What happens to old hard drives

I was a part of the recall for the 1TB Hard Drive and had it replaced in April. Apple kept the original hard drive and frankly since I had properly backed everything up I didn't think much of it. Does anyone know what apple does with the old hard drive and whether it is properly destroyed?

This is the official line:
Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair
But you should have erased the drive before it left your possession. If there was any confidential information on it that wasn't encrypted, you should assume that it's compromised.

Similar Messages

I wish to recycle a number of macs. What happens to the hard drive when sent to Simms? Do I need to dismount them?

I wish to recycle a number of macs. What happens to the hard drive when sent to Simms? Do I need to dismount them?

Hard drives don't die then come back to life. Your drive never died. You just thought it did.
Obviously, if a hard drive isn't on and spinning its life is longer than when it is always on and spinning. If a hard drive in a laptop is idle it goes to sleep. That's normal because it prolongs battery life. Of course it hardly matters if the computer is running on AC power. The drive may still go to sleep but there's no impact on the battery.
If the computer is in use 24/7 then its useful life will be less than if it's in use only 12/7 or 8/7. This is both logical and obvious. But in the long run all computers or their hard drives fail. There is little you can do to prevent that. They are meant to be used. If your life is dependent on the computer being usable, then buy another one as a spare. Or at the very least buy a backup drive, keep the computer backed up, then you can worry less about drive failure.

What happened to my hard drive space?

I installed a new Hitachi 80 gig drive into a PowerMac G4/500 256/ 27gb/ DVD-RAM/ Zip Graphite. Profiler read 74 GB. Fine. During a large file write, the power went out. On rebooting the Mac later, no hard drive. I ran DiskWarrior 3.03 on the drive and it came back onto the desktop. However, Profiler (and Disk Utility) no report the drive as being only 31.5 GB in capacity. I checked the drive using WhatSize and found no hidden files. I erased the drive using DiskUtility and have a drive reportedly clear of any and all files, but still claiming to be only 31.5 GB. In the old days, I would next have tried a low-level drive reformat but I'm told we don't do that anymore. What do we do? I am at a loss, here.

Version 3.0.3 is compatible with Tiger, so it shouldn't have done any harm, and I've never had Disk Warrior do anything like this to me (which is not to say it can't happen).
Have you tried resetting the jumpers?
If that doesn't work, do you have access to a PC? If you could put the drive in a PC as a slave, you could reformat it there, then bring it back to your Mac and try Disk Utility again. I've had some success with this method in the past.
Andrew

Help -What happened to my hard drive?

My Ibook froze and I got the flashing folder with question mark when I tried to boot up. So I boot up from my installation disk and the system can't seem to find the hard drive to do a disk utility. Am I screwed?

Bohacks:
It may well be that your HDD has failed. The average life of these drives is 3-5 years, with a significant number of drives failing as early as the first year. Your computer was released in 2004, which makes your HDD about 4 years old. So you may be a candidate for a new HDD.
Try booting from the Apple Hardware Test disk, and run all tests in a loop by holding down Command + L during the tests. It sometimes takes several repetitions of the tests to uncover intermittent problems, sometimes several hours.
Please post back with what you find, or with further questions or comments.
cornelius

What happened to my Hard drive memory?

I have iMac,24", early 2008, with 400GB memory. Up untill recently, about 90 GB was available out of 400. Now since the computer is slow, I was surprised to find only 20 GB is left. I can not account for loss of this memory. Is there any way to find what is taking all that memory and what can be done to recover. Thank you

You are confusing hard drive storage space with RAM (Random Access Memory).
You have 20 GBs of hard drive storage space left.
What year, screen size, CPU speed and amount of RAM installed?
How many applications do you run simultaneously in the background while working in another application?
Do you run any antivirus software on your Mac? Antivirus software can slow down the normal operation of OS X.
Do you run any "crapware" like Mackeeper or any other type of "crapware" like so called hard drive "cleaning" apps?
Hard Drive full or near full?
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
You may have to Purchase an external FireWire or Thunderbolt hard drive to move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

What happened to the Hard Drive icon?

Just booted a brand new MacBook Pro and went thru the initial set-up, but there is no "Hard Drive" or "Macintosh HD" folder on the desktop anymore. Do I now need to click on the Finder every time I want into the hard drive?

Oh, yeah, Mountain Lion is so terribly shy of letting you see all its privates...
While you're munging up Finder's desktop Preferences, may also want to visit the Sidebar tab and set up what you want to see in there as well.

