new imac doesn't locate old imac hard drive via usb port

We connected it to my husband's PC and he can see that there is a harddrive but cannot see any files to read

A Windows PC is not able to read a mac formated HD. You need to add some driver to the windows box.

You should be able to read the old drive on a new Mac.

My first issue is how can I locate my HD on the new mac?

I should appear on the desktop when you plug the drive into your new mac. You could try to go into disk utility & see if the drive needs to be mounted.

Is this a powered or unpowered adapter? Is there a separate power connector for the drive?

I just need to pull the information off of it.

I/ve experienced the panic. Get a backup drive & begin to backup your data using time machine.

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Perhaps Disk Warrior will be of some help:

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."

They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...

http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm

"Data Rescue II is the best data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive while its scanning."

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

Entering:

mac data recovery

into Google will list some firms who specialize in recovering data. Data recovery isn't cheap.

Examples:

1) Ontrack Data Recovery is the world leader in data recovery services and data recovery software offering the fastest, most convenient and cost-effective solutions to clients who have experienced data loss.

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/

2) Enter the world of DriveSavers Data Recovery…

* Data Recovery Tools

* Data Recovery Process

* Data Recovery Cleanroom

http://www.drivesavers.com/

I was not familiar with catacombae 😟, but now I am 🙂.

You have a problem with either a corrupt file system on the hd or a hardware problem with the hd. I'd say try mounting in disk utility. Try reparing filesystem on hd. Try one of the disk repair utilities. Some have a free trail that let's you know if they can do anything. You pay to get the data. Seek profession help. Pay $$$.

How to mount with disk utility.

Repair the file system. see repair disk button on lower right.

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here are some more data recovery apps. I left out a few & am posting my complete list.

Perhaps Disk Warrior will be of some help:

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."

They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...

http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm

"Data Rescue II is the best data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive while its scanning."

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:

-- been accidentally deleted.

-- become unreadable due to media faults.

-- been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.

http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1

"TestDisk is a free data recovery utility. It was primarily designed to help recover lost data storage partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally erasing a partition table)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Wondershare Data Recovery for Mac

"Recover lost photos, video, documents, email and archive files from any Mac-based hard drive or external hard drive, iPod, USB drive, SD card, digital camera, mobile phone, and MP3/MP4 player, due to accidental deleting, formatting, virus infection, improper operation, unexpected power failure, and other unknown reasons. Also, iPhone recovery allows you to recover lost photos, videos, SMS, contacts, note, calendar and call history from iTunes backup file. With the free trial, you can preview all your recovered images, videos, music, documents and archive files prior purchasing this Mac Data Recovery."

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