🚀 go-pugleaf

Philip Herlihy 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.
> 
> I guess if I try the usual approach of trying to hook the disk up via a 
> USB interface to my own PC, or booting the entire machine from a 
> bootable CD, I won't be able to read the disk anyway.
> 
> So:  Q1 - is there anything a PC-oriented person like me might try (I 
> only have PCs available, or various Linux boot CDs.
> 
> Q2: can anyone recommend a suitable specialist in the London area who 
> _does_ know what they are doing?
> 

Id mount the disk in a USB caddy and then hook it up to a working Mac, 
that will be the easiest solution.

Depending on the formatting of the disk will depend if Windows can read 
it, if your lucky it might just be a FAT disk, if its HFS+ I think your 
gonna be screwed.

There is a free tool called HFSExplorer for Windows that may help you 
though.

YMMV.


-- 
Gavin.

For the road: GSXR600K1
For the track: GSXR400GK76A
For everything else: Citro�n Berlingo

Gavsta wrote:
> Philip Herlihy 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.
>>
>> I guess if I try the usual approach of trying to hook the disk up via 
>> a USB interface to my own PC, or booting the entire machine from a 
>> bootable CD, I won't be able to read the disk anyway.
>>
>> So:  Q1 - is there anything a PC-oriented person like me might try (I 
>> only have PCs available, or various Linux boot CDs.
>>
>> Q2: can anyone recommend a suitable specialist in the London area who 
>> _does_ know what they are doing?
>>
> 
> Id mount the disk in a USB caddy and then hook it up to a working Mac, 
> that will be the easiest solution.
> 
> Depending on the formatting of the disk will depend if Windows can read 
> it, if your lucky it might just be a FAT disk, if its HFS+ I think your 
> gonna be screwed.
> 
> There is a free tool called HFSExplorer for Windows that may help you 
> though.
> 
> YMMV.
> 
> 

That's enormously helpful.  My friend has another Mac, so we'll try that 
first.  Very grateful, as I've had occasion to be so many times to 
newsgroup contributors.

Phil

In article <3b2al.4734$x33.1050@newsfe22.ams2>,
 Philip Herlihy <thiswillbounceback@you.com> wrote:


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

I looked into this a few months ago when a contact had a disk issue - we 
found these two near him in north London, but I don't know if he used 
them or how good they are. I used a firm in Holloway a few years ago to 
recover a disk but they seem to have gone out of business.

http://www.macemergency.co.uk/
http://www.fixamac.org.uk/

E.

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.
-- 
http://www.decohen.com
Send e-mail to the Reply-To address;
mail to the From address is never read

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 14:22:56 +0000, Philip Herlihy 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.
> 
> I guess if I try the usual approach of trying to hook the disk up via a
> USB interface to my own PC, or booting the entire machine from a
> bootable CD, I won't be able to read the disk anyway.
> 
> So:  Q1 - is there anything a PC-oriented person like me might try (I
> only have PCs available, or various Linux boot CDs.
> 
> Q2: can anyone recommend a suitable specialist in the London area who
> _does_ know what they are doing?
> 
> Phil, London

Mac hard drives are highly reliable devices and are styled to match the 
internal decor of your Macintosh so it is unlikely that his hard drive 
has failed. 

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

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

On 2009-01-11 12:01:15 +0000, Philip Herlihy <thiswillbounceback@you.com> said:

> 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.

Ouch. Duncan over at retrodata.com may be able to help, especially if 
you've not tried to run Diskwarrior on the thing.

> Thanks to everyone who has helped with this.

If your friend's running "Leopard", ie Mac OS X 10.5, *tell* him to get 
an external disk and use Time Machine (a feature of 10.5) to keep a 
permanent backup on it.
-- 
Chris

Chris Ridd wrote:
> On 2009-01-11 12:01:15 +0000, Philip Herlihy 
> <thiswillbounceback@you.com> said:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Ouch. Duncan over at retrodata.com may be able to help, especially if 
> you've not tried to run Diskwarrior on the thing.
> 
>> Thanks to everyone who has helped with this.
> 
> If your friend's running "Leopard", ie Mac OS X 10.5, *tell* him to get 
> an external disk and use Time Machine (a feature of 10.5) to keep a 
> permanent backup on it.

Retrodata's quoting �375 +vat on the website - beyond my friend's 
budget, sadly.

Yup, we've talked about backups.

Phil