Hard drive failure ... rrecovering files ???

Hi guys . I just bought a 2nd hand macbook pro 1.83ghz late 2006 model a few weeks back . It didnt have the install disks with it just disk images. The harddrive has just crashed and I need to recover some files onto an external usb harddrive. I have a macbook running tiger 10.4.11 and have the install disks for this. I am wondering if I can connect the two and use the macbook os to boot the MBP and then recover my files ?????
Also I will be replacing the harddrive and I will need to buy new install disks. Does anybody know if I have to go back to the original Tiger 10.4.5 install disks that came with the MBP or can I buy a newer leopard or Sl compatible disks for this model .
Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks in advance

Start the older MacBook up normally, download the demo version of Data Rescue onto it, and install Data Rescue on it. Connect the two computers using a FireWire cable. Start the MBP up while holding down the T key to put it into FireWire Target Disk Mode. When the FireWire logo appears on its display, open Data Rescue on the MacBook and see whether it can "see" the MBP's hard drive. If it can, run the demo to see what files the full version of Data Rescue would be able to recover. If you like what you see, pay for the full version of DR, connect your USB hard drive to the MacBook, and recover your files from the MBP's hard drive to the USB drive.

Similar Messages

Hard Drive Failure - Music Files backed up to external hard drive ...

i reinstalled itunes and successfully copied over the music folders. i can play all of my music in itunes except the purchased music. an error comes up that says the original file is missing.
if i plug in the external drive i can search and play the file from there.
weird! b/c the external drive is a copy of what was on my old hard drive?
also it is the EXACT folder that i copied back to the new hard drive.
any advice? is there a way to 'unlock' the music? is there a 1 time copy allowance? anything?
thanks!

Set the iPod to manual to prevent any erasures (not sure this is essential, but I only ever use mine in manual mode). It's ages since I did mine - can't remember if it happened as soon as I connected the iPod to iTunes or if I had to do right mouse and choose a menu item but it was straightforward.
I also don't remember if I reimported my iTunes library from the back up hard drive before I connected the iPod to the PC, I suspect I had put most of the library back before connecting.
Don't forget you can look at the files on the iPod itself and copy them over, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention third party software on here so I won't but an internet search would give you the information you need.

HT1661 My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy. I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?

My mid-2009 MacBook Pro has just died via a painful (for me) hard drive failure. I backed up a good percentage of files recently but not enough to keep me happy. I need to access the dead drive on the MBP via a 2008 iMac. Best options?
I have ordered a 800 firewire to 800 firewire cable and am hoping to use the target mode option to copy files from the MBP.
Is this possible?
Hope so!
Any advice and or help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Neil

Thanks Ogelthorpe.
Just bought an enclosure to try that also.
Hoping the MBP isn't really dead but just feigning death
Fingers crossed.

Can I pull iWeb files back from MobileMe after hard drive failure?

I suffered a recent hard drive failure and while I had my pictures backed up I didn't have my iWeb files back up and don't want to start the website from scratch if at all possible. Is there any way to save the files I uploaded to MobileMe back to my computer so I can continue my website?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Chapter 2.3 of the iWeb FAQ.org site has tips on using some of the existing image, audio and/or video files in the published site in the reconstruction of the site.
OT

Data Recovery After Hard Drive Failure!

