Help! are my photos lost?

[DoNoHarm]

Hello Macrumors, I hope you can help me figure this one out. I have an iMac with one of those fusion drives. I usually back everything up but for the past two years I didn't do a backup. I clicked OK to installing the latest updates and now the new OS won't launch. Of course, now that it won't launch, I'm remembering that all my photos from the birth of my children are on there and there are no backups! I have an appointment with the Genius Bar, but assuming they can't help getting the system to launch, is there a way they can be recovered?

My system's info:
27" iMac, 2016, 2TB Fusion Drive

 

[wilberforce]

And you don't use iCloud either?

 

[Arctic Moose]

You can boot from a USB drive and see if you can get the Fusion Drive to mount.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I'm remembering that all my photos from the birth of my children are on there and there are no backups!"

You have just learned what "backups" are for, and why one should do them regularly.
I realize it hurts, but go forth from this day and learn, a sadder, but wiser, person.

Try the genius bar first -- I'll bet they get you going again.
Having said that...
PRINT OUT THIS POST and keep it for reference.

First off, if you don't know what you're doing, you could end up erasing the internal drive and lose everything.
You might consider getting help from someone who "knows Macs".

Can you boot to INTERNET recovery?
NOT "the recovery partition".
Command-OPTION-R at boot.

If you're connected via wifi, you'll need your wifi password.
It will take a little time for the utilities to load.

When you get to the utilities, you could try re-installing the OS.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK...

I suggest you try what arctic moose recommended.
That is, get an EXTERNAL USB drive. It can be a hard drive or SSD.

Now, boot to INTERNET recovery again (see above).
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" IMPORTANT!

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
DO NOT ERASE YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE !!!
BE CAREFUL !!!

If you're going to try to put Catalina on it, it should be "APFS with GUID partition map".

Once the external drive is erased, quit disk utility and open the OS installer.
Begin clicking through.
When the installer asks WHERE you want to install, choose the EXTERNAL drive.
The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen may go black and stay that way for a few minutes while firmware updates.
BE PATIENT.

If the install goes through, you should see the initial startup screen (choose your language).
At this point, you want to create a BASIC account.
Just a username and password.
Don't bother with the rest -- just skip it.

When done, you should be "at the finder".
Now... go to finder preferences and make sure "hard disks" and "external disks" are checked.
Can you now see the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?

If you can get this far, come back and we'll tell you what to do next.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Be very careful if you are not entirely sure what you are doing! If you are not confident you can follow instructions and understand what is going on you could quite possibly ruin a perfectly reasonable possibility of saving your photos and instead lose them forever.

Do you have access to another Mac? If so, I would recommend creating a bootable drive there instead, to avoid touching your drive more than necessary.

Here are instructions for doing that:

How to create a bootable USB masOS installer

Make a macOS installer with createinstallmedia and install Monterey or another macOS on multiple Macs, do a clean install, or access a faulty Mac.

www.macworld.com

 

[ADGrant]

If the Genius Bar can't help you I would suggest looking for a professional disk recovery service.

 

[DoNoHarm]

OP wrote:
"I'm remembering that all my photos from the birth of my children are on there and there are no backups!"

You have just learned what "backups" are for, and why one should do them regularly.
I realize it hurts, but go forth from this day and learn, a sadder, but wiser, person.

Try the genius bar first -- I'll bet they get you going again.
Having said that...
PRINT OUT THIS POST and keep it for reference.

First off, if you don't know what you're doing, you could end up erasing the internal drive and lose everything.
You might consider getting help from someone who "knows Macs".

Can you boot to INTERNET recovery?
NOT "the recovery partition".
Command-OPTION-R at boot.

If you're connected via wifi, you'll need your wifi password.
It will take a little time for the utilities to load.

When you get to the utilities, you could try re-installing the OS.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK...

I suggest you try what arctic moose recommended.
That is, get an EXTERNAL USB drive. It can be a hard drive or SSD.

Now, boot to INTERNET recovery again (see above).
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" IMPORTANT!

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
DO NOT ERASE YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE !!!
BE CAREFUL !!!

If you're going to try to put Catalina on it, it should be "APFS with GUID partition map".

