mikegeaney Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 After 5 years of faithful service my MAC Mini went belly up this past week. The machine will not boot up at all. I took it to the "Genius" Bar @ the local Apple store and they told me the hard drive was bad, which I kind of figured. I bought a new MAC Mini and was able to get that up and running within minutes. Considering the price of the repair, how old the machine is, and how much new ones are it made sense to go new. The good news is that I recently backup up my iPhoto library onto DVD and have all my music spread across 3 iPods. I was able to import my photos from the DVD back up and was able to import my music, after buying a piece of software for $19.99, on to the new machine. There are still a few things that I would like to get off the old drive if at all possible. I have been scouring the web, as well as the Apple forums, but don't really have anything conclusive for this situation. Does anyone know of a way to retrieve data off a bad MAC hard drive? There are numerous software packages out there, almost too many, and I don't have any experience with this type of work. Any advice/assistance would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 There is no software out there available to the public that is going to retrieve data off a bad hard drive, regardless of if it's a Mac or a PC hard drive. The software that you are seeing is for recovering corrupted data on a working hard drive. Once the drive has failed, the only way to retrieve the data is to send it to a hard drive manufacturer for a hefty price, and they do not guarantee that they will be able to retrieve anything. I can guarantee you that they will still charge you that hefty price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill-V8V Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 I found a local place a few years ago that did data recovery. But It was on a PC hard drive. My brother in law had all of his customer files on it. Back then it was $300+. I think it was in Braintree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 The software that you are seeing is for recovering corrupted data on a working hard drive. Thanks Junkman. That is what I belive I have. The drive still fires up....it just doesn't do much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11chevz71 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 I hope you can get your files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marylander Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 There's a program called DiskWarrior that might be able to recognize the drive and let you access the data. It's a good first step. The program costs about $99 I believe, but maybe you could find someone that has a copy. What you would do is fire up your old mini in firewire target disk mode and then connect it to the good mini. Then run disk warrior and if it can recognize the old drive it could reformat the bad sectors or data forks. I hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 There's a program called DiskWarrior that might be able to recognize the drive and let you access the data. It's a good first step. The program costs about $99 I believe, but maybe you could find someone that has a copy. What you would do is fire up your old mini in firewire target disk mode and then connect it to the good mini. Then run disk warrior and if it can recognize the old drive it could reformat the bad sectors or data forks. I hope this helps. He doesn't have a data corruption issue, he has a hardware failure issue. As you know, there is no software that will fix a drive that doesn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 Thanks Rich and Junkman. I think I may have incorrectly described my issue. The drive will start up....the OS just won't run. I booted the machine up with one of the install discs and was able to run Apple's Disk Utility. I was able to "verify" the volume. When I went to do the "repair" there were 2 critical errors....1 was repaired and one wasn't. I read a bunch about the DiskWarrior on the Apple forums, which are great. Later in the afternoon I went to the Apple store with the intent of plunking down $99 and was told I might want to try getting a "dongle" that is essentially a cable that I can hook the hard drive in question up to my new computer via USB. I saw them on Newegg.com...and I may try that. I also think I may give the DiskWarrior folks a call tomorrow. If I can get all my stuff back for $99 and spend a few hours doing it then I would be very happy. My next purchase is a 1TB external drive... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Thanks Rich and Junkman. I think I may have incorrectly described my issue. The drive will start up....the OS just won't run. I booted the machine up with one of the install discs and was able to run Apple's Disk Utility. I was able to "verify" the volume. When I went to do the "repair" there were 2 critical errors....1 was repaired and one wasn't. I read a bunch about the DiskWarrior on the Apple forums, which are great. Later in the afternoon I went to the Apple store with the intent of plunking down $99 and was told I might want to try getting a "dongle" that is essentially a cable that I can hook the hard drive in question up to my new computer via USB. I saw them on Newegg.com...and I may try that. I also think I may give the DiskWarrior folks a call tomorrow. If I can get all my stuff back for $99 and spend a few hours doing it then I would be very happy. My next purchase is a 1TB external drive... In that case, I would listen to Rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 In that case, I would listen to Rich. Thanks again to both of you. I think I'll call the Disk Warrior folks tomorrow and go from there. I'm just worried about the logistics....as far as repairing one drive and then getting it over to the other. I'll figure it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Hell, you may not have to repair anything if all you're trying to do is retrieve the data. I would just hook it up to another machine using the correct cables and see if you can read the drive. Just because it won't boot does not mean the whole drive is corrupted. It could be just the boot files that are damaged or missing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 (edited) Hell, you may not have to repair anything if all you're trying to do is retrieve the data. I would just hook it up to another machine using the correct cables and see if you can read the drive. Just because it won't boot does not mean the whole drive is corrupted. It could be just the boot files that are damaged or missing. That is what I am wondering.....what would be the correct cable(s)? The old machine has USB and Firewire. The new machine has USB and Firewire...but it's a different Firewire than the other... I think I'll be spending some time on the phone and web tomorrow while at work. A quick scan on the web shows me that there are plenty of cables to go between Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. I was just thinking how lucky I'd be to get out of this for a $15 cable....and remembered I already bought a new machine so that though goes out the window... Edited July 27, 2009 by mikegeaney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