Ok, basically, I've got a 2 1/2 year old iBook G4 with a bombed hard drive, and unfortunately, the last time I backed up was around 3 months ago. Here's what happened right before the crash: some applications like Widgets and Safari were acting fluky, and it wouldn't let me open Word documents, so I restarted, because I thought it might have something to do with the fact that i had downloaded the new version of itunes not that long ago and hadn't restarted since. well, when i restarted, the gray screen with the wheel and the apple symbol went on for a really long time, and then the blue screen came up with the cursor, but nothing else happened, and the blue screen just stayed there. as far as i know, the hard drive wasn't making any unusual noises, just the usual occasional soft sounds that my hard drive has always made (there are usual sounds, right?) a piece of information that might be useful is that the hard drive was almost full (it only had about 5 GB left, which i understand is how much you should leave) could this have caused the failure maybe? anyway, i tried using the hard drive as a target and tried getting another computer to recognize it and pull the files off, but that didn't work. so, i brought it into the apple store, and they got it to boot up but using some external hard drive, i think. they tried disk utility, but that didn't see my hard drive. then the tried disk warrior, and that saw it and repaired it or something, but then it couldn't get the drive to mount. so, i'm assuming that because disk warrior didn't work and couldn't get it to mount, then other software like data rescue, etc... won't either. like all computer users, i've got some REALLY REALLY important data on there, and all the data recovery places i've gotten quotes from are pretty pricey. if the drive doesn't require physical data recovery, only non-physical, as i hope, the cheapest is still $350. even so, the person on the phone there didn't seem to know nearly as much as the people at the more pricier places. so, are there any other options besides expensive data recovery? i read something about using dd - a unix thing, but i don't know the first thing about it (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382) so i'm not sure i want to risk messing it up even more. and, if worse comes to worst, then i'll use a data recovery place... but can anyone tell me if they've used any of the data recovery companies below, and which ones are good?
(first three do evaluation for free, and then you decide if you want to continue based on more accurate price idea)
MacintoshDataRecovery.com
$500 non physical
$1100-1600 physical
Heroic Efforts
http://www.heroicdata.com/data_recovery
$350 non physical
ships to another (very expensive) place if physical
ACS Data Recovery
http://www.acsdata.com/index.htm
$600-700 non physical
DriveSavers.com
(recommended by Apple, probably the best, but the most steep, too)
could cost anywhere from $500-$2700 and $200 evaluation fee even if data is unrecoverable
Since this is our fourth hard drive failure in four different iBooks in 2 1/2 years, i am starting to become seriously disillusioned about the quality of the hardware Apple uses...not that i would ever get a dell or anything, but still....
THANK YOU in advance for any tips you might be able to offer, and also for reading this extremely long post!
katie
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I have read good reports concerning Data Rescue although I have not used it myself.
Once you get your data back, focus on a regular (even daily) backup routine, because as you know only so well, the question is not if a drive will fail, it's when.
My condolences, by the way.

Multiple Hard Drive Failures

I purchased a MacBook Pro just before last Christmas and in late January or early February the hard drive failed and had to be replaced. I was told then that it was a fluke and not to worry about it that the chances of it happening again were very slim. Well, yesterday it happened once again.
That is now 2 hard drive failures within 4 months of each other, and within 6 months of being purchased new. This is simply unacceptable for a computer that costs nearly $3,000 with an extended warranty.
Until Macintosh figures out this problem, I would advise everyone to stay away from the MacBook Pro. From what I was told by the "Genius" at the Apple Store yesterday when I was having the hard drive replaced once again, "Apple knows about this problem". Well, they may know about it, but apparently they are not doing anything about it because the problem still exists.
I guess they assume its cheaper to just keep replacing hard drives every 2 or 3 months than to fix the problem and have a satisfied customer.
WARNING - Do not buy the MacBook Pro unless you do not mind spending several days reloading your software and files onto a new hard drive every 2 or 3 months.

