I need advice on how to recover G5 HDD with MacBook Pro

[ashley9505]

Hi,

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum - I'm a first time poster here but a long time lurker looking for a bit of advice.

I've recently retrieved my old G5 from storage but foolishly managed to snap the casing for the PRAM battery whilst trying to replace it. The G5 has been in storage for almost 8 years but I'm trying to recover data from it's hard disk. I've removed the hard drive and installed it into an external enclosure but my MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion finds it but doesn't want to read it. Does anybody have any ideas how I can access it? Searching for ideas but I'm struggling to find relevant information. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MacCubed]

Does the G5 boot up? If so, you could probably use a FireWire cable and Target Disk Mode to recover the data

 

[eyoungren]

Does the G5 boot up? If so, you could probably use a FireWire cable and Target Disk Mode to recover the data

OP has already removed the drive from the G5 and has it in an external case. OP's problem is that his MBP won't mount the drive.

OP, I doubt it's a capatability issue. Sounds like it may be drive failure. Do you have another computer you could test with?

 

[MacCubed]

OP has already removed the drive from the G5 and has it in an external case. OP's problem is that his MBP won't mount the drive.

OP, I doubt it's a capatability issue. Sounds like it may be drive failure. Do you have another computer you could test with?

The thing is that I just recently put a 2.5" drive in an enclosure and it wouldn't read, but worked in TDM. Sometimes the enclosures don't work right.

If you can't use TDM, make sure both of the power USB cables are plugged into the computer.

 

[ashley9505]

Haven't got a FireWire cable unfortunately. Nearest Mac store is about 500km away (I live in SA).
The G5 started but didn't boot up properly. I had nothing on the screen at all. Screen works perfectly fine. In fairness the computer has sat gathering dust for almost 8 years so I anticipated some sort of problem from the start. I tried to change the PRAM battery on the motherboard but accidentally snapped the connection off of one of the terminals. Could probably be fixed with a soldering gun or some conductive epoxy but I'm trying to see if I can do it via other methods first.

I can find the drive in Disk Utility but I can't access it.

Have also tried to recover it's data by plugging it in as an external drive to a Windows computer using HFS Explorer. Again - disk was found by the computer but was not assigned a disk letter so I was unable to access it.

 

[MacCubed]

Haven't got a FireWire cable unfortunately. Nearest Mac store is about 500km away (I live in SA).
The G5 started but didn't boot up properly. I had nothing on the screen at all. Screen works perfectly fine. In fairness the computer has sat gathering dust for almost 8 years so I anticipated some sort of problem from the start. I tried to change the PRAM battery on the motherboard but accidentally snapped the connection off of one of the terminals. Could probably be fixed with a soldering gun or some conductive epoxy but I'm trying to see if I can do it via other methods first.

I can find the drive in Disk Utility but I can't access it.

Have also tried to recover it's data by plugging it in as an external drive to a Windows computer using HFS Explorer. Again - disk was found by the computer but was not assigned a disk letter so I was unable to access it.

What model PowerMac G5 is this? There could be a way to solve the not booting issue if we have more info on the Mac. By grey screen, do you mean a screen with a flashing finder icon? Does it still display the grey screen without the hard drive inserted?

 

[Lastic]

On your MBP when the drive has been plugged in using the external enclosure, does it show up
(or any indication of it ) when you issue the following commands in Terminal :

mount

"or"

diskutil list

Could this be because it has a APM instead of a GPT boot partition (other members) ?

The external enclosure uses which interface ? USB 2.0/3.0 ? Firewire ?
Does the external enclosure have it's own power adapter or is it bus (interface) powered ?

I had drives not mounting because USB didn't have enough power to boot the external enclosure.

 

[ashley9505]

It's a late 2004 G5 1.8GHz PCI

Full specs here - http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_1.8_2.html It's no longer in the original G5 though. The hard drive is now in a case connected to my MacBook.

Didn't even reach grey screen when it was in the G5. Nothing on the monitor at all but there was a lot of noise from the fans when it started up.

I've checked the information of the drive in Disk Utility - thats all it allows me to do. Partition Map Scheme shows as unformatted. Have tried booting my MBP into recovery mode with the G5 disk connected but it just hangs on the internet recovery spinning globe for hours at a time.
[doublepost=1460736146][/doublepost]

On your MBP when the drive has been plugged in using the external enclosure, does it show up
(or any indication of it ) when you issue the following commands in Terminal :

mount

"or"

diskutil list

Could this be because it has a APM instead of a GPT boot partition (other members) ?

The external enclosure uses which interface ? USB 2.0/3.0 ? Firewire ?
Does the external enclosure have it's own power adapter or is it bus (interface) powered ?

I had drives not mounting because USB didn't have enough power to boot the external enclosure.

Yes it shows up as the following in Terminal when I use the diskutil list command. (The 82GB disk)

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 499.2 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: *82.0 GB disk1

External enclosure is a powered USB 2

 

[MacCubed]

Ok, your G5 has the common failure of the BGA joints under the RAM slots. This will cause the computer to display the symptoms that you describe. Try heating the RAM area with a hairdryer and then seeing it it will boot. You will have to hold it there for a while though

 

[ashley9505]

I don't think I'd be able to start it at all because I snapped one of the PRAM battery terminals off of the motherboard by mistake. That's why I've got it's HDD in an enclosure connected top my MBP