Damaged HDD

[mcmacker4]

My main drive is so damaged that the computer fails to boot into OS X and Disk Utility fails to repair it. Is there any way to fix it? If not, is there any way to backup the files in that drive?

Note: I can still run Windows 8.1 since it's installed on a secondary drive.

 

[reco2011]

There's no benefit to fixing a bad drive. Hard disks are very inexpensive and I wouldn't want to trust my data to a repaired hard disk. As for backing up the time to do that is before the drive fails. You're now looking at a recovery effort.

Depending on the nature of the failure you may be able to rebuild the system on a new drive, connect the damaged drive, and see if the OS / Disk Utility will recognize it. If you're lucky it will and you can copy whatever you can off the drive. If not then you can investigate recovery software. I've used some Windows based recovery software (to recover information on a Windows drive) and it worked reasonably well (assuming the drive hasn't completely failed). I do not know what options exist for the Mac. And finally, if the information is really important you can send the drive out for recovery. Costs can vary but $1K - $3K is what I've heard the PC support guys tell employees when they need to do this.

Good luck.

 

[mcmacker4]

Well... Thank you very much for your help. I'll try and get a new drive and see if I can get something out of the drive. About the other option you mention, I don't have that ammount of money unfortunately so I don't think I'll be doing that.

Anyways, I apreciate your help. Thank you.

 

[Riwam]

My main drive is so damaged that the computer fails to boot into OS X and Disk Utility fails to repair it. Is there any way to fix it? If not, is there any way to backup the files in that drive?

Note: I can still run Windows 8.1 since it's installed on a secondary drive.

...............
I had relative good results with "Disk Warrior".
It tries to rebuild a drive correcting its faults.
There are other recovery tools for Mac, some can be tried before buying them.
Recovery means usually you do not get everything but as much as possible depending of the degree of failure.
In most cases you must operate the recovery from another drive and avoid as much as possible any operation of the sick drive in order not to lose even more data.
Good luck!