Even with a backup, that does not reinstall all of the software onto the new hard drive, only the personal files and data. I have over $15,000 worth of software that I have to painstakingly reinstall each time this happens.
You are mistaken. If you've backed up by cloning the entire hard drive, everything on it is backed up and can simply be cloned onto a new hard drive. Nothing at all needs to be reinstalled from any other source. If you clone to a portable hard drive, you can take it with you on location. If your primary drive fails there, you'll be able to boot to your portable drive exactly as if it were the internal drive, and keep right on working without missing a beat. A 250GB Seagate FreeAgent To Go portable USB2 drive containing a clone of my MBP's internal drive goes everywhere I go, and is ready to step into the place of my internal drive in moments if ever it should go pear-shaped.
Believe me, I am not making this up, and there is no Catch-22. This is what cloning software is for, and it works beautifully. You may have good uses for other kinds of backups too, but a bootable clone of your primary internal hard drive would be invaluable to you as an additional protection against lost time and work in the field.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
I've used both, and I prefer SuperDuper. It's simplicity itself to use, and costs under $30. Carbon Copy Cloner is free, offers more selective-copying options, and in the versions I've used, it presented more inscrutable messages that I didn't know how to interpret, leaving me wondering what had and hadn't happened. I'm told those rough edges have been polished off in recent versions, but I haven't tried them. SuperDuper works very, very well for me and never leaves me puzzled.

Hard Drive failure - various boot modes won't work, HELP!

Hello all,
First of all, sorry for the essay, but I didn't want to miss out on possible crucial details that could help!
A couple of weeks ago, my beloved 27" iMac had a hard drive failure. It won't boot, but instead goes to the grey 'no entry' sign when booting up. I tried holding Cmd + V on boot and this message repeated itself whilst failing to boot:
"rooting via boot-uuid from chosen/: D94DA2D5-DB38-3517-B05D-70A97AC6EE5B
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key><IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1"> IOResorces</string><key>IOResourceMach</key><string ID= "2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
Got boot device = IOService:/AppleACPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@1F,2/AppleIntel5Serie sAHCI/PRT0@0/IOAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCBlockStorageDevice/IOBLockStorageDriver/Hitac hi HDS722020ALA330 Media/IOGUIDPartitionScheme
BSD root: disk0s2, major 14, minor 2
jnl: unknown-dev: open: phys_blksz 4096 does not match journal header size 512, and journal is not empty!
hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0)
cannot mount root, errno = 19"
I'm not sure how much of that is useful, but I thought I'd copy it all down anyway.
I googled error number = 19 and found articles on an invalid b-tree node and corrupt journals, leaving me to believe that because I recently deleted a Windows Vista partition and reformed the overall HD into a 2TB OSX volume, some windows data may have been left over and corrupted the journal?
So it fails to boot normaly, using Cmd V, and using the OSX install disk, as well as failing to boot from the DiskWarrior 4 DVD I purchased from my local Apple Reseller because I'd heard that it's very good at helping with issues such as what I think my HD is having. I tried Disk Utility whilst booting from the install disk, and tried to repair the drive, and each time I tried it said that invalid content was present in the journal but the disk repair had been successful.
Am I right in thinking that my data is on the drive, it's just that OSX won't register the drive's existence because of a corrupted journal? (the little I know of hard drives is shining brightly through at this point, I'm sure!)
I also tried to boot using target mode by connecting my iMac to a MacBook Pro also running Snow Leopard, but, whilst the iMac clearly went into target mode (bouncing firewire icon on screen), my HD never appeared on the desktop of the MacBook Pro, nor in Disk Utility.
Whilst I have AppleCare, I haven't tried taking it to a mac store yet because of two reasons; 1. The last time I did this I had HD failure on my old 2008 MBP and, whilst I told them to keep the data on it, the first thing they did was reformat the disk. Needless to say, it worked, but I lost all my valuable Data! The second reason is that it's bloody heavy, and I don't own a car!
Before people go on about the way I should have backed up my data, I did, and that's gone as well! D:
System Specs:
First generation of 27" iMacs
2.8Ghz Intel i7 quad core
2TB HD
ATi Radeon HD 4850 512mb VRAM
8GB DDR3 RAM
OS version: not the very latest snow leopard but the one before.
Thanks in advance, and once again sorry for the essay!
Westy

I'm not sure about the DW disk. Check that out at Alsoft's website. Apple doesn't provide data recovery services.
Apple has records of your iTunes purchases. However, the licensing for music only permits you to download it once. I'm surprised that you don't have backups.
If you get an external enclosure in which to put the drive then you might try accessing it from the MBP as an external drive. If you have an external drive you could try using recovery software:
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
Beyond this you would need to send the drive off to a data recovery service which will be extremely expensive.

