IMac Drive Failure. Restore Data?

I have a mid-2007 iMac that has the latesst version of Mountain Lion installed on it.
The computer was locking up often when waking, and lately Mail's data was getting currupted ... prompting me to have to rebuild the index. This happened twice.
So, I ran Disk Utility and tried to verify the disk. It stopped shortly into it, said to reboot via (Command-R) and run it again from there.
So I did, and again after trying to verify I got errors quickly and the verification cutoff. It said to Repair, which I tried, and that failed.
From that point forward, I could no longer reboot. The attempt to repair apparently was the final straw. Any attempt to boot results in the iMac shutting itself off about 60 seconds after getting the Apple logo with a small grey status bar.
Since then, I have tried connecting the broken iMac to a working one via Firewire, and that didn't work. I tried installing OSX onto an external drive -- verified that I could use it to boot the working iMac, then moved it to the broken Mac. That didn't work -- on boot, the computer doesn't auto shut off, but it just spins on the grey apple logo scene forever.
I'd really like to get some data off that internal drive. Any ideas?

ChezRusso wrote:
I tried installing OSX onto an external drive -- verified that I could use it to boot the working iMac, then moved it to the broken Mac. That didn't work
I'd really like to get some data off that internal drive. Any ideas?
That should've worked. Was the external drive formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled) using the GUID partition scheme? Is this a FireWire or USB 2.0 drive? Is the external drive bus powered or does it use its own corded power supply? What version of OS X were you installing on the ext. hard drive?

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Graphite slot-loading G3 iMac drive failure

Hi. My G3 Graphite slot-loading iMac hard drive died this past week, or at least I thing it did. It has the original hard drive in it and is at least 10 years old,maybe more. It is a 60g drive with 2 partitions: 50g for OS X and 10g for OS 9.2. Now I hardly ever use the OS 9.2 partition, but I just never got rid of it.
It's the OS X partition that failed. I was working on it this past Saturday and I notice it was acting strange and slow. It froze on me twice and I was force to shut it down both times by pressing the white glowing on button on the front. Well, after that second restart is when the trouble started. I heard the start-up chime and that was it, just a gray screen for a long time, then the question mark and then, after several minutes, it booted into OS 9.2.
The OS X partition was completely unavailable. The only way I was able to see it was to boot the G3 in target disc mode and attached it thru firewire to my G4 iMac. In Disk Utility, the OS X partition came up as an unmounted drive. Disk Utility could not verify or fixed it. So I tried Disk Warrior 4. Disk Warrior was unable to fix it. So I purchased Prosoft Data Rescue ll and a new internal hard drive.
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Now I wrote all that to get to this question: If a partition fails on a single hd, does that mean the whole drive is bad? I thought that when you drive fails, you would not be able to see any of the partitions on it. Obviously, I'm going to replace it with the new internal drive that is currently serving as my clone drive. But, I was just wondering how this drive failed. I was going to try and see if I can reinitialized it and if so, reinstall OS X and see what happens. Or do you thing that is a waste of time? As i write this,the G3 is running in target disc mode and the drive sounds fine, not making any noise what so ever. I was wondering if this is an actual drive failure or somehow, when I rebooted the system folder got so damaged that it put the partition in the state it is currently in.
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So any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Is the OS X partition installed at the beginning of the hard drive? If so, that's the area of the platter(s) that has seen the most usage over the years, so it may have developed surface damage, affecting the reliability of reads and writes. This wouldn't necessarily cause a difference in operational noise coming from the drive. One partition may continue functioning normally, while the other one occupying a bad area of the drive continues to have errors. The problem with copying files from a quirky drive is that you can likely duplicate the same corrupted files as were found on the original. If time is of no consequence, you could erase that partition and install Tiger again, but I'd use the original installer disk and not clone from the problematic partition. I had a 40 GB drive in a beige G3 that would cause unexpected system hangs. Because Drive Setup's Test Disk function and NDD's Media Scan would hang after a few minutes into the process, I estimated the problem area to be within the first 2 GBs of the drive. My solution was to create (3) partitions, with the first one set to 2 GBs, and the second and third partitions equally dividing the remaining drive capacity. With Drive Setup, I de-selected the "Mount on Startup" option for partition 1, so it disappeared from the desktop. I installed the OS on the second partition and designated the third for file storage. With that partition configuration, the G3 never had the unexpected system hangs that had plagued it previously.