70'sChevyGirl Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 Invest in an External Hard Drive. Its worth it for the important things. If you look you can actually find them fairly inexpensive. When Circuit City went out of business, I bought a 500 gb Toshiba external for $60. I got a steal of a deal. :rockon: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 Will do Theresa. I have my eye on a nice 1 TB drive. Having worked in IT for 15 years it still amazes me that you can have that much storage, for so little $, in such a small space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjwvette Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 I got to look into this disk warrior thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marylander Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 That is what I am wondering.....what would be the correct cable(s)? The old machine has USB and Firewire. The new machine has USB and Firewire...but it's a different Firewire than the other... I think I'll be spending some time on the phone and web tomorrow while at work. A quick scan on the web shows me that there are plenty of cables to go between Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. I was just thinking how lucky I'd be to get out of this for a $15 cable....and remembered I already bought a new machine so that though goes out the window... Yea, just try firing it up in firewire target mod first and see if you can see and copy the files off the old one. it's a good, inexpensive first step -- all you'd need is the right cable. To start the old one in firewire target mode (which essentially makes it act like a stand-alone drive) just hold down the "T" key as the machine starts up. After a few seconds you'll see the firewire symbol dancing across the screen. Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjwvette Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 Hell, you may not have to repair anything if all you're trying to do is retrieve the data. I would just hook it up to another machine using the correct cables and see if you can read the drive. Just because it won't boot does not mean the whole drive is corrupted. It could be just the boot files that are damaged or missing. I take it that someone didn't make a restore disk with the boot files on:o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 Yea, just try firing it up in firewire target mod first and see if you can see and copy the files off the old one. it's a good, inexpensive first step -- all you'd need is the right cable. To start the old one in firewire target mode (which essentially makes it act like a stand-alone drive) just hold down the "T" key as the machine starts up. After a few seconds you'll see the firewire symbol dancing across the screen. Rich Thanks Rich. I did try to get into Target Disc Mode last night and was able to. They stock the cable I need @ that Apple store so I will be stopping there on the way home from work this afternoon. I take it that someone didn't make a restore disk with the boot files on:o :willy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marylander Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 Thanks Rich. I did try to get into Target Disc Mode last night and was able to. They stock the cable I need @ that Apple store so I will be stopping there on the way home from work this afternoon. : Excellent. Sounds like you might have a good chance at getting your files off there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 Just got home from work and tried this....no go. I think I will ring up the folks that make Disk Warrior and see what they have to say... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Are you sure the disk itself hasn't crashed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 28, 2009 Author Share Posted July 28, 2009 Are you sure the disk itself hasn't crashed? No I am not sure. I ran a disc utility that came with the machine last night called TechTools Deluxe. When I run this utility it can "see" the hard drive and was running repairs. It ran overnight and was only 1/2 done this morning. I am going to check the Apple Forums and see what I should expect when running that. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegeaney Posted July 31, 2009 Author Share Posted July 31, 2009 Success! After trying everything I could think of, and find on the web, I finally went to the Apple store this afternoon to plunk down my $99 for Disk Warrior. It worked like a charm. I ran the utility, hooked the old MAC to the new MAC with a FireWire cable, restarted in "Target Disc" mode, and am now pulling all my old files off the new machine. I have a 500GB external hard drive on order. Luckily I backed up 90% of what I really needed just a few weeks ago...but this other 10% is worth the time, money, and effort. Thanks to all who responded with assistance here. A special thanks to Rich for his suggesting the ultimate fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marylander Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 Success! After trying everything I could think of, and find on the web, I finally went to the Apple store this afternoon to plunk down my $99 for Disk Warrior. It worked like a charm. I ran the utility, hooked the old MAC to the new MAC with a FireWire cable, restarted in "Target Disc" mode, and am now pulling all my old files off the new machine. I have a 500GB external hard drive on order. Luckily I backed up 90% of what I really needed just a few weeks ago...but this other 10% is worth the time, money, and effort. Thanks to all who responded with assistance here. A special thanks to Rich for his suggesting the ultimate fix. Excellent! I'm glad it worked out for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkman2008 Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 So the drive itself wasn't bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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