Once the external drive is erased, quit disk utility and open the OS installer.
Begin clicking through.
When the installer asks WHERE you want to install, choose the EXTERNAL drive.
The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen may go black and stay that way for a few minutes while firmware updates.
BE PATIENT.

If the install goes through, you should see the initial startup screen (choose your language).
At this point, you want to create a BASIC account.
Just a username and password.
Don't bother with the rest -- just skip it.

When done, you should be "at the finder".
Now... go to finder preferences and make sure "hard disks" and "external disks" are checked.
Can you now see the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?

If you can get this far, come back and we'll tell you what to do next.

Thanks for your help. When I get to disk utility, I see my old hard drive with my stuff on it and about a third is free, so I'm optimistic that this will help. Unfortunately, I can't see anything that says "APFS with GUID partition map" when I try to erase. I just get Mac Journaled and another option... I tried creating an external boot disk using this video:

but my Mac does not seem to recognize it when I try restarting with the option key pressed.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Unfortunately, I can't see anything that says "APFS with GUID partition map" when I try to erase.

What are you trying to erase?? If you touch your boot drive you may lose your stuff forever.

If you are not confident you understand the instructions I posted a link to previously after reading through them, get someone to help you!

 

[DoNoHarm]

OP wrote:
"I'm remembering that all my photos from the birth of my children are on there and there are no backups!"

You have just learned what "backups" are for, and why one should do them regularly.
I realize it hurts, but go forth from this day and learn, a sadder, but wiser, person.

Try the genius bar first -- I'll bet they get you going again.
Having said that...
PRINT OUT THIS POST and keep it for reference.

First off, if you don't know what you're doing, you could end up erasing the internal drive and lose everything.
You might consider getting help from someone who "knows Macs".

Can you boot to INTERNET recovery?
NOT "the recovery partition".
Command-OPTION-R at boot.

If you're connected via wifi, you'll need your wifi password.
It will take a little time for the utilities to load.

When you get to the utilities, you could try re-installing the OS.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK...

I suggest you try what arctic moose recommended.
That is, get an EXTERNAL USB drive. It can be a hard drive or SSD.

Now, boot to INTERNET recovery again (see above).
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" IMPORTANT!

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
DO NOT ERASE YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE !!!
BE CAREFUL !!!

If you're going to try to put Catalina on it, it should be "APFS with GUID partition map".

Once the external drive is erased, quit disk utility and open the OS installer.
Begin clicking through.
When the installer asks WHERE you want to install, choose the EXTERNAL drive.
The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen may go black and stay that way for a few minutes while firmware updates.
BE PATIENT.

If the install goes through, you should see the initial startup screen (choose your language).
At this point, you want to create a BASIC account.
Just a username and password.
Don't bother with the rest -- just skip it.

When done, you should be "at the finder".
Now... go to finder preferences and make sure "hard disks" and "external disks" are checked.
Can you now see the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?

If you can get this far, come back and we'll tell you what to do next.

Thanks for your help. When I get to disk utility, I see my old hard drive with my stuff on it and about a third is free, so I'm optimistic that this will help. Unfortunately, I can't see anything that says "APFS with GUID partition map" when I try to erase (my SD Card). I just get "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", "Mac OS Extended (Extended,Journaled)", "MS-DOS(FAT)", and "ExFAT" as my options... I tried creating an external boot disk using a 16gb SD card, but even though another Mac recognizes the boot up disk, my iMac is not seeing it when I try to boot while pressing "option".

 

[DoNoHarm]

If the Genius Bar can't help you I would suggest looking for a professional disk recovery service.

Genius Bar says they don't mess with data! I don't blame them...

 

[jbachandouris]

I'm at a loss. Usually is not two years. This is 2021, backups have been repeatedly recommended for years. Apple has iCloud which happens automatically if you set it up. I'm sorry that I am not sounding sympathetic, but you had pictures from the birth of your child and didn't back up for TWO years?

'Genius' Bar doesn't do data recovery.

