HD became read only

[Giuanniello]

A friend of mine asked for my support to find out why his 2010 MBPro 13" doesn't complete the boot sequence, the status bar never reaching the end.

Took it home and the quickest was to remove the HD and use it through an external dock and I found out that it is full, only 9 out of 500GB available which I thought being the cause of lockup which wasn't since even mounted on the external dock it doesn't allow me any operation besides reading and also reading is very slow, not just that, it seems some files are damaged (he told me it crashed on the floor more than once hence I think the damaged disk).

Disk warrior can't do much so far:

DiskWarrior has successfully built a new directory for the disk named "Macintosh HD." The new directory cannot replace the original directory because of a disk malfunction.

Any suggestion?

Grazie

 

[Fishrrman]

"Any suggestion?"

Get a new 500gb or 1tb 2.5" SATA SSD. They're cheap.

Connect it to YOUR Mac and erase it to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled.

At this point, can you install a fresh copy of the OS onto it?

If so, do that.

When done, DO NOT SET UP THE OS YET.
Just power down.

Now, put the SSD into the friend's MBP and hand it to him.

DO NOT PRESS THE POWER ON BUTTON YET.

Your friend has to decide:
Does he want to try a "migration" from the old (possibly damaged) HDD?

If yes, do this:

Connect the old drive to the MBP.
NOW press the power on button.
Let your friend begin the setup process.
At the right moment, setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another Mac or drive. YES you want to do this.

"Aim" setup assistant at the old HDD.
Give it a moment to "digest things". This can take a few minutes.

IF the drive is "readable", setup assistant should present your friend with a list of stuff that can be migrated (applications, accounts, settings, data).

I suggest your friend try to migrate everything.
So.. check all the boxes and let setup assistant go to work.
THIS WILL TAKE SOME TIME. Be patient.

See if this works for your friend.
Not worth fooling with a damaged drive any more.

IF doing the above doesn't work:
Then just setup the new OS on the new drive.
Your friend can connect the old drive and then see if he can "manually migrate" stuff over.

 

[Giuanniello]

"Any suggestion?"

Get a new 500gb or 1tb 2.5" SATA SSD. They're cheap.
...

Sorry but I maybe didn't explain myself well, issue is the friend's computer drive has become read only, I already installed an old drive into the MBPRo and it works fine, the problem is into reading data off the drive I just removed cause it is reported to have several errors and to manually copy each and every folder will take months (think of Foto folders and iTunes ones just to say one...)

 

[Fishrrman]

"the problem is into reading data off the drive I just removed cause it is reported to have several errors and to manually copy each and every folder will take months"

Ah, ok.
I have a solution for that, too.

The idea is to get "the good files" from the old drive the easiest way possible.
Here's what you'll need, and what to do.

First, you need CarbonCopyCloner. It's free to download and use for 30 days. Get it here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
(there are several versions available, download the right one for the OS you're using)

Next, you'll need an empty drive, 500gb in size (or larger).

Now, connect the empty drive to the Mac, and use Disk Utility to erase it to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled.
When done, quit Disk Utility.

Next, connect the "bad drive" (you want both drives connected).
Now, open CCC.
Put the "bad drive" on the left (source)
Put the "empty drive" to the right of it (target).

Accept all of CCC's defaults, and click "clone".

What will happen next:
CCC will try to make a clone of the bad drive to the empty one.
BUT... there may be "bad files" on the bad drive, right?
And you don't know WHICH of the files are bad, right?

CCC has "a way around this".
As the clone progresses, if CCC encounters a bad file, it will "make a note of it", skip the bad file, and go to the next file.
And it will clone over all the good files and leave the bad ones behind.
When the clone is done, you should have this:

1. All the "good files" that could be copied will be on the clone.
2. CCC will make a list of the "bad files" and you can look through that and see what they were.

This won't copy ALL the files, no -- those that are bad are probably "un-recoverable".
But it should save the good ones without too much work.

I think it's worth a try.