Sick to my stomach over data loss...can anyone help?

[SafariX]

My PowerBook G4's hard disk is beyond repair (DiskWarrior won't fix the directory)...it won't boot. I talked with the Apple Store who kept it overnight running Diskwarrior, and they say that a program like Data Rescue X might be able to (but no guarantees) rescue the data.

Given I'm a poor, struggling student, I don't have 85.00 to throw around at will. Can anyone recommend anything to me...or help me out? I am willing to paypal :(

Anything you can do to help me would be incredibly awesome, EVERY part of my life from essays to my thesis was on that drive.

[tdhurst]

You can't take it to a lab on campus and have them try it? At my school they are usually pretty willing to help if you are desperate enough.

[jeremy.king]

If you whole life was on there, why not backup? Seems sort of self-inflicted. I think your life may just be worth the $85.

[King Cobra]

Grab a second Mac, a Firewire cable, and perform TDM (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePage&searchMode=Assisted&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous%7C165513094) on the two Macs.

(Print out and have the article with you for reference as you go to perform TDM.)


What do you mean your Powerbook won't boot? How far does the Powerbook get before it reaches it's "boot point" (I guess if you want to call it that), that is, how far your Powerbook will boot before it does something else?

[MacsRgr8]

...(snip)... I don't have 85.00 to throw around at will...(snip)... EVERY part of my life from essays to my thesis was on that drive.

I would try to get that 85 bucks. I don't consider recovering "EVERY part of my life from essays to my thesis" throwing anything around at will. ;)

Data Rescue X is gr8 in recovering data off an "unrepairable" (correct word?) volume.
No guarantees ofcourse, but this app gets data off a volume when other disk utilz cannot even fix the drive.

Please try it, or find someone who has Data Rescue X and connect your Mac (in Target Disk mode) via FireWire to his Mac.

Good luck!