Borked SSHD

I've been running a SSHD hybrid drive in my 2009 mac mini. As a result of two moves and lots of other lame excuses, I haven't backed up my machine in about 10 months.

And of course the HD won't mount. I reseated it, no love.

I swapped it out with a drive in an external enclosure - the machine started up just fine on the other drive, and the SSHD isn't recognized or even seen by Finder, Disk Utility or Tech Tool 5 (the only utility I currently have), when I have it hooked up to my external USB enclosure . The enclosure is seen, but it's like the HD isn't even there.

I don't care about saving the drive for long term use, I just have some files on there that don't exist anywhere else and I REALLY need to get them back if I can.

Anybody have any free/lower-cost ideas?

Can't swing a delorean. Perhaps a hot tub?

Yeah, I had absolutely NO warning that there was any difficulty. It makes me think that it was the SS part of the SSHD that went bad or something in the interface hardware.

I know I should be backing up. Like I said - lots of lame excuses for not doing it. Bottom line is it's my own damned fault.

The machine was running fine, then I went to it to fire up some music and I had the flashing folder/question mark screen. Tried to reboot - nothing. Booted from a different external drive and all was fine, but no sign of the SSHD.

I'm trying to determine if it's worth fixing this machine with a new drive or if I need to start over. The mouse is losing connection, which has me concerned about the USB hardware. I've gotta dig through my storage tubs to try out another mouse for a while, then figure out what to do.

I've never opened up an actual HD before. Is there any hope that I can bypass the SS portion and try to get at the HDD portion myself?

MagicBoy said:

Not a good idea to crack it open - it's sealed unit to prevent contamination. Plus there's nothing you can do once you've opened it apart from look at the engineering in there.

You not got the original Apple shipping drive that you can fling back in there?

Click to expand...

Thanks, that was my suspicion. I have some kind of old drive in there now, but it's so small to be barely functional.

I tried the freezer trick. No joy.

It looks like the data is gone forever, but at least OWC is standing behind their product 11.5 months after the sale and is sending a replacement drive. Nothing but good experiences with that company from me.

I was surprised when I looked at my receipt and saw the 1 year warranty, I had just assumed it was 90 days. 5 minutes on the phone (on a Saturday no less) and they're sending a new one to me.

Buy from them if you can.