🚀 go-pugleaf

Philip Herlihy <thiswillbounceback@you.com> wrote:

> Apologies for the cross-posting - this is an urgent problem (to me!) and
> I don't know which group to ask.
> 
> A friend with a Mac (sorry I don't know more yet) has had a hard disk
> failure and has lost important data.  No more details available yet, but
> the chap isn't very technical.
> 
> I know very little about Macs, but have successfully recovered data from
> PC hard disks several times where the problem is with damaged 
> information, rather than damaged electronics or physical components. 
> I'd glibly offered to help - entirely forgetting that his machine is a Mac.

> 
> Q2: can anyone recommend a suitable specialist in the London area who
> _does_ know what they are doing?

It depends quite a bit on what has failed (and also on what machine and
OS are involved). It could be quite easy to solve, particularly as he
has a second Mac. It could be difficult, needed the kind of
professionals who specialise in recovering data from damaged disks.

Suggestion 1. Hook up the faulty Mac in target disk mode, and see if the
data can be recovered.

Suggestion 2. Boot from a DVD containing Disk Warrior and see if Disk
Warrior can repair the disk.

Suggestion 3. I am not sure if this would require target disk mode, or
booting from a suitable DVD. But there is a program called Data Rescue
(and there are other such programs) which can reclaim damaged files,
saving them to another disk.

Suggestion 4. This is for later. USE A BACKUP STRATEGY TO AVOID LOST
DATA. It's so easy nowadays.

I'm in London myself. If he's near enough I could at least have a look.
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