Lost contents of my Harddisc

Question

Level 2

280 points

Lost contents of my Harddisc

I had a Beachball that turned forever and did not resolve itself so I turned off the power - this happened a number of times

When I restarted my eMac, OS10.5.8, I had lost the contents of an external disc and my Appleworks document icons were blank.

I changed my OS to 10.3.9 and my external harddisc had all its contents and Appleworks was OK.

I rebooted in 10.5.8 and the harddsic icons were not there but the Appleworks icons were there but still blank. ?????

Cheers Steve

I have three external harddiscs and the other two are OK

Now have OS10X 10.5.8

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 10:22 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Apr 5, 2013 11:46 AM in response to Stephen Hill2

Hi Stephen,

Could be many things, we should start with this...

"Try Disk Utility

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*

3. Click the First Aid tab.

4. Select your Mac OS X volume.

5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.

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Answer 2

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,722 points

Apr 5, 2013 3:15 PM in response to Stephen Hill2

Does the offending external get power only from the computer's USB port or does it have a separate power supply that powers it? The first, called "bus-powered" drives, can become troublesome as they get older and need more power to turn the motor.

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Answer 3

Stephen Hill2 Author

Level 2

280 points

Apr 6, 2013 9:22 AM in response to BDAqua

I followed your insructions, and thank you for them, however When it came to selecting the offending HD it was not available as a selection. So I rebooted from OS10.5.8 to OS10,3.9 but the HD was not there, unlike other times.

I tried Safe Boot, but no luck - It would seem that my HD has gone.

I suppose that AppleWorks must be on that disc and thatr is why the icons are empty.?

In order to rescue all my AppleWorks docs if I reinstall the app will that get me back my docs?

I have three external HDs and this one was the 160GB one, so there is a lot on it but not as much as on the other two. -300GB and !TB. I was hopinAquag to bundle the OS 10.3.9 docs onthe 160GB over onto my 1T but it's too late for that now - pity.

When there is a endless Beachball is there a key combo that will shut down the computer, 'cos I supect my pulling the plug on the Beachball has done the damage.

I cannot remember how I got AppleWorks, is it a standalone app, or is it bundled with iLife?

Thanks for your help Aqua

Cheersw

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Apr 6, 2013 1:27 PM in response to Stephen Hill2

It does sound like the drive is shot, might be some recovery SW that'll work, not sure.

As far as stopping when it Beachballs, not much you can do other than killing the power. And I think the damage was before killing the power, as well as the cause of the BB.

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