IMac Drive Failures and Boot Camp - large install experience and question

We have a large 24" iMac install, purchased in August of '08, 49 machines spread across 6 offices. All run Windows Vista in Boot Camp as their primary (and mostly sole) operating mode - I will be happy to explain why after we get this cleared up, but that is not the point of this question.
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It has been suggested that it is the use of Boot Camp that is causing these failures. While I have seen viruses over the years that can lead to hardware failure I've never seen validated (or even simply non-malignant) software have the same effect.
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no one has any thoughts on this?

Time Machine back-up/restore after hard drive failure - lost data

Our iMac was subject to a hard drive recall. So before getting the hard drive replaced, I did a full Time Machine backup (over wifi to a HD connected to Airport Extreme). Once done, I took the iMac to the Genius Bar and they sent me home with a machine with a new copy of the OS installed.
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I think I have solved half of this. Upon starting the Mac after the disk swap, when I went to restore from Time Machine, I disconnected the drive from Airport Extreme and connected it directly to the Mac via USB. Apparently, this is not ok.
I reconnected the drive to Airport Extreme and now can see all of the backups.
So my question now is whether (1) do I revert to the week-old Time Machine (I want to do this) and (2) do I have to do it over wifi or is there a way for me to access this backup via a direct connection? I'm worried that over wifi, it will take days to restore (it's only 100 GB, but it seems to take forever).
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Hard drive replaced on imac how to restore data from external hard drive

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http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
See especially C.

ML failed Hard drive failure - restored TM to External, Now what?

If I'm reposting, please point me to a thread, I'll try it. Just didn't see exactly what I thought I need, and I'm new to the Mac beyond just using it.
Tried to install ML on an iMac 2008 running Lion. It failed saying the hard drive failed. It took several restarts, but finally got to where I could do a restore from time machine - which is what I thought I wanted to do. But because the internal drive is "marked" to have failed, I could only restore to an external. I am now running from that 2TB external. I ran DU to try to check the internal. Even during the install, DU said the disk was fine. After the restore there was once that Verify Disk failed, Repair Disk seemed to have worked, but still didn't dare trying to reinstall ML or boot from it. I erased it, hoping to get the OS and all my data from the external to the internal.
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Sounds like the drive has failed or is failing. You'll probably need to replace it.
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IMac drive failure? Consider running off a Firewire 800 external

This is an informational post, but worth sharing I believe.
My 2009 iMac 1TB Seagate (ST31000528ASQ) has failed.
For the SECOND time. When the first one failed at 1.5 y Apple charged me $200+ ($40 service, which is a bargain, and $160+ for the drive which was excessive) to put this one in. I was later reimbursed when Apple extended its recall range.
Now, at age 1.5 y, the second one of this wretched line has failed. I could pay another $200+ to Apple, assuming they'd still service my 4 yo iMac. Or I could bit the bullet, pay $650 for an SSD, and then pay $240 for an independent to work on the disgustingly unserviceable iMac. With the SSD I'd probably extend the machines useable lifespan another 2 years, and I'd get far higher reliability. The latter is very important to me.
Except, there's another option. One that is much cheaper.
My drive wasn't quite dead, so I was able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable external drive. It sits in a Firewire 800 cradle, I used a 7200 rpm 1TB Samsung - one of my offsite backup rotation drives. I booted off this drive and use Disk Utility to unmount my internal. I figured I'd do this while I decided which option to pursue.
Weird thing is, the iMac 2009 works rather well this way. If anything, it's FASTER than it was running off the internal drive. Aperture is MUCH smoother.
If your internal drive fails in this old machine, I think switching to a fast, big external drive is a good option to consider.

Since the Mac is set to boot off the external, i was suprised a complete failure of the internal would make a difference. How does that happen? (I unmount using Disk Utility, it presumably remounts when I restart. But I supposed if it died it couldn't remount :-).

