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Need help with mac hard drive

T

tinkerr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2019
5
1
Hello there community. sorry if what Isay is noobish, i am fairly hopeless when it comes to computers.

so basically i have an old macbook i got second hand i think its actually 2009 or 2010 era, i recently spilled a drink on it in my sleep it seems. and now it no longer starts up,
unfortunately i have many important things on it. i managed to remove the hard disk and it doesn't seem like any of the drink got to that at least
so anyway my plan is to buy an adapter to move everything over to another computer. a few things i am wondering about though,

1, do all macbook hard drives have the same socket? i have found a hard drive to usb adapter that appears like the correct one but without having it i cant say for sure,

2, my brother who is more knowledgeable about computers than me mentioned there could be difficulties with encryption and without the decryption password it could be near impossible to get at.

3 , on that note is Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery any good to me? i dont know much about it, by the looks of things it works for some people and not for others, what do you think?

4, supposing everything is ok with getting at the files, is it ok to transfer them over to a windows computer?temporarily at least.

thanks for your time and patience, any help is greatly appreciated.
cheers, Dean.
 
1. You need a SATA to USB adapter, they can be bought for less than $10. Some adapters fit multiple standards, but I would be that the one you found supports SATA.

2. Did you encrypt it and forgot the password? If you didn’t, then you will be fine.

3. This isn’t needed if the HDD still works.

4. You won’t be able to easily transfer the files manually from the Mac HDD to the Windows. As I am pretty sure that Windows doesn’t read HFS.

Maybe Windows has some type of migration application like the Mac does?

You can easily transfer the info to another Mac and then transfer it to a Windows formatted drive.

If you get another Mac, you can use the Migration assistant which kind of clones the files to the new Mac. It isn’t cloning, but it puts all your files in the same locations as your old Mac.
 
Vertical Smile thanks for such a thorough response.

i didnt encrypt anything but, well my brother said that some of the newer macbooks automatically encrypt, i mean my mac certainly isnt new but he also wasnt sure when they started doing this.
i also should be able to borrow a macbook and fingers crossed all will be well.
thanks again :)
 
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Just so you know, you can boot your drive onto another Mac as long as the Mac is compatible with the OS.

With the USB adapter connected, and the computer shutdown, start up the Mac, and hold "alt/option" key after you hear the boot up chime, and you will have a choice of what drive to boot from.

This would make it very easy to transfer the data to a second drive like a thumb drive.

You can also access the drive within the OS of another drive, but this can be a pain due to the permissions, I haven't done it in a while, but I think you have to change the permissions with each folder in the user folder.
 
vertical smile said:
...
You can also access the drive within the OS of another drive, but this can be a pain due to the permissions, I haven't done it in a while, but I think you have to change the permissions with each folder in the user folder.
Click to expand...
No, you don't have to change permissions with each folder.

All you need to do is Get Info on the drive (technically, the disk's volume), look near the bottom of the Info window for the Permissions pane, and click the "Ignore ownership on this volume" checkbox. If the checkbox is dimmed, then click the padlock icon and supply an admin password.

To learn more, google search terms: Ignore ownership on this volume
There are dozens of articles on many forums and websites that discuss this.
 
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vertical smile said:
I am curious, do you know if it has it always been this way? I have vague memories of having to change permissions to subfolders.
Click to expand...
It's always been this way.

It applies to the entire volume or disk, though, and you can't apply it to the boot disk (it has no such checkbox). So if you were changing permissions, maybe it was on a user account residing on the boot disk. That's the only case I can think of where you'd need to actually change the permissions (or ownership).
 
and going forward, you're going to back up those important things, like you should have been doing all along ... right? :)
 
Get a USB3/SATA adapter dongle, like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-...478&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=sabremt+usb3+to+ssd
(cheap!)

Connect the problem drive to it.

Plug it into ANOTHER Mac.

Does it then mount on the desktop?

If so, GOOD. You can now copy your files from it to another drive on another Mac.

IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT!
When you have your new Mac set up and you're ready to connect the old drive, you need to do the following in order to overcome permissions problems:
1. Connect the drive using the adapter
2. Let the icon for the drive mount on the desktop
3. Click ONE TIME on the icon to select it
4. Type "command-i" (eye) to bring up the get info box
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your password
6. In "sharing and permissions", PUT A CHECK into "ignore ownership on this volume".
7. Close get info.

You can now copy stuff from the old drive to the new drive, and what you copy will "come under the ownership" of your new account.
 
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hello again everyone. hi Fishrrman, this might come off as stupid but i am confused by something you said there.

