Drive Corrupted Need Advice

DiskWarrior is not a recovery application perse, it is a structure repair app. so it iwll rebuild the directory the way it should be so you can access your files.

Id highly recommend it, it should fix up the issue and allow you to access the files without a problem

Seems to me....

DiskWarrior can do the trick. But also Techtool Pro and Data Rescue. You maybe can try getting a demo and seeing how it works for you/how much you can recover

Keep in mind that sometimes one tool won't work, but another will. I've had situations where Disk Warrior couldn't do anything, but Data Rescue could. And I've had Disk Warrior work perfectly.

So you just never know. With Data Rescue III you can get a trial that will only recover a few files, but if it recovers some it will likely recover most. So if it works in the test, you pay the $ and proceed.

With Disk Warrior you have to pay up front, because you get the whole package and either it works or it doesn't. This isn't a knock against DW -- it's about the way their recovery software works. As another poster said, DW will try to reconstruct your disk in place.

Data Rescue III pulls files off the corrupt disk and makes no attempt to repair it.

The other package -- can't say, because I don't know anything about it. But I've worked with DW and DR3 and I like them both.

"a few people recommended Diskwarrior to recover the drive. Does anyone have an opinion on this program or are there better recovery programs?"

DiskWarrior is a utility that can repair damaged directories on working drives.

I think you have two possibilities here:
1. The drive in the MacBook is still ok (no hardware failure), but has software corruption (possibly in the disk directory, possibly elsewhere), or
2. The drive has a hardware problem of some sort.

The fact that the drive mounts on the desktop in target disk mode seems to indicate that the hardware is ok. If it wouldn't mount at all, this might point to a hardware problem.

Have you tried using Disk Utility on the drive (when it's mounted in target disk mode)?

What does Disk Utility "report back" when you try to repair it?

If you use DiskWarrior on the drive, and if it CAN'T repair the damage, the only alternative might be to go to "data recovery software" such as:
- Data Rescue 3
- Disk Drill
- Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery