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

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

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

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Trying to Recover Data from broken Hard Drive - Device Wont Show in Finder

I just had the hard drive replaced in my intel iMac (the old one isn't working properly). The apple store folks told me they would not do any data recovery off the old drive, but suggested I might be able to get a SATA to USB adapter and plug the old drive in the computer.
The first time I plugged the old hard drive it showed up in the finder and I began transferring the old file. 6 GB into it the transfer stopped and the the old hard drive disappeared from the finder. Now the drive wont appear in the finder HOWEVER when I unplug it I get the "Device Removal" error.
A little about my broken drive:
Its a Western Digital 320 GB. Its not making any clicking sounds or anything, which makes me think it might just be the circuit board which is replaceable. But I don't want to waste $50 on a new circuit board if thats not the problem.
Any suggestions?

Basics of 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.

How to recover data from bad hard drive

Once a hard drive goes bad (cannot get into the computer), is there any hope of recovering any data from it? If so, how?

Do you mean the hard drive is mechanically broken for sure? It's not a data corruption issue that is causing a problem with starting up the Mac, but maybe not be a bad mechanism?
If the drive is definitely broken, there are businesses that specialize in recovering data from bad hard drives. For example
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/ (I always saw their booth at MacWorld Expos...)
The cost of such services is usually high.
cannot get into the computer
So that probably means the hard drive in question is the internal drive? If you don't know for sure that the hard drive is physically broken, you can try starting up using your Mac OS X installation disc. Insert disc in optical drive and start up with the C key held down. When you get to Installer's screen, go up to the menu bar and run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Does the internal drive appear in the Disk Utility sidebar?
Alternately, if you have another Mac (that has FireWire), you can try starting the Mac with the problem in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Connect the "target" Mac to the other Mac (running normally) using a FireWire cable. Run Disk Utility on that Mac. Does the hard drive of the Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode appear in the sidebar?
If you can get the internal drive to appear in Disk Utility, you may be able to run Repair Disk on the First Aid tab. There are also third-party utilities, such as TechTool Pro (Micromat), Drive Genius (Prosoft), and Disk Warrior (Alsoft), that may be able to fix (or at least recover data from) the hard drive.

Recover data from external hard drive that was Windows format and connected on a Macbook Pro. Did I lose everything? What happened?

Hi there this is my first question here!
I connected my external hard drive originally formatted on PC on my new Macbook. The first time I connected it I could see all my files but today I connected it and after I couldn't see any file nor even on my pc appears as NO NAME with a different name and nothing on it. I think was reformatted, any help to recover all my data?
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If the Apple Store couldn't get files off of the drive, it is unlikely that you will be able to. If you have backups, those would be the best way to go. You could also try booting up the computer and holding down T to boot into Target Disk Mode. Plug the broken computer into another one with FireWire and see if it works to recover data from external hard drive. If you can see it, try booting up the broken computer while holding down Option. Choose Recovery HD from the menu, then choose to Reinstall OS X.
It is unlikely that this will work, because I'm pretty sure that the Apple Store would have tried this. You could try using expensive software to get files off the drive, but it would be risky and the results might not be any good.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4273

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I have a 13" white macbook (my daughter's macbook). It looks like the hard drive crashed. She took it to Apple store they told her they can replace the hard drive (still under Apple care), but I am trying to get the data from the hard drive.
I pulled the hard drive out of the macbook, and put it in a external hard drive enclosure, with USB2 connector. Unfortunately I have to connect the USB to a Windows PC, since that's what I have (she took my PowerBook for school work). The wondows machine does not recognize the hard drive. I tried to connect to a Vista machine and an XP machine same problem.
Do I have to connect it to a Mac to be able to recognize this hard drive? I thought as long as I put it in a external disk enclosure I will be able to recognize it even with Windows machine.
I would appreciate any help.
p.s. I do hear (faint) clicking noise from the hard drive - both when it is in the macbook and when it is in the external enclosure.
Thanks.

The enclosure is format "agnostic". A drive could conceivably be formatted in several different Apple formats; HFS+ (aka Mac OS Extended) is likely what you have. There's Windows based FAT32 or NTFS.
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Recovering data from external hard drive

I backed up music,pictures and personal documents
It said backup was successful, I they to retrieve some documents and none of the those files were in that restored folder

Very similar with your experience
Last time when I was in Rio, I took part in the famous Carnival there with my boyfriend and we took a lot of interesting photos there. About one week ago, one of my friends asked me to show her the photos. However, it turned out to be inaccessible and the PC can not read the data on the drive. And the PC suggested me to format the external hard drive for reusing it again.
people often lose their data from External hard drive, a handy external hard drive data recovery software will be highly recommended to you, ---- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, Then click next button
Select the disk where you lost your data and click Scan button, the software will quickly scan the selected disk to find your target files.
Watch the video below, step by step, you can recover your data.
https://youtu.be/ZA4XzL1mD1s

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What problem are you encountering?
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Basics of 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.
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Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

How to recover data from the hard drive?