Time Capsule hard drive failure

Hello, all
I have a 500 GB Time Capsule that is about four years old. I use it to back up my MacBook Air and I also use it for file storage. Recently the HD has become erratic, in that it appears on Finder under Shared sometimes but not always. The wireless router part is still working fine. I can usually get the HD to reappear but it disappears again eventually. I can get it back by unplugging and replugging the TC, but I tried a hard reset and that didn't bring it back. I have backed up all the files I had stored on there as advised by the Apple Store Genius (see next paragraph).
I took it to the Apple Store and the Genius said that he thinks it is failing. He was not able to see the TC/HD wirelessly but was able to access it by plugging in a cable. He expressed surprise that my TC has lasted four years!!! He said I should replace it.
I then went to the online Apple Store and read the TC reviews, which contained quite a few reviews that report HD failure (mostly power failure, if I'm not mistaken) after 18 months or so! Some suggested that a good solution would be to get an Airport Extreme plus a USB hard drive of some other brand, not Apple. Many of these report power failure, which is not my problem. I still have power; apparently hard drive failure.
This sounded like a good idea, so today I went to London Drugs in Vancouver (an Apple retailer) and the salesman there (should be fairly unbiased) thought I should get a new TC rather than the two-piece solution just because it was simpler. He also said that in fact there about three HD manufacturers who produce all hard drives and that any one would have about the same frequency of failure, Apple include because they don't manufacture their own.
So I'm ready to replace my old TC with the new one I bought, but I'd like to get any suggestions the community might have. I can see the advantage of the TC because it's an all-in-one. I haven't opened it yet, so I'll await your well-informed input.
Thanks so much!

I think the TC is a much better buy.. If only for this reason.. the USB hard disk on the AEBS is dog slow.. whereas the TC internal drive is at least same as standard single disk NAS.. overall for what you get the price of a 2TB TC vs the 2TB USB disk plus AEBS is about right.. the 3TB TC is much poorer value.
Read the review.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
It is fairly well done, but not everything is correct.. the stuff about the fan turning on is wrong.. it has the same issue as the old one. That is overheating, no ventilation and the fan does not turn on, has no outside vent anyway.
But look at the internal vs usb speed of hdd.. that should convince you of the value of the TC.. if you are using anything but wireless.
BTW the issue with the Gen 1 is still more likely to be the power supply.. The original 500GB hard disk was a Seagate Server ES drive.. the only server standard drive in the whole TC series although it was always promoted as having server standard drives..
IMHO a repair of the power supply would get it up and running again. Very extermely unlikely that drive will die in such a manner.. even if it was to go bad they tend to stay bad.. not come on again when you power cycle.. but power supplies sure do.
I have repaired dozens of them.. haven't ever come across a dead 500GB drive yet.. seen a few 1TB, both WD and noisy hitachi.. but even so not that many..
Lots and zillions of dead power supplies though.
https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
At least you can pull open the TC and remove the hard disk and wipe it.
Interesting the Apple guys are surprised at the 4year life span.. obviously intended for you to buy a new one much sooner than that.

