Ok I bought my 24" inch intel 2 duo iMac stock. In disk utility my main drive says it can not be repaired but the indented "Macintosh HD" says it's fine. Is the Mac hd just a partition? I don't get how the main drive is dead but the drive inside the main one is still fine? Please help, thanks.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Does my iMac have just one hard drive?
- Thread starter DonWrk
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The physical drives are indicated by arrows. The indented drives are partitions within the physical drives, also known as mount points. You don't mount a physical drive, you mount the logical drives, or partitions.
![ScreenCap 2.PNG]( "ScreenCap 2.PNG")
Yes, Carbon Copy Cloner is great for such a task. You can clone your internal drive to an external, making a bootable copy. If you choose, you can buy a new drive to use as your internal, but first put it in an external enclosure. Clone your internal drive to your new one in the external enclosure, then simply swap the drives and boot up. Now your former internal drive is in an external enclosure, so you can use it for backups or additional storage space.
Ok so you say I could use my current internal as an additional external. Does that mean part of my internal hd is still useable? And also there is only about 100mb of files and folders (no programs) that I need to get off my hard drive. Then I will just install my os x again. What steps should I take and would that still require carbon copy cloner?
If your drive is damaged in some way, it can't be used as an additional external. If you're replacing it to get a bigger drive and there's nothing wrong with your current drive, you could use it as an external.
If you want to install your OS again and only save your user data, you don't need, but can still use, CCC for that task. To save your user data without CCC, simply drag and drop those folders on the external drive. CCC is free and a good tool for regular backups, so you may want to get it anyway.
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but your install disk isn't used to transfer files to an external drive. If you have an external drive attached, simply open Finder and drag your user files/folders to the external drive. This assumes that you're still able to boot up using your internal drive, since you haven't indicated that you can't.
Sorry, no I can not boot at all. It doesn't recognize my hard drive any more and in the disk utility it tells me my main drive can not be repaired. When I go to recover I can see my files that are still on my hard drive. Do I just copy the image and for the source put my external hard drive? Also is there any way of installing os x on my external and using that to boot up or is that not recommended?
Exactly I can only access the things on the install disk and I have no backup. That's what I'm trying to do is back up some files on the dead hard drive and I have an external hard drive but need to purchase an internal one to get back going again.
I think your only hope to retrieve data off the dead hard drive at this point may be Target Disk Mode. Do you know anyone from whom you could borrow a second Mac? Do you have a firewire-firewire cable?
Or perhaps more serious repair tools, like Disk Warrior? Otherwise, I'm thinking it's professional data recovery services or else shrugging it off as an unpleasant lesson in the necessity of backing up regularly. :-(
If it will let you open that file then you can just save it to a new folder on the ext hard drive. If you can do that it may let you just drag that folder to the ext hard drive. If not! it's like he said.
You need two drives, one external and one for the inside.
Boot up with your DVD and copy the user files, your data, if you can to the external drive you purchased. That's gonna become your backup drive because you NEED A BACKUP. Honestly. I'd also try buying a copy of Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior and seeing if they can recover files; it just depends on how valuable that stuff is to you. Since you didn't have a backup, however, I'm guessing it's not that important so you might skip the latter step.
Then install the new internal hard drive; it's a pain if you have an iMac but doable. Check out instructions at ifixit. I like my iMacs, but I think it's inexcusable that the most frequently failing component, the drives, is so inaccessible. It's ironic it's easier to replace on a smaller computer, the laptop. But anyway, replace it, reinstall the data you've managed to recover, and off you go.
Then you can use Time Machine to backup the iMac to the external and not have to endure this process a second time.
Rob
Boot up with your DVD and copy the user files, your data, if you can to the external drive you purchased. That's gonna become your backup drive because you NEED A BACKUP. Honestly. I'd also try buying a copy of Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior and seeing if they can recover files; it just depends on how valuable that stuff is to you. Since you didn't have a backup, however, I'm guessing it's not that important so you might skip the latter step.
Then install the new internal hard drive; it's a pain if you have an iMac but doable. Check out instructions at ifixit. I like my iMacs, but I think it's inexcusable that the most frequently failing component, the drives, is so inaccessible. It's ironic it's easier to replace on a smaller computer, the laptop. But anyway, replace it, reinstall the data you've managed to recover, and off you go.
Then you can use Time Machine to backup the iMac to the external and not have to endure this process a second time.
Rob