directions from ifixit. If you need to install a new HDD, and think you would like to try it yourself, post back for additional tips.
Cheers.
cornelius

MacBook pro 13" 2010 hard drive died in less than 2 months, what to do

Hey apple forums, ran into issues today and I want to know how to handle the situation. I bought a MacBook pro 13" (2010) model on may 1st 2010, it died 9 days latter, best buy replaced it free of charge (even though I had to fight them to do so) this next one ran fine from may 9th 2010 to June 22 2010, just shy of two months. What happened? The **** hard drive died (which by the way is a crappy seagate, I only buy western digital drives as they have NEVER failed me in the 10 years I have used them). The way i know this is because I am a pc repair technician and have run diagnostics and they all say drive is dead. When boot up (or attempt) the apple logo pops up and shows a progress bar (which I have never seen before) it stays on for 10 seconds and then disappears, then the normal circle loading animation begins, then my MacBook pro starts getting ridiculously hot and never loads up Mac os x 10.6.4. I am then forced to hold the power button for 10 seconds to kill the power. I can boot into windows 7 which tells me that it is strongly recommended to perform a disk check which hangs midway, or if I cancel it before it starts I can boot in to a working copy of windows 7. If I access or attach a external hard drive I get a blue screen that says "applehfs.dll" is the cause of the blue screen.
I did force boot the Mac os x install DVD and used the disk utility to first verify permissions and it came up with god knows how many errors, but won't let me repair permissions (it is grey out). So I proceed to do a disk volume check, it stops and says it is strongly recommended to backup as many files as possible and reformat the hard drive. I do have the equipment to recover data, however my concern is getting the hard drive replaced under warranty. Being a it support personnel I need my computer asap, it isn't my problem that the hard drive died so I am not going to just buy a new one, how does apple go about replacing NOT repairing the hard drive.
This is what I want, go to the apple store with my Macbook pro and my craftsman set of #000 screw drivers and take the hard drive out myself, hand the hard drive to the "genius" (which by the way are un qualified in my opinion to service my $1200 Macbook pro, as they scratched my first MacBook pro, and stripped the screws. Sorry Apple but you lost my trust). Have the genius hand me a replacement hard drive, I place that back into my MacBook pro and be on my merry way home to reinstall all of my programs and restore my data.
Is this a reasonable request and do you think apple will give me a hard time?
Thanks to all the help,
Jakthebomb

No, that isn't a reasonable request, and it's not going to happen that way. If you want Apple to warrant your new drive, Apple will insist on installing it. If you want to choose your new hard drive, you'll have to buy and install it at your own expense. Given your impatience, your prejudices, and your low opinion of Apple service, that's certainly what you should do. In addition to getting your preferred drive and installing it on your own schedule, you'll get a much longer warranty than Apple would give you on it, and you'll get to keep the old drive to recover data from it if necessary (Apple would keep it if they replaced it.) Installing a new drive yourself will have no effect on the Apple warranty covering the rest of the machine, and being an IT professional, you can probably buy a new hard drive for even less than we ordinary mortals pay for them nowadays.
So yes, Apple owes you a new drive, but if you can't accept the terms on which Apple will provide it, by all means just buy and install one yourself and get on with your life.

Hard drive died on my iMac how to retrieve from Time Machine

HI,
My Hard drive died on our iMac (we were on Snow Leopard). We replaced it with a larger Hard drive and the Tech put Lion on it. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do I retrieve my entire back up from the Time Capsule.... I search and read something about a Recovery HD? Do I have to have this? Also as noted above, I have the Snow Leopard from when we got teh iMac, but are on Lion now.....
HELP

LOL - I think I have a different/new related problem....
The instrucitons don't say anything about timemachine, but I read somewhere that you need to stop a back up when you get a new computer and want to transfer files.... and that the migration rebuilds the data from the latest successful back up...(thats a little back ground).
Where I am now:
last night the migrations said it would take 29 hrs. No problem....this morning there was not much change in that (considering 8+hours had passed) but did not think much of that either...
I was browsing on the internet and suddenly I get a notifiaiton that the back up failed! oh god I think - surely its not supposed to back up while its migrating....?!?
then a few minutes later the migration window says it has 49 hrs to go...
then a little later it says its finished...so I check the folders - nothing is there....so I start to get a little concerned....and decide to start over.
so I start the migration process and when I get to the window where it asks where to put the stuff from the migration, I assume I am doing the same thing so click the same thing I did last time and it tells me you already have stuff there...wha? but I just checked...there is nothing there - so I know I am doing something wrong and back track - AHA - it has put everything into a user account called XXX. so I decide to log out and see what's happening....sure enough another user account has appeared....and it has the same icon as our old stuff ! yay...!
but heres the rub: we previously only had 1 user account for the whole household, with one password which we did not even have to use....when the hard drive crashed, the repair guy created a user account under MY name, and used our old password. Did not think much of it but when I logged out as ME and tried to log is as US (the old User Account), it would not accept the old password!...So now what....?