I accidentally formated iMac drive and lost data. How can I recover the iMac's HD data??

I accidently formated an iMac HD that I had connected to my MBP in target disk mode. (I also had a new WD harddrive connected to my MBP at the same time and was supposed to format the WD drive in disk ultility but clicked the wrong drive. I still can't believe what a boneheaded thing that was to do..)
Anyway, can I recover the files on the iMac and if so, how can it be done?
I can only connect to the iMac via target disk mode because the iMac display is not working.
I have not zero'd out the iMac's HD or written anything to it so I assume the data should be there all fully intact for the most part.

Thanks varjak paw and ds store. I ended up using data rescue 3. I called tech tool pro and they said that DR3 would probably help me. It did, it recovered what appeaers to be all of the files and a whole bunch of deleted files.
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When I ran DR3, it kept giving me a disk slowdown error and said that the iMac disk might be going. Turns out my computer that I was running DR3 on had to be set so that it stayed on all the time (no screen saver, no disk or display sleep, etc.).
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Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

I am pretty sure I am SOL - but thought I'd try one last "Hail Mary" before throwing in the towel - to see if anyone here might have a solution I haven't thought of or am not aware of:
My wife's Macbook wouldn't boot today - instead she was greeted by the dreaded blinking question mark.
Macbook (2006) 4 gb ram - OSX 10.6.6 120GB internal HD (the internal HD is the problem).
I shut it down and attached a USB external HD that has a copy of OSX on it and it booted fine - but the internal HD would not mount. I tried both Drive Genius and Disk Warrior - neither program sees the damaged hard drive. I then launched Disk Utility - it sees the damaged HD as an UNINITIALIZED disk - and the only options are to initialize it - all the repair options are grayed out.
So I went poking around on the net looking for hard drive problems that the leading disk recovery programs can not fix and stumbled on to a thread discussing invalid sibling links - which is apparently the Achilles Heal of the OSX HFS file system - and can render the data on a HD inaccessible.
The thread went on to discuss a possible fix by running a series of fsck_hfs commands from the terminal window - or if the HD will mount - via single user mode or verbose login. Other options included attaching the problem Mac to another Mac via Target Disk Mode and many had success being able to see and repair the drive that way.
If anyone is interested in the details of this fix you can sift through this thread on Mac OSX Hints:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888
Unfortunately for me - nothing is working. The only way I can get Disk Utility to see the damaged drive is if I boot from the external USB HD. And As I mentioned above - Disk Utility only sees it as an uninitialized drive.
If I attach the Macbook to my MacPro in Target Disk Mode - the Macbook starts up in TDM but of course the HD never mounts on my MacPro and neither Disk Utility, Drive Genius or Disk Warrior are able to see the damaged macbook drive - in TDM none of these programs even show that the physical drive exists.
So, short of re-initializing the drive and thus loosing all the data - anyone out there in cyber space have any suggestions?
Thanks!

Just an update and a new question - I decided to go ahead a reformat the drive - but Disk Utility is giving me the following error message:
Disk Erase Failed with Error:
POSIX reports: The operation couldn't be completed.
Cannot allocate memory.
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Thanks!

Help! hard drive failure and data recovery

I am a happy PC-traitor who has been using my Macbook successfully for over a year now. I love the Mac.
Until now.
Last night, while downloading torrents onto my computer, it froze. I restarted. A blinking folder with a question mark was displayed. I tried resetting the PRAM. Disk Utility does not see my hard drive, so I cannot attempt to repair it.
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If she's dead, she's dead. Could be a loose cable. If you boot from a DVD and DU can;t see the HD, that's usually a really bad sign.
If you are comfortable removing it, you can try something like
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/
which will allow you to mount just about any HD via USB.
You can try stuff like
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/download-mac-data-recovery.php
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
http://prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
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Some of these may see HD's that won't mount and allow you to recover data.
Others may chime in with more detailed experiences.
hth
Jeff

IMac drive failure..