Hard Drive Failure on HP DV 6000 Pavilion laptop Windows-XPsp3 OS - Need Data Recovery Help

Hard Drive Failure on HP DV 6000 Pavilion laptop - Need Data Recovery Help
HP Pavilion DV 6108 NR, RG365UA, purchased in late 2006 at Best Buy, with Windows XP, upgraded to Service Pack 3. It has a Fujitsu hard disk, 60 gigabyte, partitioned into C: and a Recovery D:.
Windows tries to boot up, but goes to blue screen with the message: "Unmountable Boot Volume" for one second, then just keeps recycling until I force a shutdown.
BIOS Phoenix, hard drive test result: " #1-08 Fail "
I ran a disk analysis/recovery program on the Cdrive and it seemed to show the directory structure intact, and it was able to recover some files. I was using the free one from Seagate (which only recovers small files). The second pass didn't run so well, and during the third run the program said I should not proceed further, and I should contact a professional disk recovery company.
However, the D drive seems to be intact, so, I wonder if the disk is corrupted or just some aspect of the logical C drive is bad.
How can I get the D: to run the recovery software on it? The recovery disks, made by Best Buy, only proceed to the R / F / Q option screen, and when I press R, I get a blue screen every time.
Tapping the F10 key during startup gets me nowhere. Ditto the F11 key.
I dont care about the hard disk; it is the data (files, docs, images, etc) that I want.
I contacted HP to order recovery disks but they are no longer available for my computer.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Jon
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Update...
I found a website that offers the following:
http://www.computersurgeons.com/p-13442-recovery-kit-435422-001-for-hp-model-number-dv6108nr.aspx
Recovery Kit 435422-001 For HP Model Number dv6108nr
Price: $27.00
Recovery Kit Set (An Entire Image of the Computer hard drive when the computer was new)
But I wonder how useful it would be. Early XP , no doubt. And if my hard disk problem is a mechanical fault, would any recovery disk even work? The disks made by Best Buy when I bought mine new in 2006 don't do anything more than go to the R /F/ Q screen and then goes to a blue screen when I press R (to recover the OS and apps and data files). And, as I wrote, it is the data that I want, not the disk drive.

Hard drive failure

Hello everyone, my macbook is like around 3 years old, and a couple of days ago my hard drive died. This is really unfortunate since I couldn't back up most of the files I had in that drive. The thing is, this happened to me 1 year ago, and I'm noticing that I had similar scenarios prior to the hard drive failures. The first time that this happened, the night before my first hard drive died, I was erasing tons and tons of files from my macbook, I was just cleaning my downloads folders, deleting stuff I wasn't using anymore, that night I deleted like around 20gigs of data(pictures and music mostly), and the day before my second hard drive died, I was deleting files as well, this time I deleted like 13gigs. Both drives died because of the famous "clicking of death" sound. My macbook wouldn't boot, and was flashing a question mark folder in both cases.
My question is: was this just coicidence? or deleting tons of gigs of files at once will make your hard drives die. I've heard deleting files you no longer use is good for your hard drive. I must stress that I didn't delete any system files, I tested both hard drives via USB hard drive enclosures and the hard drives were just unrecognizable.

@tyrekm
‎Thank you for using HP Support Forum. I have brought your issue to the appropriate team within HP. They will likely request information from you in order to look up your case details or product serial number. Please look for a private message from an identified HP contact. Additionally, keep in mind not to publicly post ( serial numbers and case details).
If you are unfamiliar with the Forum's private messaging please click here to learn more.
Thank you,
Omar
I Work for HP

Hard Drive Failure on HP DV 6000 Pavilion laptop (dv6108nr) with Windows-XPsp3 OS - Need Data Recov

