Trying to back up a 'Failing' Hard drive

I have a PowerBook G4 that is not happy about moving to China. I have had no end of problems with it since moving behind the Great Fire Wall.
I did a software upgrade several months ago (November, maybe) and the computer has been unusable since. It simply would not boot and gave me a password error. I finally got my Tiger OS X disks from the states and now find big hairy issues when I try to run the Disk Utility or change the password. Trying to change the password gets an error message that says to run the disk utility. The disk utility states that the hard drive has fatal errors... eek! What did China do to my computer!
My question is… Is there any way that I can get the data off the computer if I can't boot in Target mode? I can't seem to get past the OS X installer screen and boot the computer from the start up disk. I would really just like to get all of my data off of the computer and put it on the disposable (because I don't care if China kills it…) Chinese PC that I have purchased. --Insert lecture about always backing up your data to very sad faced and remorseful expat here-- I have firewire on both computers and a firewire cable to connect them.
Thanks so much for any help that you can offer.
care
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

You are correct, sir!
The hard drive failed Kaput! I was able to use Disk Rescue to save the data and had a new hard drive installed on a recent trip back home to the states.
Thanks for the response.
care
PS. Disk Utility wouldn't/couldn't repair the disk... I started there!

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All you need to upgrade the iBook for Tiger is another 128 MBs of RAM. It has both Firewire and USB ports. You do want to upgrade it for what you plan to do. The problem you may continue to have, however, may be due to the fact that the age of the computer is such the disk controller does not support hard drive volumes larger than 128 GBs, which is probably the reason the drive won't mount.
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Can Time Machine back up a failed hard drive, and how long will it take to prepare?

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Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
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Failing hard drive, unable to start, trying to back up data

My apologies in advance, I'm not terribly computer saavy.
I purchased an HP Pavilion dv6-1350 us Notebook PC in May 2010 from Newegg.com as my home computer.
About 2 weeks ago I fell asleep with the computer on (internet connected via dial up) and when I woke up, I was getting hard drive failure imminent warnings and warnings to back up my data. I ran several tests as per what directions the computer could give me and got the following results:
Start up test failed
Hard disk smart 301
Hard disk 1 QUick 303
100% system memory OK
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Hi,
Well 301 and 303 are genuine error codes relating to the Hard Drive ( so it will need replacing ) - I presume the tests you ran were from the Bios menu, if that is correct, it's unlikely to be Malware as bios viruses are extremely rare so it probably is just a grammatical error in the message, nothing more.
One possible way to try and retrieve your files from a non-booting drive is to follow the process detailed in the link below. The Ubuntu operating system CD you create can run from the CD alone ( ie it doesn't have to install on the Hard Drive ) and I've often found it to be successful in retrieving data even from a failing Hard Drive. When you've created the CD, follow the instructions and see if you can back up your existing files to the USB drives you've purchased.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windo...
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

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ST31******ASQ:
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Model:          ST31000528ASQ
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Serial Number:                      6V***5JR
Native Command Queuing:          Yes
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Step One: Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
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Step Two: Remove the old drive and install the new drive. Place the old drive in an external USB enclosure. You can buy one at OWC who is also a good vendor for drives.
Step Three: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Four: New Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
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3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
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Step Five: Clone the old drive to the new drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive. Source means the old external drive.
Step Six: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the new internal volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the new drive. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

HT204057 Time machine back up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme.

Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme? It worked very well.

Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme?
Time Machine backups are supported via USB hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme"ac" version.
Time Machine backups were not supported via USB hard drive connected to earlier versions of the AirPort Extreme.
Some users who tried this on earlier version AirPort Extremes seemed to have some success with Time Machine backups....some had moderate success and some had no success with this. Count me in the "no success" category.
See the topic about Time Machine support for USB disks in this Apple Support document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Could this be a failed hard drive?

My daughter bought a new 20 GB gen 3 iPod in August of 2004. Now, when she turns it on, she gets the sad face along with a triangle and exclamation point. She has followed the steps in the Apple KB article for this scenario here and I have tried to help her - but all is to no avail.
A reset does not fix the problem. We have tried to restore it. But when the iPod is put into disk mode and attached to her computer, the iPod does not show up anywhere. It is not recognized by iTunes or iPod Updater. When the iPod is removed from the computer, the computer gives a message saying that the device was not recognized and asks if we want to re-initialize. (Curiously, it does not ask that while the iPod is attached.)
After the last attempt at this, we could hear the hard drive of the iPod trying to repetitively spin up, about every 3 or 4 seconds. It wouild spin up and stop, spin up and stop, etc. At least, it sure sounded like the hard drive to me.
If anybody can shed some wisdom on this, I would appreciate it. My opinion is that there has probably been a hard drive failure. Has anyone experienced similar symptoms? And if so, what was the solution? If this is a hard drive problem, I am disappointed that it did not last more than 16 months. Are there any statistics anywhere about the lifetime of these devices?
Thanks,
Rich
EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

You might try a PRAM reset and see if this does any good.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US
It sounds like the hard drive itself is toast based on how it looks in an enclosure. So you won't be able to boot from it. Possibly after a PRAM reset you could option boot to a disc or to your external drive.
I had the experience of a failed hard drive totally messing up my PowerMacG4, and it took some doing to get it going again. I finally got it going again, and it has been working ever since without issue.
The MBP is a different machine, but having experienced first hand what a dying hard drive could do, I think it's well worth doing any resets you can.
If no joy, make an appointment at the genius bar and ask them if they can run a hardware test from their store feed. If you do have other issues, they should show up then.
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Trying to back up a 'Failing' Hard drive

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