Hard drive removed . . . where's my music / photo's

[djk38]

Hi There

A few years ago my imac (last of the G5s) died. After speaking to someone in the apple store over the weekend I was told that if I remove the hard drive and get an SATA USB 3 adapter it should be possible to recover some of my old photos and music etc from the hardrive.

So I've removed the harddrive and connected it to my new mac book pro, and whilst I can 'see' the hard drive on the desktop, my music and photos are nowhere to be seen.

There was 50 / 60 gig of music and photos when the it died. Could the information be in there somewhere?

Would appreciate any suggestions . . .

 

[maflynn]

The images would be in /Users/<username>/Pictures on the drive itself.

If the drive was dying, its possible that the images may not be recoverable.

 

[Jambalaya]

You've connected it with an external cradle I assume ? In that case the disk and it's contents should be visible in Finder. The fact it isn't suggests it may the HDD which failed in the iMac. There is a good chance you can still get data off (assuming heads didn't crash into disk surface) - the simplest but most expensive solution is to take the disk to a specialist. Others on here may be able to recommend a tool to investigate as it may be the index which is corrupt but data may still be there.

 

[Fishrrman]

Be aware that if you previously used iTunes to catalog your music, and used iPhoto to catalog your pics, that your files are not going to be found in "easily recognizable" groups of folders.

That's because both iTunes and iPhoto are essentially "databases" that store their data files in their own way. To the user, it looks to be an almost-incomprehensible jumble of folders and files.

It -might- be possible to connect the old drive, then use iTunes and iPhoto to import your old libraries. I don't routinely use iTunes or iPhoto, so you'll have to give this a try and see how it goes.

What's needed is a Mac app that can "de-construct" an iTunes database, re-grouping all the files in an iTunes library into understandable folders...

 

[djk38]

thanks . . .

Just wanted to say thanks for all the constructive suggestions.

I'll let you know how I get on!