How to Back Up a Hard Drive from Recovery Mode when Disk Can't Boot

I have a mid-2009 MBP that is experiencing problems booting. I was trying to repair my disk because I was experiencing problems with my finder and spotlight not returning any results upon my requests. I read some support discussions that indicated it might have been because my preferences/plist files had been corrupted. I deleted the files and they regenerated but then my computer froze and so I rebooted it.
My actual back-up for my hard drive is back in the u.s. (I'm currently doing field work in Brazil) but I have acquired another external hard drive to use for either booting or backing up my computer. I would normally just return my computer to a prevoius Time Machine backup, but I have valuable work from the last week that is not backed up I need to recover that my Time Machine does not include.
I tried resetting my pram and starting the computer to the command line interface and doing the fsck, but neither worked; my disk could not be repaired because of an incorrect node structure, and it exited with signal 8.
Is there a way to access migration assist or to copy my user files beyond the core to my hard drive in recovery mode or otherwise?

Just turn off your wireless router until you can run Time Machine to backup your Mac notebook.
Or remove the drive from the system and connect it to another Mac and copy all your files off it. But again it would be best to disable any and all Wifi systems in your house before you do that.
Not sure but there may be a way to turn off the Wipe command and or it is only issued once. Never had to use it so I'm uncertain on how it actually works.

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You don't.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1963
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

HT1212 How do I perform step 5 in the Recovery Mode when an iPad minnie has been disabled for having more than the allowable entry attemps?

How do I perform step 5 in the Recovery Mode when an iPad minnie has been disabled for having more than the allowable entry attemps ?

FORCE IPAD INTO RECOVERY MODE
1. Turn off iPad
2. Turn on computer and launch iTunes (make sure you have the latest version of iTune)
3. Plug USB cable into computer's USB port
4. Hold Home button down and plug the other end of cable into docking port.
DO NOT RELEASE BUTTON until you see picture of iTunes and plug
5. Release Home button.
ON COMPUTER
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How to back up a hard drive with Time Machine

Yesterday I left my MacBook Pro at the airport security check. I called today and they told me it was gone, probably stolen. Since I didn't want my files or data to fall into the wrong hands, I used iCloud and logged on to my account, found my MacBook device, and selected Erase Mac. Lo and Behold, as fate would have it, I received a call from airport security 15 minutes later that they had in fact found it. Unfortunately, my call to Apple Support indicated that once Erase Mac is selected, it's like pushing the launch button on a nuke. It cannot be undone. Further conversations revealed that in order to not completetly lose all my files, I need to back up my MacBook to another hard drive prior to connecting to WiFi.
So, here's my plan. I have another iMac at my house with approx 500G of available hard drive space. My plan is once Fed Ex delivers my MacBook, to use Time Machine to back it up. I've never done this before. I have a FireWire cable for this task.
Is my thinking correct for the following steps:
1. Open MacBook in a Non Wifi environment.
2. Click on Time Machine Preferences
3. Connect my MacBook Pro with my iMac using FireWire
4. Select the Hard Drive from iMac as the source.
Will there be additional instructions then to follow?
How will I know when the back up is complete?
After the back up is done, do I then open the MacBook up in Wifi and allow Erase Mac to run?
If yes, then how do I transfer the hard drive back to MacBook?
I know this is a long post, but I want to ensure I'm following the process completely. Thanks,
Scott

Just turn off your wireless router until you can run Time Machine to backup your Mac notebook.
Or remove the drive from the system and connect it to another Mac and copy all your files off it. But again it would be best to disable any and all Wifi systems in your house before you do that.
Not sure but there may be a way to turn off the Wipe command and or it is only issued once. Never had to use it so I'm uncertain on how it actually works.

How do i wipe my hard drive, without the set up disk. im deployed in Afghanistan and dont have access to the disk

i am depolyed and do not have my disk here. is there anyway i can wipe my hard drive without it?

Back up all data, then boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, select the startup volume, and erase it.

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I am trying, unsuccessfully, to restore my iPhone 4 from recovery mode. When I attempt to restore through iTunes I get a message telling me the process cannot be completed because of an error 3194. There is no documentation or information on what this error means - and how to restore the phone when this message appears. Can anyone help?

This usually means you previosly used an iPhone hacking utility such as tinyumbrella, altering the hosts file on your computer, and blocking access to the apple server, gs.apple.com.
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Install the latest version of iTunes.
Check security software. Ensure that communication to gs.apple.com is allowed. Follow this article for assistance with security software. iTunes for Windows: Troubleshooting security software issues.
Check the hosts file. The restore will fail if there is an active entry to redirect gs.apple.com. FollowiTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting to edit the hosts file or revert to a default hosts file. See section "Blocked by configuration: (Mac OS X/Windows) > Rebuild network information".
Try to restore from another known-good computer and network.
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How do i exclude internal hard drive from time machine?

I use OSX 10.7.4. My internal drive was maxed out so I copied it to an external and now I run my mac from this external drive. I want to use time machine to back up (to an additional external hard drive) but Time Machine fails because I don't have enough room. Whats happening is Time Machine wants to back up both my external drive (about 280 Gigs) and my internal (245 Gigs). I do not want or need my internal to be backed up however I cannot find a way to 'exclude it'.
In Time Machine/Options, my internal drive does not appear under devices. I have 3 external drives, (plus their partitions) but the proverbial Macintosh HD is not one of them. Even when I click the + to try and add to the devices which brings up the finder (and I check 'show hidden') still no dice.
Macintosh HD does appear in my finder.
I know one option would be to delete the contents of my internal drive, but I'm not ready to do that. I view it as my backup to my backup. It isn't updated, and it's missing things from the last few months, but in a critical failure, it might still be there.
Presumably all this is temp as I intend to replace my aging white imac with a new imac sometime this summer.
In the mean while though, I'd like time machine to do what its intended to do.
Thanks,
Bear

Open the TM preference pane, unlock it if necessary, and click Options. Click the "+" icon to add an exclusion. In the selection dialog, click the icon of your internal drive under DEVICES, then press return.

How to back up dying hard drive

Hello Everyone. If anyone recalls my question that was tried to answer...
PLEASE PLEASE READ ALL!!!!!!
My Hard drive is a:
G-Drive slim 500GB EHD
5400RPM
not sure on warranty.
Here is the story.
It all started when I was plugging in the HD in my sisters school laptop, when all of a sudden, an error popped up saying "You need to format the drive before you can use it." It was inaccessible, What showed up was just "Local Disk" and that error popped up, So I tried to plug it in my MacBook Pro, and Finder didn't recognize it. But when I plugged it in, I got a message saying that the HD was using too much power from the notebook. I tried to make it work by putting my wrecked cable to a position that it would function, Somehow, On Disk Utility, the drive was there but my only partition was greyed out and Repair Disk failed. Several days later, I headed to my nearest Apple Store and they had a look at my Hard Drive and I was told to get a new cable, because of the power danger. (The cable is a Mini-B USB cable, search on Images to know what im talking about) and SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, I got the cable. And when i plugged in the new cable to the drive. The drive started to click and I got very very ****** off. Knowing I WILL lose ALL my data. The point is that, the same things happened, Nothing on Finder but DU was successful on detecting the drive but not the Partition. Files on the HD are my Movies (60GB), My TV Show collection (mostly SpongeBob SquarePants so 25GB?) Backups of my iPod (11GB) and Important files (100GB) It's unbelievable that my large HD is gone forever. But sometimes I think to format but i worry about my movies and SpongeBob TV episodes. I NEED EVERYTHING BACK. About 250GB (half) has been used in the drive. It's ******* stupid that my drive does this.
BTW: I can't do much because i'm 13.
please please tell me to do something.
The weird fact is, My Hard Drive mounts on my Samsung SMART TV, I am able to access my files and view them. And I rush back to my Mac and ONE USB port has the click of death, The other doesn't even mount. Or do anything at all.
So, Is there any way to back up, collect and repair my hard drive? I am willing to back up and format and buy a new drive at a low cost the same capacity as this.

So with a CD-R or a CD-RW, I can back up my data?
Yes.
Like I'd be able to get my photos and my text documents OK?
Yes.
So OS wouldn't work from the back up?
If an image of the drive is split over multiple CDs, it can be backed up, but would need to be restored to be made bootable.
Would the MPEG-2 Component work?
Yes. If possible, back up the download instead of the installed component.
What is it about a computer that makes it able to handle only certain versions of OS?
Either the OS doesn't contain the resources for it because it's too old or Apple decided to stop supporting that Mac in a specific release, or an OS version only came with specific Macs, such as 10.2.7.
(52715)

How do i remove the hard drive from a compaq presario SR5319uk desktop

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Here is the Manual which shows exactly how to do it.
Manual
See Page 17. You have to remove the front panel and go from there per the pictures.
If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.

How do I erase a hard drive from within the system itself?

I want to erase everything on my hard drive as I want to give it away to someone. It has Lion on it.
How do I do this?
I tried to erase using Disk Utility but the disks were grayed out.
I have saved all the data on another disk so I can completely erase the drive.

I ended up doing it by booting with Lion Recovery (it was a Lion machine), obtained by booting and pressing down the Option key.
Then I went to Disk Utility and erased the internal hard disk.
But afterwards, when I tried to do Lion Recovery, I couldn't. Maybe because my Internet connection was poor. I was at a hotel. I think you need an internet connection to get Lion OS downloaded on your computer.
It didn't really matter anyway as I the person who I gave it to can get Lion on the machine easily.