What is the exact name of the cable I need to connect my old hard drive from my macbook pro (it has been taken out of the computer) to my new macbook pro? I need to transfer files from the old hard drive to the new computer.

What is the exact name of the cable I need to connect my old hard drive from my macbook pro, which has been removed from the computer, to my new macbook pro? I need to transfere files from the old hard drive to the new computer.

No eSATA to USB. Just a SATA/IDE to USB adapter. Google SATA/IDE to USB adapter and you will get tons of links to buy them. Most likely your local computer electronics store has them, although they might be more expensive buying locally than online.
I have several. You can get either USB 2, which what I recommend, or USB 3. USB is backward compatible so a USB 3 adapter will work on a USB 2 port and a USB 2 adapter will work on a USB 3 port. Backward compatible in both directions.
I suggest a USB 2 type because there have been some problems with certain USB 3 devices, the USB 3 interface used isn't all that good in those certain devices. USB 3 is still fairly new where as USB 2 has been around for over 10 years.
synghem wrote:
Thank you LowLuster,
At the apple store they said I needed an esata to usb wire. But looking at wires on line has been confusing. Is sata the same as esata? How do I know if I need a usb 3 or usb 2?

I recently added my old mac hard drive to a new macbook with an SSD as my main OSX drive. I am having trouble with permissions in viewing my old hard drive. What is the best way to get complete access to my old hd installed in my new Macbook?

I recently added my old mac hard drive to a new macbook with an SSD as my main OSX drive. I am having trouble with permissions in viewing my old hard drive, when I save a permission when I reboot the full access is changed again . What is the best way to get complete access to my old hd installed in my new Macbook?

Open the Get Info window for the old drive. Click the Lock icon on the bottom of that window and type in your password. In the permissions area click the Plus sign ( + ) and Add your Username to it and set it to Read & Write. Close that window. you should now have full access to all the files.

What is largest solid state drive I can install in MacBook Pro 8,2? I want to perform a clean install of Mavricks and dump my old hard drive.

What is largest solid state drive I can install in MacBook Pro 8,2? I want to perform a clean install of Mavricks and dump my old hard drive.

If the bank account permits, I suggest getting a 1 TB SSD anyway. One cannot have too much storage.
Unless you are having issues with your current installation, a 'clean' install is not necessary. It would be more efficient to clone your current drive to the new SSD, test it, and then do the swap. The installation of Mavericks over Snow Leopard can be done either before or after the cloning process.
Ciao.

I am trying to upgrade my hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far, just before cloning may start and receive an "error 254" and can go no further. Any idea what this error is?

I am trying to upgrad the hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far throughj the process where its about to start cloing when I get a message " error 254". Any idea what that means and how do I get around this issue so I can use my new hard drive? Thanks for your input.
Vince

Connect the HDD to your MBP. Open Disk Utility>Erase and drag the HDD icon inrt the Name field. The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click on the Erase button.
Then try the clone process again. You may use Disk Utility>Restore or a third party cloning application such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Ciao.

I have upgraded to a new computer. I have installed iTunes from the internet and copied my music from the old hard drive to my new one. What do I need to do to get my new computer to recognize my old playlist?

I have upgraded to a new computer. I have installed iTunes from the internet and copied my music from the old hard drive to my new one. What do I need to do to get my new computer to recognize my old playlist?

See https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing%20up%20and%20restoring%20bookmarks
and
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing%20up%20your%20information?s=new+computer&r=4&as=s#os=win&browser=fx8

