Getting data off old harddrive and transferring data to another laptop

hatemail13 said:

I have a Macbook pro v10.8 mountain lion.

I had the old macbook prob (about 4 years old) and it crashed. I removed the harddrive and I'm trying to figure how to get the data off that harddrive, and transfer it to my new mac (is there a way to do this via USB drive?)

I know theres a cord that would let me connect the harddrive to a desktop PC, where i would then transfer the data to the PC and then transfer the data to another external USB harddrive, then transfer that data to my current mac laptop.

is there a way to skip that step and go straight from my old harddrive and transfer the data directly to my current laptop.

Just to clarify, i'm not trying to replace any harddrives, just transfer data

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Firewire target disk mode is your friend. What's the new computer? If it has firewire it will work. You would need a firewire cable with 9 pins on both ends if you have both computers with Firewire 800 (1394b).

It's much easier if you just remove the hard drive and use a SATA to USB adapter. Plus it's a good thing to have. (What would you do if the old computer stopped working?)

Plus do you want certain files off or do you want to clone or what are you trying to do? It matters depending on what your plans are. You can transfer files easily through bonjour even by wifi (albeit slowly) by connecting to shared files on your old drive.

brop52 said:

Firewire target disk mode is your friend. What's the new computer? If it has firewire it will work. You would need a firewire cable with 9 pins on both ends if you have both computers with Firewire 800 (1394b).

It's much easier if you just remove the hard drive and use a SATA to USB adapter. Plus it's a good thing to have. (What would you do if the old computer stopped working?)

Plus do you want certain files off or do you want to clone or what are you trying to do? It matters depending on what your plans are. You can transfer files easily through bonjour even by wifi (albeit slowly) by connecting to shared files on your old drive.

Click to expand...

if the hard drive crashed you may not be able to get data off

hatemail13 said:

Well, my old mac would boot up but would never get to the start screen. so i dont think it was a harddrive issue. i took it to the apple store and they said the harddrive should still be ok and that i should be able to transfer the data

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Thanks for the reply.
This is the computer i have...it's the Macbookpro 15in (no retina display)
http://www.apple.com/why-mac/compare/notebooks.html

Essentially, anything that is on my harddrive i want to transfer it to my new mac laptop.

the laptop I have has 2 USB3 ports, a thunderbolt port, and firewire port

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You said the hard drive crashed in the original post

iPhonesandMacs said:

You said the hard drive crashed in the original post

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He said the computer crashed not the HDD. Probably not the best way of explaining the situation.

hatemail13 said:

I have a Macbook pro v10.8 mountain lion.
I had the old macbook prob (about 4 years old) and the computer crashed, not the harddrive. I removed the harddrive and I'm trying to figure how to get the data off that harddrive, and transfer it to my new mac (is there a way to do this via USB drive?)

Click to expand...

Since you have already removed the HD from the old computer, Target Disk Mode is no longer an option. However, there are several ways to connect the old HD; 1. use a cheap USB case, available at any computer store for $10-15, 2. use an SATA to USB cable, not sure how much that will cost, but it should be cheap too, and 3. use an SATA to USB converter (does the same thing the USB case does, but you can hook up 3.5" and 2.5" drives). These are usually a little more expense but still reasonable. If you don't have a computer store close by, check out OWC's HP, they sell lots of stuff you can use to do what you want to do.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/hard_drives_and_SSD
or
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/universal+drive+adapter
After copying your data you may have to reset the fille permissions, but that's another subject you can deal with after you get the old data onboard the new computer!