Crashed Logic Board or Hard Drive?

[bdugan]

My computer crashed about a month ago. Apple said that it was the logic board that crashed.

In order to recover my data, I disassembled my MBP and took out the harddrive and put it in an external enclosure.

Now, my new computer is not picking the external hard drive and nothing shows up on the desktop. The light is colored on the enclosure, indicating that it is working, and I can hear the harddrive as well.

Does this mean my harddrive crashed and apple was wrong?

Any suggestions?

 

[hughvane]

Use Disk Utility to see if the external drive is recognised. Post back with the result.

 

[bdugan]

Use Disk Utility to see if the external drive is recognised. Post back with the result.

Yes, it shows up. What do I do to access it?

 

[hughvane]

Yes, it shows up. What do I do to access it?

In Disk Utility it should show with two names, one beneath the other. Click on the lower name, the one you gave it. If both names are the same, no matter, just click the lower one. Then click the blue Info button at the top of Disk Utility to see what it tells you. Check things like the file system of the disk. It should show as HFS+ if it came from your original MBP.

Then run Verify Disk and Repair Disk (if necessary) from Disk Utility.

Next - how is the external drive connected to your new Mac, USB or Firewire? This may appear simplistic, but some external devices do not mount unless they're powered on BEFORE being plugged into the Mac port. Try that.

 

[bdugan]

In Disk Utility it should show with two names, one beneath the other. Click on the lower name, the one you gave it. If both names are the same, no matter, just click the lower one. Then click the blue Info button at the top of Disk Utility to see what it tells you. Check things like the file system of the disk. It should show as HFS+ if it came from your original MBP.

Then run Verify Disk and Repair Disk (if necessary) from Disk Utility.

Next - how is the external drive connected to your new Mac, USB or Firewire? This may appear simplistic, but some external devices do not mount unless they're powered on BEFORE being plugged into the Mac port. Try that.

Its connected via USB. Both the data transfer cable and the power cable are usb ports

 

[bdugan]

Its connected via USB. Both the data transfer cable and the power cable are usb ports

Name : Macintosh HD
Type : Volume

Disk Identifier : disk1s2
Mount Point : Not mounted
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : USB
Partition Type : Apple_HFS
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : E36336B9-60C0-311E-82F0-22319A7D8945
Capacity : 92.7 GB (99,552,051,200 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : No
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 2

 

[hughvane]

A couple of things I notice in the info you've given (good that you've done that) is that 1) your external hard drive is USB-powered and that 2) Owner Enabled is not permitted.

1. If you have a powered USB2 hub, use that to connect your external drive to your MBP. If you don't have a powered hub, I suggest you get one. They're not expensive. If you'd like recommendations, just ask.

2. This is a bit out of my field, hopefully someone else can help ... and this is strictly 'theory-only' ... but as you took that (now) external hard drive from your previous MBP, it would have been password protected. As you're not using it as your boot disk, you aren't able to get past the power-on stage because the OS that is still on that disk is waiting for a password before mounting.

If this theory is correct (a big IF), then you need to install that hard drive back into a computer where you can enter a password, extract all the stuff you want from it to dvd's, or to a friend's external hard drive, and then reformat the drive to HFS. You don't need HFS+ unless you want to boot from it at some future stage.