Moving Data from old hard drive to new hard drive

I'm posting this question in this category , I hope it's the right place. Here's my situation and general information. I have a Toshiba L35 S2161 laptop, it's about 5 yrs old, running WinXP Service Pack 3. just got the blue screen, wouldn't boot, tried everything and I only have the factory provided "recovery" disc that will wipe my drive and lose all my data if I use it. I hadn't been doing regular backups, so I want to save as much if not all of my data as I can. I don't want to spend time here going over everything I've tried (boot disc like Knoppix, etc) which didn't work, just need to get to the bottom line and make sure I'm doing the next steps correctly.
Here's my plan:
l. Remove old hard drive from laptop
2. purchase new hard drive - I've been told any drive will work, it doesn't have to be designed for a Toshiba. I've been looking at best prices, etc. mainly Western Digital. I may purchase a larger drive to at least get more memory , although I really didn't have that much on my old drive, but had a lot of apparent memory-related problems, freezes, etc.
3. Install new blank drive into laptop, using the Toshiba factory recovery disc to reformat the disc and get it ready to receive the data.
4. Insert the recovery disc into the drive, turn on the computer and HOPE that it boots it up and installs a fresh install on the new drive. Not sure what the screen willl show at this point - I've never installed a new drive in a laptop, so will be somewhat nervous at this point to see what happens.
5. Assuming the new drive is recognized by the recovery disc and installs a clean version of WIN XP (I'm assuming that's what's on the recovery disc that came with my computer, because it had WIN XP pre-installed), I will now be ready to transfer data from the old drive.
6. This is the step I'm not sure what or how to do next. I would like to clone my entire old drive onto the new drive but I'm afraid if I do that it might load damaged files that would mess up my new install. I purchased a disc enclosure with a USB cable (haven't received it yet), and was going to use that somehow. I presume I will plug it in and it will show up as an external drive and I can access that drive and transfer my priority files or data first and then try to transfer as much more as I can....
I need further help and information about this last step...the critical data transfer method. There are cloning kits that are plug and play and would transfer my entire system as it was before the blue screen, but again, I'm concerned about transferring everything onto a clean install and finding myself with a computer that won't boot again because it transferred a bad file. Also, would it overwrite or interfere with the clean install on the new drive? I'm stuck at this point....hopefully someone out there can walk me through this final step with the best option for transfer. I'm trying to avoid purchasing pricey software like Acronis (which I looked at online and it seemed difficult to use, to figure out what to transfer).
My laptop is obviously out of warranty, being five years old, and I am not interested in taking it in to repair tech, I want to do this myself and I think I can with a few helpful tips. Thanks for any help asap...

Hi!
The error message I received on the blue screen was "unmountable boot volume" which leads me to believe i have a corrupted MBR. This fiasco happened when I turned off my computer when it was running a program (I know, bad thing to do).
I'm waiting on a new hard drive with a 120 GB (my old drive was 80GB). I was told not to go above 120 or I'd have partition problems.
The SATA drive enclosure powers up the old drive (I can hear the disc spinning) so the disc isn't dead. If I''d have the full retail vesion of WinXP I would of course have used the recovery console, but I only had the toshiba recovery disc that came with my system. Also, I couldn't burn a CD boot disc...didn't have access to another computer nor would a tech friend do it for me as he apparently made a disc for someone and their system crashed so I had no choice but to buy a new drive and try to transfer the data via the SATA external drive/usb cable.
My big question now is: Will the Toshiba recovery disc actually reformat my new drive? Someone on another forum with a Toshiba laptop had purchased a new drive, used the recovery disc and the cd just went into a constant loop and never went into a full install. I'm thinking that maybe on a new drive there isn't enough knowledge base there for the recovery disc to install and reformat a new disc. That would be a bummer because then I'd have no choice but to purchase a retail version of WinXP which I was hoping not to have to do. Thats' getting into some $$ when added to all the other thing I've tried to get this laptop up and running . (A Knoppix live CD boot disc didn't work either).
I don't know what service pack was on the old disc...possibly SP2, but if it was only SP1, I fear it's not going to have the ability to format a new disc. The disc does have drivers, etc. but the question is, are they able to install the OS. I was running XP3 when it crashed, so I know i would have to download that again. I just want to get the darned system back up and running with my new drive and restore disc. IF I can do that, then I'll try to transfer the data from the old drive via the external drive enclosure.
I also decided against the clone....I was afraid I'd be cloning a bad disc or errors onto a new drive, and didnt' want to stress a possibly wonky drive even more than it possibly is.
So, that's where I'm at now! Thanks so much for any further insight into this....something tells me the recovery disc isn't going to format my new drive but fingers crossed...more thoughts/feedback appreciated!

I have new hard drive in macbook pro(08) and have SATA cable with external power source to old hard drive (10.5.8)via. USB port and newer drive(10.6.8) will not recognize older drive..Do I need to partition newer drive with older disk to recover data?

I have new HD 750GB Hybrid in 2008 Macbook Pro 17" w/ Snow Leopard 10.6.8 connected to old Hard drive(250GB that had 10.5.8 on it at time of failure) via SATA cable to USB port with external power source.. Computer not acknowledging old HD at all in Disk Utility or otherwise (that I'm aware of)..Do I need to partition New HD and load old(10.5.8) onto partition to recognize older drive for data recovery? Thanks Wayno08