Hard Drive Failure on HP DV 6000 Pavilion laptop - Need Data Recovery Help
HP Pavilion DV 6108 NR, RG365UA, purchased in late 2006 at Best Buy, with Windows XP, upgraded to Service Pack 3. It has a Fujitsu hard disk, 60 gigabyte, partitioned into C: and a Recovery D:.
Windows tries to boot up, but goes to blue screen with the message: "Unmountable Boot Volume" for one second, then just keeps recycling until I force a shutdown.
BIOS Phoenix, hard drive test result: " #1-08 Fail "
I ran a disk analysis/recovery program on the Cdrive and it seemed to show the directory structure intact, and it was able to recover some files. I was using the free one from Seagate (which only recovers small files). The second pass didn't run so well, and during the third run the program said I should not proceed further, and I should contact a professional disk recovery company.
However, the D drive seems to be intact, so, I wonder if the disk is corrupted or just some aspect of the logical C drive is bad. Or does the disk have a mechanical failure, in which case, is a recovery disk even helpful at all?
How can I get the D: to run the recovery software on it? The recovery disks, made by Best Buy, only proceed to the R / F / Q option screen, and when I press R, I get a blue screen every time.
Tapping the F10 key during startup gets me nowhere. Ditto the F11 key.
I dont care about the hard disk; it is the data (files, docs, images, etc) that I want.
I contacted HP to order recovery disks but they are no longer available for my computer. (But see below, "UPDATE")
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Jon
===============================
UPDATE:
I found a website that offers the following:
www.computersurgeons.com/p-13442-recovery-kit-435422-001-for-hp-model-number-dv6108nr.aspx
Recovery Kit 435422-001 For HP Model Number dv6108nr
Price: $27.00
Recovery Kit Set (An Entire Image of the Computer hard drive when the computer was new)
But I wonder how useful it would be. Early XP , no doubt. And if my hard disk problem is a mechanical fault, would any recovery disk even work? The disks made by Best Buy when I bought mine new in 2006 don't do anything more than go to the R /F/ Q screen and then my computer goes to a blank blue screen when I press R (to recover the OS and apps and data files). And, as I wrote, it is the data that I want, not the disk drive.
Any help here would also be appreciated!
Jon

Hi @goshenguy
Thank you for your inquiry, I am happy to help.
I grasp you tested the hard drive from the bios and it failed. This tests the physical aspcects of the hard drive and when it fails it does require replacement. You were able to retrieve some of your files using recovery software but not all.
Your recovery partition is still intact and when you try to do a recovery with the disks from Best Buy you do not get past these options R / F / Q but will not proceed.
Here is a link to Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows XP, 2006 or Later) that may assist you in performing a recovery.
Here is a link to the Maintenance and Service Guide HP Pavilion dv6000 Notebook PC. Please note chapter 3 page 42 for a replacement hard drive part number.
HP Parts, HP Replacement Parts
If you are still unable to do the recovery, you could try contacting Best Buy for assistance with the recovery kit they provide.
I don't know if it is possible, but you may want to check cloning software to see if you could clone the D partion to the new drive or connect both drives and try a drive to drive copy of the D partition.
If you were able to successfully put the D partition on a new hard drive you should be able to do a recovery from the D partition to take it back to factory.
If none of the above has allowed you to successfully do a recovery, I suggest contacting Best Buy to see it they have options other then purchasing a third party recovery kit.
Good Luck!
Sparkles1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

HP Envy 7 interment hard drive failure on start up

Hello,
I have a HP Envy 7 with Windows 7. On start up, I get the "Interment Hard drive failure", I ran the hard drive test and the results were good. I didn't get an error message but the message comes up everytime I restart. Is there a way to turn the smart disk message off or should I get ready to purchase a new hard drive?

Hi
Can you help me with Product number & the complete model number off you unit. Please find the Link given Here how to find the details.
Most HP Notebook PCs have SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology System) capable hard drives. SMART is firmware that resides on the hard drive and continuously monitors drive parameters such as performance and error rates. SMART uses a technology known as predictive failure analysis to tell you when a hard drive failure is imminent.
Common SMART errors are:Hard disk failure is imminent.
A hard drive in the system reports that it may fail.
Smart failure imminent, back up your data
Error 1720 Imminent Hard Drive Failure
HP Hardware Diagnostic errors that start with HD521
The use of SMART does not prevent all hard drive failures, but it can give you the opportunity to back up your personal files and replace the hard drive before it fails.
Let us know how it goes!
"I work for HP."
****Click the (purple thumbs up icon in the lower right corner of a post) to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
Regards
Manjunath

I had a hard drive failure on my iMac. I can restore my music, tv shows, and apps from the iTunes store. How do I restore my movies?