I've always heard that data is never really gone from the hard drive even after you delete it. How do I recover that data? My problem is some photos (my honeymoon photos) have been deleted from my computer and they have also been deleted from the recycle bin. I sure would like to recover them.

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

How do I import data from external hard drive onto new iMac?

How do I import data from an external hard drive onto my new iMac?

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How do I move data from old hard drive to the time capsule?

Hi ,
I got the Time Capsule a couple days ago and have been backing up my Macbook pro's data. I have an old Lacie 160G external hard drive with data I'd like to put into the time capsule. The only way it can do that now seems like I have to transfer the data from the Lacie to my mac ...then backs it up automatically to the Time Capsule.
However, my 256G of space on my mac is about to be full !
The time machine automatically puts my Lacie hard drive as excluded from being backed up and the button - (to remove it) doesn't work when an external hard drive is connected to the Macbook. Right now, my trust in the time capsule is not superb. I've tried intentionally to delete a video file on my Macbook and then see if I could retrieve it . I've had one fail/error and one success. Since one failed I have not dared to delete anything.
So..the plan is to delete files on my Macbook and then import data from my Lacie to my Macbook...and pray the time capsule will save everything?
Can anyone with experience tell me how to use the time capsule correctly?
Thanks in advance!
Kai

The TM should be able to include the LaCie if it is formatted HFS+. If it isn't then no .. TM cannot backup.
On Yosemite the simple fact is TM is working poorly.. we are awaiting a patch or 6 to fix some of the issues.. but it is being extra flakey.
This is just a very personal opinion but I purchased Carbon Copy Cloner a couple of years ago.. very good purchase.. Easy to use.. reliable.. can backup network drives and disks that are not HFS+ formatted.. plus it can make a bootable clone.. It can backup separately your internal drive and your external drive to different sparsebundles on the TC.. I reckon for $40.. it is well worth it.
Otherwise you are stuck with the Yosemite / TM bugs.. good luck with those..
And more so the fact that TM is simply limited in its ability.
At least create a disk image on the TC and copy manually the files from the external drive into it. You do not need to copy the files to the Mac to do this..
But I think I would be buying another decent sized external drive.. 160GB drives.. sounds ancient..
How to use data and backups properly on a TC.
Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

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Hi, I was copying some .avi files from my laptop (latest Snow Leopard version) to a Iomega ScreenPlay Pro HD 1Tb and suddenly my electric power shutted down.
There was a copying error message and then inside the hard drive there was only some of the data I was copying. The prevoius one was gone.
Do you know what is happening? Are the files hidden somewhere? Can I retrieve/recover them somehow?
Please help me. It would be very thankful.
PS: I have never used Time Machine.

Before doing anything else, boot from your SL install disc and use Disk Utility to repair the HD on the laptop. If repairs are shown, run repair disc again until DU reports no problems. Next, do the same for the external drive.
From there, restart from the laptop and check that all the files you were copying are OK.
How you proceed from there depends on what you find, but don't create new files or folders until you know all is well on the laptop; if you need to recover data it will be easier if nothing is overwritten.

Recover data from wiped hard drive?

Hi everyone.
I’ve searched through the discussions unable to make any concrete conclusions to resolve my dilemma so I hope someone here can help me out if possible.
My Macbook Pro 13 inch (late-2011) running Mavericks had its hard drive recently wiped by an Apple technician after I took it in following problems.
I stupidly didn’t back up any files onto an external hard drive or in TimeMachine when my hard drive was working before. However, from reading these discussions it appears other people with wiped hard drives have been able to recover data with some success. I’d like to know if this is at all possible in my situation?
To put my dilemma into some context, only days ago my Macbook began to freeze up. Eventually I had to force shut down with the power button as the computer became unresponsive.
Afterwards, when I turned on the computer the OS would not load past the grey screen with the apple logo. I attempted to perform a boot in Safe Mode but encountered the same problem. Then the computer would only shut down at this point each time I tried to turn the computer on again. Naturally I took it to my local Apple store and had a ‘Genius’ check it out.
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The Internet Recovery for Mavericks however failed and the Apple technician offered to replace the Hard Drive for a small ransom.
I’ve since tried to turn the Mac on at home and the grey screen still appears this time with a flashing folder with a question mark.
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I’m willing to download the software and get the hard drive in order to retrieve any data if it is at all possible.
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How to properly recover data from "broken" hard drive?

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