Bought new iMac, can I retrieve data from old dead one?

[CaineIsCarter]

Hi all

First post - hope you can help.

Just bought an iMac to replace my dearly departed old G5 iMAc, which died a week or so ago. It began switching itself off, and by the end of the day would no longer switch on at all.

It was high time for a new machine anyway, but I am hoping that all the data on the old hard drive is still intact. I have photos and music that I want to get back, and I also have an iPhone and software which are authorized and registered to the old computer; I would like to de-authorize these and set them up on the new one.

Can anyone advise the best way to go about retrieving the old stuff please?

Many thanks

 

[miles01110]

If your old Mac won't even turn on you're probably going to have to pull out the hard drive and stick it in an external enclosure. Then you should be able to plug the enclosure in and drag & drop the stuff you want.

 

[CaineIsCarter]

Thanks for the reply - could you please be more specific, as I truly have no idea what to do!

I'm not completely without experience as I used to build my own PCs, but some more detail would really help. Can I buy something to plug the old HD into, which then plugs into the new one? Can I then boot fro the old drive, or just drag and drop?

Am especially wondering if I can de-authorize my phone and things like Final Draft so that I can then use them on the new one.

 

[rkaufmann87]

Thanks for the reply - could you please be more specific, as I truly have no idea what to do!

I'm not completely without experience as I used to build my own PCs, but some more detail would really help. Can I buy something to plug the old HD into, which then plugs into the new one? Can I then boot fro the old drive, or just drag and drop?

Am especially wondering if I can de-authorize my phone and things like Final Draft so that I can then use them on the new one.

Simply get one of these:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW934FWU2K/

Install your old HD into it, then connect it to your new iMac and drag and drop files over. It's really that simple. This is assuming the HD is OK to begin with, if it crashed then you will need to search out a data recovery service.

BTW if you haven't already begin backing up your computer using Time Machine or SuperDuper or CCC. Had you done this with the old machine recovering your data would be done by now.

 

[windels]

Just a theoretical question: say the imac still functions but it's his harddrive that is the problem. would he be able to boot using a linux bootable dvd and retrieve some data that way? and thus avoiding the need of buying an enclosure?