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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?

iMac G5 (17-inch)

Posted on Jul 19, 2012 8:37 AM

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28 replies

Jan 15, 2017 3:39 PM in response to AmyBH

The easiest way to recover your files from a Mac:

If you hard drive has failed on your IMac or apple laptop and is it not booting then Do This To Recover Your Files:


1. Put your device into Target Disk Mode. (You can enter Target Disk Mode by rebooting your Mac and holding down the T key as it boots)

2. Connect your Mac via a Firewire or Thunderbolt cable to another Mac (lets call it the Second Mac)

3. Open Finder in the Second Mac,

4. Look for the First Mac’s “Macintosh HD” under Devices and click on it to open it

5. Located the “Users” folder, Your files and documents are under “Users” folder

6. Drag them to another location in you Second Mac.

7. You have now recovered your documents.

8. Disconnect the First Mac and take it to an apple store where they will charge you $200-$300 to change the hard drive.

9. Back up your files on the Second Mac



Macs can boot into a “Target Disk Mode” that causes them to function like an external hard drive. Connect one Mac to another Mac and you can access its files in the Finder.


Target Disk Mode works with Macs, so you’ll need two Macs for this. Each Mac needs either a Thunderbolt port or a Firewire port.


While in Target Disk Mode, your Mac will act as an external drive and appear in the Finder on your other Mac.


All its internal partitions will appear if it has multiple partitions.


Look for an external drive named “Macintosh HD.” You can click the drive and copy files back and forth like you would with a normal external drive

Jul 19, 2012 1:26 PM in response to AmyBH

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.

Aug 13, 2012 2:48 AM in response to AmyBH

If your hard drive can be detected and shows up as a drive letter in my computer but you can't access your files,then you can recover your data off it with data recovery software easily.This way is the easiest and the most inexpensive way to recover your data.If you bring it to a computer repair shop that is available for data recovery servise,they will cost you $500-1000 or more.Hmm, a lot of money.

I managed to recover data from crashed hard drive with Tenorshare Data Recovery.If needed,you can download it and scan your hard drive for free to preview whether your data can be recovered.It will show you thumbnails for recoverable pictures. Get it from http://www.any-data-recovery.com

Feb 13, 2013 1:17 PM in response to AmyBH

Tenorshare software didn't work on my niece's iphone to recover accidentally deleted data. And we have yet to get our money back even though their website says "money back guarantee."


I took my laptop that wouldn't boot up to a local computer repair guy and he was able to recover all of my data, including my music library, photos, videos, etc.

Mar 9, 2013 10:06 PM in response to AmyBH

Hi AmyBH


You may want to consider using the data recovery software by Wondershare Engineering


http://software.bigbigsoft.com/data-recovery


This may be a cheaper option rather than bringing the HD to a repair service shop, travelling time etc. I've used this one time to recover data from an external HD that stopped functioning. Only hassle is the Data Recovery will rename your recovered files. But I have is the old version. Maybe the new version is better.

Nov 4, 2013 7:43 AM in response to AmyBH

Hi,


You need to reinstall the operating system and then use Data Recovery software that can restore datas from reinstalled or resized partition like remo recover. Then within a certain time you can able recover all the datas back or remove the hard drive from the mac. connect it with some other mac system and then use the software option.One thing you have to be sure is never install the tool in the same logical drive as it will harm the available datas completely...

Mar 22, 2014 7:03 AM in response to AmyBH

Mac Data Recovery is a professional choice to undelete files on Mac that are lost to a minor software glitch, a disk crash, or a similar disaster. You can fall back to this data recovery tool when you have emptied out the Trash folder and your last line of defense against data loss fails to do the needful. For more information visit : http://macdatarecovery-tools.weebly.com

Jul 15, 2014 2:36 AM in response to Cattus Thraex

Just to clear up that FREE label. Disk Drill is not free. It is ransomware like all the others. The free versions shows you the recoverable data but you need to pay to actually recover it. I am not making a judgement on that sales technique but would hate to think of desperate people wasting hours downloading, installing , scanning then finding out it's not free. None that I have found are free.

Aug 4, 2014 1:38 AM in response to AmyBH

Hi, Mac data loss is actually a hard task for many Mac users 'cause most of them think the Mac OS is a complicated computer operating system (At least I think it is complicated). Here are some tips you need to know after data loss happened.


1. If you meet the file loss situation, keep calm and stop using your computer to do any read or write operation until you find the way to recover the lost files because any wrong operation.


2. If you’ve lost a file, time is of the essence. As new files saved to Mac hard drive or storage devices, the original files gets overwritten. So do not use the drive or disk which your deleted files are stored before at all, until you have completed the scanning and recovery process.


3. The system crashed or the files loss situation happens occasionally, so remember build a backup for the files periodically is strongly needed.


4. If you meet the file loss situation again, stop using the Mac or storage device right now, use another computer to process the files recovery.


5. Remember this, no matter at the normal time or after files recovery, build a backup for the files periodically is the best method to protect your files from data loss situation.

Aug 20, 2014 8:37 PM in response to AmyBH

Yes, you can recover the data. But you need to take your Mac hard drive (I do believe you are using Mac, if not, you will not ask question here) to the repair shop to fix.

When the hard drive is fixed, you will find that you got a "new" hard drive-all the files are not in the hard drive anymore. But this doesn't mean you cannot recover files. I always consider that fix the hard drive like formatting the hard drive. The operating system will not really delete the files. It just delete the catalog and free up the space of the files so that there is enough space for you to store the new files. But if you put new files into this drive, the new files will occupy the the space which is belonging to the "deleted files", this is the so called data overwritten situation. Once this happens, you will lose the chance to get back your files.

You can check this article: http://bit.ly/1ts4Enu for more technical support. Sorry for the poor English and hope my answer can help more users who want to get back deleted data.

how to recover data from bad hard drive

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