"4. Type "command-i" (eye) to bring up the get info box"

i mean i understand press command and I, but (eye) ? is that a button i dont know about or what? or are you trying to make it doubled clear that it isnt the L button or something?

another question for whoever wants to respond, i cant actually plug the sata cable directly into the macbook, this particular macbook only has those smaller rounded usb ports so we are using an multi port adaptor, plugging the sata to normal usb cable into it. but do you think it could affect anything along the way? the guy in the shop said it would just make transferring things somewhat slower but i wouldn't mind some extra opinions on this.

thanks everyone :)
 
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tinkerr said:
... i cant actually plug the sata cable directly into the macbook, this particular macbook only has those smaller rounded usb ports so we are using an multi port adaptor, plugging the sata to normal usb cable into it. ...
Click to expand...

Those "smaller rounded usb ports" are the normal modern USB-C connectors. The "normal usb cable" you are refering to would be using a USB-A connector. The USB-C ports can support higher speed transfers than USB-A, but it isn't always the case.

An adapter, like the one Fishrrman linked to, supports USB 3.0, which is the same speed as "USB 3.1gen1" (aka "USB 3.2gen1"). Some cases, similar to the one I linked to, that use the USB-C connector can support the faster "USB 3.1gen2" (aka "USB 3.2gen2") speeds. This is another advantage of going with a full case rather in the simple adapters. Using a USB-C to USB-A adapter or hub will work fine, though it will be limited to the speed of the HDD adapter/case and cabling

The advantage of the adapter is that it doesn't require mounting the drive in a case and it not restricted by the size of the drive. There are some adapters that not only support SATA 2.5 drives but also support the larger 3.5" drives that require additional power connectors and even the antique ATA interface drives up to 5.5" sizes. These can be handy "Swiss Army Knife" like tools for people that encounter this type of need frequently and need to handle a wide range of older drives.
 
Here's one of the "Swiss Army Knife" adapters that I use a lot. Great tool. Costs $54 on Amazon. a2

 

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tinkerr said:
hello again everyone. hi Fishrrman, this might come off as stupid but i am confused by something you said there.

"4. Type "command-i" (eye) to bring up the get info box"

i mean i understand press command and I, but (eye) ? is that a button i dont know about or what? or are you trying to make it doubled clear that it isnt the L button or something?
Click to expand...

I think I can safely answer for Fishrrman that he meant the latter, just making it clear that it's command-<letter lower case i>
 
Thanks very much kshendel for clearing that up. Now hopefully I have just one last question.
I was actually able to get into the hard drive yesterday night using the methods discussed here and thank God, everything seems to be in order. I was able to boot up GarageBand and play a couple of tunes from it.
Anyway I really only want to take the music from the old hard drive for now, is it as easy as just making a new folder on the desktop of the new computer and then copying and pasting the music folder from the old hard drive into that folder like you would with a USB stick? (incidentally nothing is staying permanently on the new computer, as it's my wife's work computer)
I know this is like a 4 year olds line of questioning, it's just that I was warned elsewhere that copying from hard drives isn't for noobs and mishandling it can lead to permanent data loss. So even really basic stuff I am second guessing. Anyway any more help is greatly appreciated, and thanks again for getting me this far. Cheers.
 
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"Anyway I really only want to take the music from the old hard drive for now, is it as easy as just making a new folder on the desktop of the new computer and then copying and pasting the music folder from the old hard drive into that folder like you would with a USB stick?"

What kind of "music" are we talking about?

Are you talking about the music in your iTunes music folder?

Or... something else?

Are these music projects you created in GarageBand?
 
Fishrrman said:
"Anyway I really only want to take the music from the old hard drive for now, is it as easy as just making a new folder on the desktop of the new computer and then copying and pasting the music folder from the old hard drive into that folder like you would with a USB stick?"

What kind of "music" are we talking about?

Are you talking about the music in your iTunes music folder?

Or... something else?

Are these music projects you created in GarageBand?
Click to expand...
Yea its stuff I made in GarageBand. And logic pro
 
"Yea its stuff I made in GarageBand. And logic pro"

It's been years since I created any projects in GarageBand.

The projects created by GB (and by Logic, which I don't use) are represented as "files", right? (They are actually folders, but the finder shows them as a single file object which you can move around wherever you wish.)

In that case, just copy your project files from the old Mac to the new one.
You can use a USB drive, a USB flashdrive, whatever (doesn't matter).

Just make sure that each project has a recognizable name so when you relocate it you can easily understand what it is.

Now, open GB (or Logic) on the new Mac, and tell it to open a project.
Does it work?

Try a few at first, before you go whole-hog.

Hmmm... one other thing (and it's important):

When transferring files from one Mac to another, you can run into permissions problems between the "old" account and the new one.

There's a VERY easy workaround for this. Here's what to do:
1. Once you copy files from the old Mac to an "intermediary" drive, take that drive and connect it to the new Mac.
2. Let the drive icon mount on the desktop, but don't open it yet
3. Click ONE time on the drive icon to select it
4. Type "command-i" (eye) to bring up the get info box
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock icon and enter your password (the password for the NEW Mac)
6. In "sharing and permissions", put a check into "ignore ownership on this volume"
7. Close get info.

You can now copy files to the new Mac (and the new account), and they will automatically "come under the ownership" of your new account.
 
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