Recover Data?

[FrankWest]

Hey guys, I guess my parents iMac sputtered out and died. It was a January 2007 iMac, originally running Tiger but I later installed Snow Leopard. According to my Dad, it hard froze, so he rebooted it, and now a folder with a question mark (No Boot Volume) shows.

I put in my Snow Leopard install disk and booted into it. I ran Disk Utility, I used terminal to show all volumes, but the according to the install disk the HD is nowhere to be found.

I don't even need to make the drive bootable, is there ANYTHING I can do to recover the data? That mac has all of their home movies and photos with no backups.

 

[Tomorrow]

It could be just the boot sector that went bad...at least I hope.

Try connecting another Mac in target disk mode.

 

[chris98vf]

Ouch, get an external drive next time and use time machine...

Ok, the best thing you can do is look for a program called FileSalvage 7.0
It can possibly rip data off of a hard disk as long as it spins up. If the drive can't be mounted it can still rip data off of it blindly, once again as long as it spins up.

You will need an external drive at least as big as the data you had on it so if you have a 160 GB hard drive on there you want to get an external of at least that size. That is where all of your data will go.

To replace the hard drive it's not all that hard. You can go to www.ifixit.com for a walk through and repair guide if you're brave enough to fix it yourself.

 

[FrankWest]

Is there anything I can do that doesn't involve another mac? It's the only one I have.

 

[chris98vf]

Is there anything I can do that doesn't involve another mac? It's the only one I have.

my method only requires the software listed and an external drive if data recovery is possible. If you have a windows machine you can take the drive out of the iMac and install it in the PC and try a windows compatible data recovery suite.

 

[biggd]

Is there anything I can do that doesn't involve another mac? It's the only one I have.

Yes
Get a sata to USB transfer cable (external) and connect the drive upto ur Mac. This will run the bad hdd as an external. Grab all the data you can, if u can't, run repairs.

 

[panzer06]

Is there anything I can do that doesn't involve another mac? It's the only one I have.

Where are ur parents located? There is a reasonable data recovery place nearby that I could recommend. They are a mac service center but will also take bare drives. If there is critical data on it, I would leave it alone and see if someplace like this can help. They only charge about $65 to check it and if their initial recovery method works the entire cost is usually no more than $150.

If it's severe damage to the drive recovery can be over $1000.

Best of luck.

Cheers,