🚀 go-pugleaf

Philip Herlihy wrote:
> Daniel Cohen wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> Thanks, Daniel.  We're in Walthamstow.
> 
> Looks like we'll tackle this on Tuesday.  I'll hook up the drive via a 
> USB adapter to his other Mac and see if it can detect that there is a 
> drive there.  If it doesn't, I'll try it on my Windows machine, and if 
> that can't detect it I'll assume there's a physical problem needing 
> specialist help.
> 
> If it is detected, the we may be able to copy the files he needs.  If 
> not, then I guess I'll be needing a utility to detect and repair a 
> partition.  DiskWarrior does get good notices, but we'll have to buy it 
> before we can know if it will help us - a trial would have been useful. 
>   I see Data Rescue II has one. Maybe I could mount the disk on a PC and 
> use TestDisk with  HFSExplorer...
> 
> Phil

We had a crack at it this morning.  The disk is clattering internally 
(before giving up) and wasn't recognised at all by the Mac.  Appears to 
have a physical fault, and for this friend, seems beyond economic repair.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this.

Phil