Hello All,
Had my 20" iMac hard drive fail - Apple genius recommended to replace, or for time constraints run a bootable external hard drive until replacement. Actually the genius said "I'd just run the external hard drive as you main, as replacing a drive in your iMac could be costly.." In any case, I took his suggestion and purchased a 120GB iOmega drive, loaded it with 10.5 and have been running it as secondary computer (Bought a new iMac 24") until I can return stateside.
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Cheers,

AV,
Thanks for the suggestion - I've tried that previously, but upon completion, starting up, the drive then stays on the apple grey screen with the "spinning" gear and never seems to open. I've just tried it again with the combo update, with the same result.
I then tried to restart by choosing the external drive and am experiencing the same thing.
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Appreciate your help.
Cheers

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.
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Hard Drive failure on 2006 iMac

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Any easy way of finding out other than getting SATA/USB adaptor thingy?
Not that I know of. This one?
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/

Restoration after Hard Drive Failure

Hello all.
My Powerbook G4 suffered a hard drive failure a couple of months ago, and every bit of information was lost in no-man's land. After seeking help with Apple, I was sent to DriveSavers. Thankfully, they were able to recover 100% of my drive or that's what they tell me anyway. (No need to scold me, I have learned my lesson about backing up EVERYTHING -- especially when the bill arrived from DriveSavers!) The Powerbook was kaput, so I decided to purchase an new iMac. DriveSavers has put my entire Powerbook contents onto several DVD discs, but so far I have had very little luck with actually transferring and using any of it on the iMac. I have been able to copy document files from Appleworks, Photoshop, etc. onto the iMac, and I can open them and use them with no problem. Although, I did have to go back and re-install the actual Photoshop and Appleworks applications from their original software discs since I was unable to successfully copy the applications from the DriveSavers discs onto the iMac. Still, I am in desperate need of certain Apple applications from the Powerbook that just will not appear on the iMac -- things like Address Book, all of my Stickies , plus the other Stickies that were only located on Dashboard (i was a stickies freak), the emails and contacts saved in Mail, the appts. & scheduling in iCal, etc. I cannot successfully access these kinds of things. I am able to copy an entire disc from DriveSavers onto the iMac, but when I launch the Address Book application from that folder, it just opens up the empty, brand new Address Book from the iMac or the new, empty iCal. The same thing happens with other similar programs. (I think iTunes has been the only thing with which I have any kind of success.) I've even rifled through the DVD discs and gone through my old User folder to the Library folder, then the Caches folder, and finally to the .com.apple.AddressBook folder where I extracted just the Metadata folder which clearly contains all of my contacts. When I try to add just the contact cards to the iMac's Address Book application, I still doesn't work and remains empty. The only way I've been able to look at any of my contacts is to use TextEdit to open those contact cards, and then dig through all of the jargon and piece together the info. It's very frustrating and time-consuming. I would just like for my Powerbook to be reincarnated, if you will, here on this new iMac. Is this even possible? I am completely baffled, and beginning to fear that I may have paid thousands of dollars for DVDs that would serve me better if I were lost in the Sahara and needing to signal a plane flying overhead by reflecting them against the sun. If anyone has any advice or tips, I would be very grateful.
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PowerbookG4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi,
Maybe this article can help :
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941#2c
Take a look at the 'manual' backup and restore sections of the article.
Good luck!
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

After hard drive failure, need to sync data

Following a hard drive failure I need to re-establish syncing between my desktop and Firefox Home on my iPhone. None of the routines for "add a device" or "my account" seem to work as advertised. "Settings" on my iPhone shows me signed in but gives me no other options, e.g., the option to open my account. The only buttons on the "Settings" page are "Sign Out," "About," and "Refresh." "Sign Out" warns me that doing so will erase all my data on the iPhone. Any suggestions how to re-establish Firefox Home appreciated.

Hi!
It seems that your iPhone is properly connected to the Sync server and that you need to add your computer to your previous account. In order to do so:
# At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options. . In the Options window, click on the Sync tab.
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Unfortunately, Firefox Home doesn't have the ability to send the bookmarks stored there to your computer so if you need to restore them in your computer and you don't have the Sync Key to restore the account in your computer, your only option is to copy them manually.
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IMac Drive Failure. Restore Data?

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