Computer hard drive died

My hard drive died and I had to get a new one. So now I have downloaded ITunes onto my new computer drive and wanted to edit or install new songs on my iPod Touch, but it wants to erase all of my 2000+ songs and start over! How do I get these songs onto iTunes so this can be done without having to enter them one by one again? I contacted Apple and they said they can not advise me, that I had to get info from here. Can anyone help please?

When your iPod is set to sync automatically you need to take care connecting to an empty iTunes. Open iTunes first and go to Edit>Preferences>Devices and check the box "Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically" and choose Ok before connecting your device.
If you want to recover the music from the iPod and transfer it to your new computer there are a few things you can do. iTunes will only give you the option to copy your iTunes Store purchases directly from an iPod to the computer, you'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
Purchased applications can be downloaded over again, see this article for details: How to redownload purchased applications from the App Store
For everything else (music from CDs etc.) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod Touch or iPhone. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer data (such as playcounts and ratings), movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well.
A selection of iPod/iPhone to iTunes utilities:
Senuti Mac Only (iPod Touch & iPhone compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Once you have recovered everything from the iPod and your iTunes library has been rebuilt it will be safe to sync again.
I would also advise that you get yourself an external hard drive and back your stuff up, relying on an iPod as your sole backup is not a good idea and external drives are comparatively inexpensive these days, you can get loads of storage for a reasonable outlay: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

Hard Drive Died - After Rebuilding Wiki & Blog Not Working

My Snow Leopard Server hard drive died.
I did a clean install of Snow Leopard on a new drive.
I then created fresh accounts and settings similar to my old server manually.
I then copied over content from a backup.
I copied over the following folders:
/Library/Web Server/Documents
/Library/Collaboration
I made sure the settings looked correct (although I noticed that the collaboration GUI has changed from when I originally created the site back on 10.5, so maybe I missed something) and restarted the server.
Static pages of website works fine, mail works fine, etc.
But when I attempt to go to a blog or wiki page I get an animated gif showing the startup spinning gears with a message that says "Server starting up..."
Even the root web page "/groups" page just displays the Server starting up... message
Logs don't seem to be helpful.
I am thinking there is probably a folder or domain reference in one of the wiki plists that uses an index value instead of a folder path or something like that, so the server can't find the wiki content.
Ideas?

Figured it out.
Luckily I had the foresight to make a backup copy of the clean install colloboration folders before I copied my collaboration folders from my older server over.
I noticed one key difference:
My files were owned by root (as that is how I copied them from backup)
And the clean install collaboration folders we all owned by _teamsserver
I changed the owner on my folders to _teamsserver, verified the appropriate r/w settings for the different sub-folders and propagated permissions down.
restarted the server, and all was well.

Hard drive died -- how do I restore Library from Back up?

My hard drive died -- and a new one has been installed. I have a backup of my itunes as it was on the old hard drive -- but when I try to open it I get told:
"The file itunes.library.it cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes".
Some of the music is also on our ipod -- and other pieces on 2 iphones. I'm a little overwhelmed with how to procced.
Any advice on how to proceed in getting all the music back in one main location? Thanks!

*"The file itunes.library.it cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes"*
Have you had a chance to look at either of these troubleshooting pages? They may be of some help:
iTunes for Windows in Windows XP or Windows 2000 doesn't open after upgrading
iTunes for Windows in Windows Vista doesn't open after upgrading
*Some of the music is also on our ipod*
iTunes will only let you copy your purchases directly from an iPod to the computer, you'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
For everything else (including purchases) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
A selection of iPod to iTunes utilities:
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
YamiPod Mac and Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide

Hard drive died - want to create bootable external

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