Booting MBP HDD as an External to a PC

[tigabalm]

So it finally happened... the magsafe power cord failed to do its job (really I just wasn't being careful enough) and got snagged. End rsult, my MBP is now rendered fairly useless. It will turn on, but stays on the boot screen and then flashes the folder w/ "?" icon. Anyways, I'm over it, just want to get my data off it.

I currently don't have another mac around me to test if booting in FW target mode will work. So, I tried putting it in a external enclosure and plugging it into a pc. I installed macdrive... PC recognizes that something's plugged in, but doesn't recognize the drive itself. When I click the little USB controller icon in the task tray, it shows a "USB mass storage device" but in explorer, doesn't show up at all.

I'd appreciate any insight you guys have.

Thanks

 

[kasakka]

If it's a desktop system you could just connect it internally to a SATA port. I'm not sure if MacDrive works with external drives.

 

[tombilske]

im not sure about using it externally but if you can boot your MBP into target disk mode and you have any other computer (it doesnt have to be another mac) with a firewire port then you can use target disk mode with that 🙂

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

 

[Arie]

The enclosure is recognised since it is hardware, the content of the hard drive is not recognised because it is in a wrong format. It will be formatted as HFS which Microsoft Windows cannot read. You can use HFS Explorer for example on Microsoft Windows to read the contents of the hard drive. You can download it from here: http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html

 

[tigabalm]

Ok as-is if I plug my MBP drive (connected through external case) to another mac through USB, should it recognize it and be able to read it?

I stopped by an Apple store on the way home from work and tried plugging it into one of the machines on display, but it didnt recognize it at all. The drive spins, but just no response from the host machine....

Do you think booting in target mode from the comp will change this?

Tried the HFSexplorer, but not sure if I'm not using it right, but doesnt seem to be working either....

thanks again for the input guys

 

[tigabalm]

Okay so a bit of an update...

I got macdrive to recognize the HDD and the "good news" is that it recognizes all the information. Says 55GB of free space, which is exactly right.

Only problem is, when I go to explore the drive, the only folders with viewable contents is Applications, Library, System. The Users folder seems empty... but the used space is all there. Tried to use macdrive to repair the disk, but it stops on the first step saying "Cannot Verify Volume"

Any other ideas?