Hard drive screwed up by osx, need to recover files

[deaathleopards]

OSX somehow got corrupted and as a result I need to recover the files using target disc mode. Is there a way of me reinstalling the os without wiping the hard drive and, if the hard drive does need to be formatted, what files should I recover? The main things I need to recover is my itunes library, ilife, all the other standard apple folders. How should I go about all this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[spinnerlys]

You can do an Archive and Install, which put all the previous files (system and user data) in a folder called Previous System on your hard drive.

If you need to format your drive it would be best to have another Mac, where you can connect your Mac with problems to via Target Disk Mode (TDM).
But don't format your drive before you finished recovering your files.

Then you use a software like Data Rescue II to recover your data.
Data Rescue costs 99$.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Data Rescue 2 is the best for data recovery.

Use it before reinstalling the OS.

 

[deaathleopards]

A+

Awesome! Thanks you guys! I took my laptop to an apple authorized service....blahblahblah repairman and, they took 3 weeks, did nothing then called me to say they were being liquidated/closing down and to collect my laptop. Now I know that to do thanks again

 

[saadat]

i formatted my disk first, but didnt install anything until i got the bootable dvd of drive genius... and thankfully it recovered all my files...