We came back from vacation to find our iMac not working. Turns out I had a hard drive failure due to an invalid node structure? They could not recover anything. I can restore our music, apps, and tv shows from iTunes. Anyone know how to restore the movies we purchased from iTunes?

It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer for just such an occasion. Use your backup copy to put everything back.
If for some reaosn you have failed to backup, then you can transfer itunes purchases from an ipod. File>Transfer Purchases

Hard Drive Failure on Satellite A660

I bought a new Toshiba A series 9 months ago.
Within a week I had to return it because the sound card was not working. The store I bought it from did not have an identical replacement so the replacement model cost me an additional $150.
Now the hard drive has failed.
Any attempt to back up anything fails so I will lose everything including an important contract. Toshiba tell me that I should go and pay a computer store to save my files!!!
I would consider it just a coincidence except that a friend who purchased a Qosmio a month before I purchased my A660 has also had her hard drive fail. It has supposedly been repaired under warranty but is still not working.
So much for Toshiba stating "Toshiba believes that reliability is the single most important feature a laptop can have and understands that it must be built in and not something that can be bolted-on.
The result? Our laptops have a class-leading reputation for reliability." The technical support person said that its just bad luck - its electronic anything can fail at anytime - thats nothing to do with reliability.
So what is Toshiba reliability?

"When you bring your notebook there, they will check if the warranty data at first. If the warranty is valid every defective hardware component will be exchanged for free.
Maybe it sounds stupid not but I believe people who work in this store have utilized your situation to make more money and sell you new HDD for $150."
I think you misunderstood. The first time it was a sound card failure and the computer was less than 2 weeks old. It was TOSHIBA that told me to return it to the store (they gave me a specific number to give to the store when returning it) and exchange it for a new computer!!!! The store did not have the exact model to exchange it with. So I had two choices. Pay the $150 or take it home, spend a day dropping it off to Toshiba and then wait 21 days for them to repair a brand new computer that I had not even been able to use, or pay the additional $150 for a different model. Funnily as a consumer I dont expect to pay large amounts of money for something that has to be repaired before it can be used.
This second problem has now occurred, 9 months later, which is the hard drive failure.
I do realise that this is a user to user forum, but I am hoping to warn people that Toshiba is no longer a reliable brand. The Toshiba technician told me that the very first thing he expects to fail is the hard drive and I am simply lucky that in 16 years of owning my own home computers that I have never had a hard drive failure. Funny thing is none of my friends have ever had a hard drive failure before either....... My girlfriend and I must be the unluckiest people in the world to both buy brand new Toshiba computers at the same time and to have the hard drive fails at the same time........... Not a strong believer of coincidence I strongly suspect that Toshiba have a problem with a component(s) that they are using, its not just our "bad luck". This is the first time I have even had to use the warranty on a computer that I have purchased.
On the plus side Toshiba offered to send a courier to collect the computer, of course no replacement or loan computer. I did arrange for them to collect the computer Monday as I was not going to be home yesterday and need to find the correct box and packing materials to return it (they gave me VERY specific instructions on how it must be packed). But then I had a dozen phone calls yesterday from the courier trying to contact me to arrange to pick it up either yesterday or now today. I just hope that they are equally keen to return it as quickly!!!!
Sorry I am VERY annoyed. I am in a position where I NEED a computer. My son is disabled uses various bits and pieces of medical equipment to survive, (eg ventilators, monitors etc) and I use the computer to communicate with the hospital. If I cant get access to a computer he gets to spend the time I wait for its repair in hospital. I realise that my personal situation is not Toshiba's concern however I paid more and bought the Toshiba because of its reputation for reliability as that was VERY important to me. It has proven to be the most unreliable computer I have ever owned. I will now have to dust off a cheap Dell that is 6 years old, still works just fine, and use that while my expensive Toshiba gets fixed. And thats what is annoying, even my first 2 gig and now 16 year old computer still works, no hard drive failure..........