How to format new hard drive for Apple TV when you can't use old HD

I need to know how to format a new HD to install in my Apple TV where I can't use the old HD to clone or otherwise create the new structure on the new HD.
I have an Apple TV that was syncing to a Mac Mini that had a defective HD and logic board. I was unable to backup the Apple TV to the Mac Mini for some time before I had the mini repaired by AppleCare.
When the mini came back, it registered on the Apple TV as a new computer and I couldn't sync with it without losing hundreds of dollars of content.
All was okay until the other night when Apple's defective update for the ATV erased ALL my content. I updated it to 3.1 this morning, which Apple indicated might fix the problem. It didn't. The old content is all gone.
My ATV is out of warranty, so I removed the old HD and copied the files from the "Purchased" folder to my mini. That saved most 101 items that I purchased since 12/08 (but not all for some reason). I lost all content prior to 12/08 that I purchased, as well as some content since 12/08 that I purchased.
I need to keep the old HD untouched until I can purchase data recovery software. I'd like to just put a spare IDE HD in that I have into the ATV and just start over with what is in my Mac mini iTunes.
So, how does one do that? I'm not gifted with vast Unix knowledge or experience and I don't want to clone the old HD and risk losing more data if it writes to the HD for some reason.
Thanks.

Hi Atagahi,
Firstly, have you emailed Apple iTunes support indicating your issue? There have been instances in which Apple will allow re-downloading of all content you've purchased on the iTunes store.
Secondly, I highly recommend you get an external usb hard drive, attach it to your mini and use it as a Time Machine drive to keep your iTunes purchases safe. It's a fact of life that all hard disk drives will eventually fail. The Apple TV should never be used as any kind of permanent storage space; think of it as a 'temporary holding' zone. And as you've unfortunately already experienced, a glitch wiped out all content on the Apple TV.
As regards your original question, it seems like there have been folks who've done just that...taken the internal drive in the Apple TV out and attached it to a mac and copied files from the Apple TV hard drive. I have not had to do such, so I cannot offer any help here except for Linda's suggestion on googling the net for solutions.
Good luck and hope you get all your purchased content back Atagahi!
Message was edited by: Alec

Cannot Format Hard Drive in Recovery Mode

Hello everyone,
I am trying to perform a fresh OS X install on my MacBook Pro Mid-2012 13." I booted into internet recovery mode (to install Mountain Lion instead of Mavericks), but when I try and partition my hard drive, Disk Utility gives an error that reads "Partition failed with the error: File system formatter failed." Disk Utility then leaves me with a greyed-out volume labeled disk1s1. My MacBook Pro has the stock 500 GB HDD.
As an experiment, I successfully formatted the disk as NTFS with a Windows 7 boot CD, and also as FAT32 from Disk Utility, so I don't think the disk is failing. Also, verify disk runs without errors before I try and partition the disk. After partitioning, it tells me that I need to reformat.
I think the problem can be narrowed down to partitioning the drive with Disk Utility as JHFS+ (I also tried HFS+ via DiskUtil). Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?
Thank you in advance.

You can not use the recovery drive itself to reinstall OS X, but you can reinstall OS X without de-encrypting the drive.
WARNING: following these steps will remove all data from your harddrive. This process will in all likelyness not be reversible. Use at your own risk.
1. Prepare a recovery USB stick [1].
2. Boot from this stick
3. Start Disk Utility
4. Select the hard drive
5. Select the Partition tab
6. Change Volume Scheme to 1 Partition
7. Enter Macintosh HD in the name field
8. Click Apply
Your hard drive is now empty, you can use the installer on the same USB stick to re-install a clean OS X on your machine.
[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433

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Don't use USB for one. Turn them off until you run SuperDuper.
Switch to native SATA interface and controller.
Disable spotlight on them too. Or try deleting the index and database.
Green WD drives have been known to 'fall off the chain" or appear to not be mounted, or act like they are in sleep mode at times, and not work well with TimeMachine.
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How do I remove the hard drive from my old imac befor I recycle it?

ifixit.com has picture-guides for most anything Mac. Others say "not a user-capable operation", but ifixit does not hold back the guide for such reasons.

How to read external hard-drive from all users

Hello everybody !
I have a Lacie Porshe Design external hard-drive for my Mac.
I have 2 user accounts which both are "admin".
Since yesterday, when I plug my external hard-drive, I cannot read the files on it unless I'm on the first "admin" account. I want to read the files from all the users account. There's a little red stop sign on the files and it tells me I have not the permission to view the files when I'm on the second user account.
Why does it work only with the first "admin" account and not the second one ? How to I disable this ?
It worked perfectly yesterday and I have no idea why.
Thank you very much guys !

I am sorry for the confusion.
The technician fresh-installed all the programs needed on a session they created called admin. On it there is all the programs but nothing else.
In case of trouble with the programs and licenses, the techicians asked for us to leave this ADMIN session untouched and to do our project and personnals things on our own new session.
So I got
ADMIN - only the programs installed by the technicians, admin status enable first
PERSONNAL - all my personnal files and the programs installed by the techicians, admin status enable later
When I read my Lacie Hard-Drive from the PERSONNAL account, I do not have the permission to read my old Time Machine backup files from my previous mac even thought the PERSONNAL account got the admin status enable. But when I read the Hard-Drive from the ADMIN account, I can read those files.
Hopefully this is clearer.
Thank you for your time !

How to Back Up a Hard Drive from Recovery Mode when Disk Can't Boot

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