Hard drive removed from old, dead mac. I need your help!

So the logic board failed on my 2006 15" MacBook pro. Apple were charging £500 to replace the board, so I've decided to get myself a new MacBook. At the Genius Bar, while we were discussing how I could go out fixing the laptop, the genius was kind enough to remove my hard drive for me. He explained that there are simple USB cables you can buy that literally connect to the loose hard drive one end, and pop into the USB of the new mac the other. My first request is can anyone link me to a cable to buy (preferably uk). Every time I search I get external USB hard drives. The second piece of help I need is how I go about restoring some old files. I want everything as clean as possible; no migration type processes, just drag and drop. Once this is done, I have some worries about connecting my iPhone and getting things to carry on as normal (without losing apps and photos).
I appreciate any feedback.

The driive enclosure required will be the SATA enclosure. (The IDE would be for a much older machine.) The best policy would be to take the extracted drive with you if you are shopping in person; that way the tech help on site can identify exactly the model needed. Just one word before opting for a FireWire enclosure: the newer Macs have FireWire 800 only, no longer FireWire 400 ; your old 15" had both ports but the new Mac will have only 800. That means you might need an adaptor cable 400 to 800 if the enclosure is 400. There will be no similar complication if it is USB only. The advantage of FireWire is speed and Mac compatibility.
Once you have this bit of kit, then you are ready to tackle the main task of Migration or simply copying to the new Mac.

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HELP! Hard drive removed from old Mac Pro won't work as external in USB enclosure...

Hi guys,
I guess we've all been in this position at some point with our music technology, but today it is my turn to panic!
I have sold my Mac Pro (2010) and moved over to an iMac, now that they have great performance and internal SSD, etc.
Before selling the Mac Pro, I removed the internal HDs I was using for audio, instruments, backup, etc...
I have now installed the audio HD into an external USB3 enclosure, which I had assumed would mean I could access my audio work (pretty much all of it over the last 4 years) and move tracks over to the iMac or a new external HD as necessary.
Unfortunately when I switch the enclosure on, I get the message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer"... pretty much what I would expect if it were a new drive, but not what I was expecting given this drive was fine in my Mac Pro, and was obviously Mac formatted.
So I'm in a bit of a panic! I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to how I can solve the issue - obviously without initialising the drive (which is the only option the warning message gives me!).
I do have a friend who has a Mac Pro, so I have the option of taking the drive over to him and pulling the audio off onto a standard external drive... but if there is another way to solve the problem I would be pretty happy!
Thanks in advance for any advice or info you can offer!
Cheers,
Mike

yeloop,
Well that depends...
In the past I have managed to restore/repair drives with DW that nothing else would recognize let alone fix... so it's one of the 'tools' that I keep in my 'repair bag' and the few times i have needed it, it has paid for itself over and over again.
However, the fact you can mount the drive with your MBP but cannot with your iMac, is a little strange and points to something else that maybe is not related to a physical issue with the drive but something else going on with either the enclosure you used or even your iMac and it's USB3 ports. If it wasn't for the fact you can mount it on your MBP I would have said disk corruption but I don't think that is the problem now....
Got anything else you can plug into those USB3 ports on your iMac.. like another USB2 drive that you know is fine, just to test the ports themselves?

Save hard drive files from a dead mac

Hi, my mac recently broke, but the hard drive is still intact. (Screen is black, can't see anything) Is it possible to let's say, connect my mac to another computer and transfer my files ? I have a lot of precious school work on it, and it would be a shame to lose it all. Thanks!

If the broken Mac won't run, you'll have to pull the drive and mount it in a Firewire or USB external case. Then, presuming that the drive is good, you should be able to get all the files from it. If it's just the screen on the Mac that's bad and it has Firewire (and isn't really old), you may still be able to start it up in Target Disk Mode and get it to mount the drive on your other Mac.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

How can I transfer my old iTunes (playlists and all) from the hard drive of my old dead computer to the iTunes of my new one?

So my old PC died before I managed to back up my iTunes library onto DVDs. I do however have the hard drive from the old PC with all the program files, files and folders on. I also have the iPhone 4, which has my top rated playlist on but that only holds about 20% of my entire music collection on.
Is it possible to somehow find all my old iTunes music, videos, playlists, podcasts etc and transfer it into the iTunes on the new PC without losing anything?
Thanks for reading :-)

im trying to do the same. how do you
Copy the entire iTunes folder from <User's Music> on the old machine into <User's Music> on the new one?
im sorry i am totally inept when it comes to this stuff. can you walk me thru the steps to copy? please

My hard drive removed from a laptop no photograph files left can I recover them?