Hard drive failure on my Pavillion DV6500

Howdy,
I have a 2.5 year old HP Pavillion DV6500 with hard drive failure. I can turn the laptop on, but right before Vista starts I get this error message telling me that something is wrong with the hard disk. I've tried running System Recovery through F11 at the boot, but that didn't work out since my comp could not recognize any hard drive. That was pretty weird.
I went over to a friend of mine who has a docking-station. We took the hard drive out of the comp and put it in his docking-station to try and save what was left of my files, but the software we used to search & recover (Recuva) the files just found like 4 files or something. I had no idea what those files did, but I remember one of them was an .OLD-file.
Any idea what I could do now? I have some pretty important school-work files from the University I need to recover.
Sincerely,
Alen Mistric

The software I use is called Easy Recovery Professional but it cost me about $400 for my copy and is a near professional piece of software. Recuva is about the only freeware data recovery software out there. Which is why it is so cool. One other trick I have used on occasion is to connect the drive to a computer running Linux. Linux sees hard drive file structures a bit differently and sometimes if there is corruption in the master boot record or file alocation table which keeps Windows from seeing the file structure, Linux still can see it. You can run Linux on any computer with a Linux Live CD, and probably the best ones are Suse and Knoppix and Ubuntu. Just google, for example, Ubuntu Live CD and you will find a download mirror, burn the disk from the downloaded .iso and then boot the computer from the disk. Any recent version of any of the above 3 Linux distros can see and write to ntfs file systems. If you find files you can then also plug in a memory stick and move the files over.
As far as freezing, I think that is an urban legend. I have tried it a few times without any success. As long as you do not let condensation bulid up on the drive from a temperature differential it can't hurt. In other words, freeze the drive in a plastic bag sealed tight and wrapped in a towel. Let the drive warm to room temp before you take it out of the bag and towel so it does not start looking like a glass of iced tea on a 100 degree day.

Mac book pro freezes hard drive failure?

Hi mac users,
I'm new to mac. But i have a problem. My lap top mac. Is freezing and is unresponsive for 20 minutes at a time. IF i click one thing the entire screen is frozen until it can complete the one command.
I went into disk utility and clicked on first aid to try and do repair disk. Which it is doing it say's will take about 8 hours.
The box is displaying this infomation over and over again.
Open error 5: "input/output error" on Applications/textedit.app/contents/resources/english.ipro...
Open error 5: "input/output error" on System libary/coresystems/apple8211agen.app.conte...
I have no clue why it's saying or why it's repeated a thousand times. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software. That didn't work. It still giving the same error. I tried reformatting it and rebooting it from the original CD it came with. It seemed to work for a couple of days. Now it's back to acting really really slow.
It's not covered by apple care or a warranty. So i know it's going to cost lots of money to fix. I was hoping i could fix it myself.
My guess it's 1. hard drive failure or 2. I need to reformat it again and reinstall the programs again. Though i don't want to do that. Because it takes all day long.
Thanks for any helpful suggestions. I hope i can get this computer fixed soon.
Julial

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Sometimes there are just some damaged sectors on the hard drive, but that does not mean the drive is totally unusable. The first step is to make sure your data is backed up as completely as possible. If you aren't able to access your Mac normally, sometimes you can restore data with data recovery tools listed on my backup FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Sometimes then you can repair access to the drive by repairing the directory*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
Since a bad directory, and a damaged hard drive can often elicit the same symptoms, data recovery initially is a must, and only then repair the directory.
If after repairing the directory, you aren't able to use your computer, the latter file you mention may have to deal with your wireless drivers. The first one simply has to do with TextEdit, which can be custom reinstalled from the operating system disc that installed the operating system on your Mac. Let us know if you need help with this.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Hard drive failure ... rrecovering files ???

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for