Recovering data from "crashed" hard drive - white macbook

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.
Windows doesn't properly recognize Mac drive formats unless you add software. There are a couple of commercial tools that might work.
http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3
tp://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/

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First, get yourself an External Enclosure and a new drive that can be used eventually to place inside your MacBook.
Install Mac OS X on the new External and Boot from it. Now your Mac is operating again.
Later, you can swap the new drive with the old drive and get back your portability.
Mac OS X has over 250,000 files in it. Booting is very complex. Just reading a few files off your old drive may be relatively easy -- or may be completely impossible.
If you have a spare drive, programs like DataRescue may be able to grab a few files off it -- or maybe not.

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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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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?
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I backed up music,pictures and personal documents
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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.
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https://youtu.be/ZA4XzL1mD1s

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Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

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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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You could try putting the old hard drive into an external hard drive case since it sounds like the drive isn't completely dead.
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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.
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Ouch, ouch ouch!
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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.
I know I have to go and buy a new hard drive and replace the existing one. But I still would like to know, is the data on the old hard drive able to be recovered or are my files lost forever since the Apple technician ‘wiped’ my hard drive?
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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Hayden

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Hi,
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Recovering data from "crashed" hard drive - white macbook

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