can the files be saved? important follow up

[BugsBunny]

so i tried the mechanisms suggested in the previous thread, and when i did the repair disk, every time it came back "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK."

Does this mean my files are safe? If the HD is OK, does that mean its a mechanical hardware problem, and that someone can recover my stuff with the proper tools at an Apple store? If it says the volume is OK but still when it loads up it won't open finder or run anything really properly, what does it mean?

 

[JediMeister]

The first sign of a mechanical error would be a clicking or grinding noise from the drive. If Disk Utility reported no errors and you don't hear those audio cues, there is more than likely no physical damage to the actual drive itself. If you have another Mac, you can connect it to the computer in question by a 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable and try to start up the computer in Target Disk Mode (hold T at startup until a FireWire symbol). This mounts the affected drive as if were an external drive attached to the other computer. This should display the file system and you can try to pull over your entire home folder or maybe just your Documents, Music, Movies, and Pictures directories. If that doesn't work the price for data recovery, by means of either software or hardware, could potentially cost you anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

P.S. just saw the original thread. You can maybe still try TDM and see if that works out for you.

 

[BugsBunny]

The first sign of a mechanical error would be a clicking or grinding noise from the drive. If Disk Utility reported no errors and you don't hear those audio cues, there is more than likely no physical damage to the actual drive itself. If you have another Mac, you can connect it to the computer in question by a 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable and try to start up the computer in Target Disk Mode (hold T at startup until a FireWire symbol). This mounts the affected drive as if were an external drive attached to the other computer. This should display the file system and you can try to pull over your entire home folder or maybe just your Documents, Music, Movies, and Pictures directories. If that doesn't work the price for data recovery, by means of either software or hardware, could potentially cost you anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

P.S. just saw the original thread. You can maybe still try TDM and see if that works out for you.

thanks so much, everyone here is amazingly generous with their time to be so helpful. i finally got to an old camp friend who is a real good mac guy and he agreed that with that disk utility positive message, the HD was likely in tact with perhaps an issue with some other component that makes the system run, not with the components that house the data, etc.