You do not need to load 10.5.8 onto your new drive in order for a 10.6.8 system to see the contents of a 10.5.8 system.
You might want to check out the hard drive troubleshooting bootk in the downloads section of this web site:
http://scsc-online.com
They also sell a product named Phoenix that can do OS extraction and volume copying/cloning, but to be honest I don't know if it's appropriate in this case.
I would suggest the following:
Open up Terminal.app (under utilities) and type "diskutil list" without the quotes. This is the command line version of Disk Utility. If the external drive doesn't show up at all, then it's likely not connected properly, not getting power, or just plain dead. If it shows up with only a devce name like disk0s16 but no volume it means the drive is seen, the OS just can't make sense of it.
Assuming the drive shows up, I would try to boot off the original installl disks for the system and run Disk Utility from that. I'm assuming the drive will show up. You'll want to select the option to repair the drive and then perform the option to repair the permissions.
If the unit isn't showing up, as per step 1, try a different USB port. More importantly with your unit, try it on another side of the unit if possible. If you read the book I referenced above, some of those units have I/O boards that are separated from the logic board. If the cable from the logic board to the I/O card goes bad or has problems, which isn't all that uncommon, some or all of the ports on the I/O card may appear to be bad as well. If you use a USB port on another side, it would be routing out of a completely different I/O path, so that's a potential problem.
If the drive is only seen with a device name such as disk0s16, it's likely either the index files are corrupt beyond Disk Utility's ability to see them. The only thing that I think would help would be a product named DIsk Warrior, but I can't guarantee that.
Disk Warrior can be found at:
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
The company that I linked in the first link above also makes a product named Scannerz that does HD and system testing. The Scannerz/Disk Warrior combination make a good pair because the complement each other....Scannerz does what Disk Warriror can't and Disk Warrior does what Scannerz can't. However, at this point I'm not too sure getting a tool like Scannerz would be of much use because it sounds like the damage has already been done.
Let us know what happens.

Strange iTunes Move from Old Hard Drive to New Computer

My friend's old computer exploded but the hard drive and its data are fine. He had iTunes on it (not sure what version) and I'm trying to figure out how to move iTunes to the new PC but I'm running into a few problems.
First of all, I hooked his old hard drive to the computer with an IDE to USB converter so it mounts as just another drive.
I then installed the latest iTunes on his new PC and when we hooked up his iPod, it asked to blank the thing out (so I hit Cancel).
So my question is a little more complicated than most since I have two things to accomplish here. I not only want to move his existing iTunes library to his new PC but I also need iTunes to work with his existing iPod. Hopefully, that won't involve wiping it since he has songs on his iPod that he doesn't have on his old iTunes, but perhaps I'll need to somehow get all his songs off his iPod, let iTunes wipe the iPod, then put them all back? I imagine I'd need to bring his iTunes library over first.
Anyone have any ideas of the steps necessary to make this dance happen? I'm very computer literate, so detailed explanations aren't needed. I just need general directions and what order to do them in.
Thanks,
bd
DELL Dimension E521 Windows XP

Chris,
I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that the music on his iPod isn't completely the same as what's in his iTunes. This is what made this move so strange. I needed to figure out not only how to move his iTunes music collection to a new PC, but also how to keep iTunes from wiping his iPod since he has music on it that isn't in his iTunes.
Since the new iTunes won't recognize his iPod without wiping it, is there any way to manually pull the music off his iPod, somehow put it in his iTunes folder so iTunes recognizes it, allow iTunes to wipe his iPod so he can synchronize iTunes with it, and finally put all his music back on his iPod?
Thanks,
Brian

Can I disable my old hard drive in filename searches?

I just installed a new, larger hard drive into my '07 Mac Pro, and then cloned the old hard drive for a seamless transition...now the computer boots and works from the new drive. Everything worked just fine throughout that process...the only issue I need to iron out is that when I search for a file using command F in the finder (which I do all the time), I get duplicate hits because it's finding files on both the old and new hard drives, which is annoying to have to sift through. I don't want to have to remove the old hard drive in case something happens to the new one. So what can I do to "disable" the old drive so that it's still there if I need it, but doesn't get included in file searches?

I'm not siure, but I'd try it, Find & Spotlight are halfway tied together I believe.
A couple of other options for searching...
EasyFind...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076
Here's a direct download link to EasyFind 4.0 which runs in 10.3.9 & up...
http://www.devon-technologies.com/files/legacy/macosx1039/EasyFind.dmg.zip
From this page,
http://www.devon-technologies.com/support/faqs.php?p=default&cat=19
Freeware applications:
    * EasyFind 4.0
    * PhotoStickies 5.6
    * ThumbsUp 4.3
    * XMenu 1.8
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/8707
Use it to search your whole drive for case insensitive & show invisibles...
.emlx
(dot ee em el ex)
Find Any File...
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
Hold Option or alt key when selecting Find to Find All.

What happens to old hard drives

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