Please HELP with advice someone if you can. I had a white unibody laptop which was snow leopard but upgraded to Lion. A couple months ago my daughter splashed a small amount of water on it whilst it was unplugged when I was working on it. No apparent damage but the battery was low. Later after I forgot about the water splash I (stupidly) unknowinlgly plugged into a power source but it must have 'blew' as it never started up. I may have tried a few times after trying to power up, including holding down power key for a good while but nothing dead.. kaput.
A few weeks ago I got myself a new laptop, with mavericks on it. But I really needed my data off old laptop, so I took it to a simply fix it store who do apple repairs, and they took out the hard drive and put it in a case that could be plugged into my new laptop. I got it home and tried it, but it would not open iphoto obviously because, different system/update issue ect. SoI searched to see if i could find the photo files maually but ll I could find were a few files from my documents. Everything that was on the desk top, music and photo files were missing!. I took it back to simply fix it and they said that they searched everywhere and tried booting it up on an older sytem but they could not find any of the files that were missing.
I am gutted, as all my personal photos of which I never backed up are gone. I really need /want some of these pictures back . Does anyone know what may have happened? The guys at simply fix it said , all they done was removed the hard drive, and encase it. They never moved files or anything. Is it possible they may have been damaged with the water and plug into electric? Or could it have been me trying to start it up after water damage and I ruined part of hard drive.
The rest of my applications and documents are all ok, its weird just music , desk top, and photo files gone.
Is it worthpaying for a data recovery which simply fix it will charge me £100?
Any advice much appreciated. Sorry I cant tell you what sytem my old mac was as I dont have the hard drive with me to find out it was bought in Jan 2011 new white unibody snow leopard.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Again, Well I found Carbon Copy Clone on my old hard drive so I didn't even need to download it. I just dragged it onto my desktop and I did as you said. Using CCC and within the folder of users which has my folder of old hard drive there now shows a file called.autodiskmounted (whatever that means) and then it has a version of my hard drive below that called hard drive 1, which has nothing, but above both of these folders, there is a folder with an old user name which shows up empty on the hard drive when I search it, but actually shows lots of folders on the CCC. So without getting too excited, it lists some folders and amongst them are folders I cant see normally in the old hard drive, like my safari settings and favourites, and movies music and pictures. However in the movies pictures and music folders I can only see a blackish square that looks a bit like a blank screen with the text.localised after it .
Does this mean anything to you / Is there apossibility they may be there? When I selected my new laptop as the destination i got this message below so I did not proceed any further as I'm not sure it will back up the files I need..
To avoid system instability, CCC has applied a filter that will exclude system files from the backup task.
If you would like to restore your Mac OS X system files, restart your computer from the backup volume and try the backup task again.
If you are trying to restore a single item or folder, click the "?" button for additional suggestions.
Is it worth giving it a try? Thanks for this btw, its further than I've got before!!

Hard Disk Recovery from a Dead Mac Book Pro 13inch

What is the best way to recover information on your hard disk from a mac book pro that will not start from water damage?

When my daughter's MBP died due to drop-related damage, I removed the hard drive and placed it in this enclosurehttp://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ES2.5BPU2S/ and she now connects it to her new MBP by the USB port when she wants material from the old drive.
For less than $20 it is pretty hard to go wrong.

Hard Driver Transfer from old G4

Well got my new Mac Pro, took 8 hours to find right configuration for it, it's picky, heh. Anyway another problem. Got a Old G4 as seen below. And have many hard drives Would like to access, however, HUGE problem is that the Mac Pro Cannot see any of them connected through Any USB2 Device Connectors. Disk utility only see's it as unformatted media. However they still work fine connected to G4. I would like to transfer all these files over. Any Solutions? right now transferring it over via ftp but that is a pain.

Well i was in the same situation (i have a G3) and this is what i did:
1. removed drive from G3
2. attached drive to optical drive bay
3. carefully put bay back in (drive doesnt fit as it just sits within the carrier, so make sure that you dont bump the macpro during bootup)
4. close door,boot up and then transfer files from old drive to new drive(s)
its a breeze considering how accessible drives are in the G3/G4's etc..

Hard drive back from the dead

Here is what has happened...
I tried to wake my MacBook from sleep last night and was greeted by a clicking sound from my HD and a frozen computer. Proceeded to shut down then restart and got the same clicking sound along with the question mark folder. Over the next two hours I tried every fix I could find on here and every time got the clicking sound and the question mark folder. When booting from the SL install disk I could not see the HD in disk utility. So I was just about 100% sure the HD was dead. But...
I tried it again today just to see what would happen and it started straight up. I have now been running it for about an hour without problem.
About 6 months ago I had a similar problem where it froze after sleep and the HD made the same clicking sounds. But in that situation it started up without problems after a couple of restarts. It has run relatively problem free since then (with a possibly higher frequency of "beach ball" slow downs and freezes).
So my question is, is my HD just having a prolonged/intermittent death?, is it some way defective?, or is something else going on? Similar symptoms are discussed in this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10509966&#10509966 The consensus there was that it was either a bad HD or a loose/defective hard drive cable. There is no mention of the clicking sounds in that thread though, so I wonder if that points more to my hard drive.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I had an iBook that started with the same symptoms; freezes, clicking sound; usually the armature. It became more frequent. I erased the drive, zeroed the drive. But, after a short time, the drive failed and had to replace.

External Hard Drive - Migrating from Windows to MAC

Hi -
Just bought myself an iMAC. I have an external hard drive connected to my XP laptop.
Can I read from and write to this drive?
Do I need to reformat the drive (and lose the files in the process)?
I checked the archives, but couldn't find any posting that directly asked this question. Apparently if the drive is FAT32 formatted, I shouldn't have any issues. What if it is not?
Thanks

I was in the same situation as sunahag and the external drive worked fine...for awhile. One day it froze up the iMac so I disconnected the drive and rebooted the iMac. iMac works fine but haven't be able to get the external drive to work with the iMac again. When I connect the external it won't run (indicator which is normally green turns red). Still works with the Windows XP laptop.
Any suggestions, I still need to get more data off the external.

IPhoto lost after leopard installation- new Mac user needs your help!!

First, let me state: BRAND NEW MAC USER- BEWARE!
Just got a new mac for Christmas (refurbished). It came with iPhoto. My first call was to technical support about issues installing Leopard. After we resolved those problems, iPhoto was gone (as well as several other less essential things like checkers, etc). Since I installed Leopard, do I now need to repurchase iLife or iPhoto? iPhoto was the real reason we bought the system- I'm dying to use it but it has vanished. I know so many people have posted questions about similar issues but they all seemed to have existing libraries that aren't working correctly. So forgive me if this is a repeat questions but I'd really appreciate the help. Take pity on a very new and very lost user... Thank you!

You need to re-install iPhoto from the system restore disks that came with your Mac. Choose to install the bundled applications only.
Regards
TD

Should I replace my MAC hard drive or buy a new MAC?

Recently, my hard drive crashed. I have been debating whether to replace it, which is the cheapest route to go. Or should I get a new MAC. I've had my MAC since 2008, and am constanly using it. But buying a new MAC is expensive, but I feel it may be the safest route to go to aviod any other problems with my MAC. So, should a just replace the hard drive or buy a new MAC?

It would help to know which one of the different 2008 models of MacBook you have. Is it the White one or the Auminum one?
A new hard drive and maxed out RAM would keep your MacBook running with the new ones for a couple of years. Unless you're doing heavily processor intensive work like high end video editing.
For a hard drive try Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Dr ives&Order=PRICE
Or OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
Or for top speed but expensive you could go with an SSD. http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=Internal-SSD&P age=2
And from OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/2.5
Here's the benchmarks http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Benchmarks/CS5BenchmarkPag e-MacBook.html

HT201250 I had to replace the hard drive in my old MacBook. I replaced it. Installed OSX10.6. Then using the system software I reinstalled data from my Time Machine backup. On completion it asked for my password. It is not accepted. I am locked out how I

I had to replace the hard drive in my old MacBook. I replaced it. Installed OSX10.6. Then using the system software I reinstalled data from my Time Machine backup. On completion it asked for my password. It is not accepted. I am locked out how I overcome this?
I was already using 10.7. But only had the disc for 10.6.

Sorry I am new to this. Am I in the right area? I am using my iPhone to make contact. I am worried.

New hard drive installed on my 2009 mac book. Can I reinstall pages, numbers, etc... from the App Store? I was running Lion.

New hard drive installed on my 2009 mac book. Can I reinstall pages, numbers, etc... from the App Store? I was running Lion.

HI Corey ...
Yes. Make sure you use the same Apple ID.
How to re download apps from the Mac App Store:
Open the App Store. From the menu bar click Store > Sign In
Click Purchases from the top of the App Store window.
Select which apps you want to re download. Then right or control click where you see Installed then click Install.
Make sure and use the same Apple ID used for the original purchase.
If you can't re dowload the apps, launch iTunes. From the iTunes menu bar top of your screen click Store > Authorize This Computer. Sign out of the iTunes store and try re downloading your apps from the App Store again.

How do I input songs from my external hard drive (taken from a PC) and transfer them to my Mac?

How do I input songs from my external hard drive, taken from a PC, to a Mac?

Just a few song tracks, or your whole library? If just a few tracks, drag them from the drive to the open iTunes library window or playlist window. If your whole library drag the whole iTunes folder to your computer. Hold down the option key while starting and guide it to the library.itl file in that folder. If you need to merge libraries post back because that's a much longer post.

I have a Macbook Pro that I have just renewed and transferred over my old hard drive (also from a Macbook Pro). Now when I turn on the computer and ITunes opens I get error (-50) and then error 5002 when I try to sign in to ITunes Store - Help!

I have a Macbook Pro that I have just renewed and transferred over my old hard drive (also from a Macbook Pro). Now when I turn on the computer and ITunes opens I get error (-50) and then error 5002 when I try to sign in to ITunes Store - Help!
My dealer has tried and failed (twice) to correct this and I have tried deleting the two items in the Itunes folder but no luck!

were you able to get help on this? I need help on error 5002 as well. thank you

Hard drive removed from old, dead mac. I need your help!

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