I recommend finding a professional hard drive recovery company. Do NOT erase anything.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Thanks for your help. When I get to disk utility, I see my old hard drive with my stuff on it and about a third is free, so I'm optimistic that this will help. Unfortunately, I can't see anything that says "APFS with GUID partition map" when I try to erase (my SD Card). I just get "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", "Mac OS Extended (Extended,Journaled)", "MS-DOS(FAT)", and "ExFAT" as my options... I tried creating an external boot disk using a 16gb SD card, but even though another Mac recognizes the boot up disk, my iMac is not seeing it when I try to boot while pressing "option".

First of all, you should be creating the installer and the boot device on a DIFFERENT computer! You do not want to be doing anything at all on your computer except booting to a different drive and using this drive to copy data off the internal Fusion Drive.

When you create the installer drive you need to format it “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. When you create the external drive to boot from it doesn’t matter so much if you choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, but I believe APFS is the default.

But once again, if this doesn’t make total sense to you, get help instead!

 

[DoNoHarm]

OP wrote:
"I'm remembering that all my photos from the birth of my children are on there and there are no backups!"

You have just learned what "backups" are for, and why one should do them regularly.
I realize it hurts, but go forth from this day and learn, a sadder, but wiser, person.

Try the genius bar first -- I'll bet they get you going again.
Having said that...
PRINT OUT THIS POST and keep it for reference.

First off, if you don't know what you're doing, you could end up erasing the internal drive and lose everything.
You might consider getting help from someone who "knows Macs".

Can you boot to INTERNET recovery?
NOT "the recovery partition".
Command-OPTION-R at boot.

If you're connected via wifi, you'll need your wifi password.
It will take a little time for the utilities to load.

When you get to the utilities, you could try re-installing the OS.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK...

I suggest you try what arctic moose recommended.
That is, get an EXTERNAL USB drive. It can be a hard drive or SSD.

Now, boot to INTERNET recovery again (see above).
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" IMPORTANT!

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
DO NOT ERASE YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE !!!
BE CAREFUL !!!

If you're going to try to put Catalina on it, it should be "APFS with GUID partition map".

Once the external drive is erased, quit disk utility and open the OS installer.
Begin clicking through.
When the installer asks WHERE you want to install, choose the EXTERNAL drive.
The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen may go black and stay that way for a few minutes while firmware updates.
BE PATIENT.

If the install goes through, you should see the initial startup screen (choose your language).
At this point, you want to create a BASIC account.
Just a username and password.
Don't bother with the rest -- just skip it.

When done, you should be "at the finder".
Now... go to finder preferences and make sure "hard disks" and "external disks" are checked.
Can you now see the INTERNAL drive on the desktop?

If you can get this far, come back and we'll tell you what to do next.

Hey Fishrrman (or anyone else who feels like helping). I have installed OS Big Sur on an external hard drive and have gotten the computer to boot from the external hard drive. When I click on my computer's hard drive (with the OS that won't start), I see 2.12TB capacity and only 250GB free. But I can't seem to access most of the files. If anyone can help from here, I'd appreciate it! Thanks.

 

[Arctic Moose]

When I click on my computer's hard drive (with the OS that won't start), I see 2.12TB capacity and only 250GB free. But I can't seem to access most of the files.

Can you be more specific? Can you see the file names in Finder? If so, is there a permissions icon (red and white no-go symbol) on them? If not, and you can see them, what happens when you drag one of them to the external drive you’ve booted from?

Do not try to open any files directly from your internal drive, all you want to do at this point is to copy your files to the external drive, starting with the most valuables ones.

 

[DoNoHarm]

Can you be more specific? Can you see the file names in Finder? If so, is there a permissions icon (red and white no-go symbol) on them? If not, and you can see them, what happens when you drag one of them to the external drive you’ve booted from?

Do not try to open any files directly from your internal drive, all you want to do at this point is to copy your files to the external drive, starting with the most valuables ones.

I can’t see most the files on the internal hard drive. I only see a few folders like system, library, etc. These look empty when I open them. But when I click info on my internal hard disk, it looks full.

 

[DoNoHarm]

By the way Arctic Moose (and whoever else), I really appreciate your help and I’d like to offer a $50 reward to whomever helps me access these photos.

 

[Arctic Moose]

I can’t see most the files on the internal hard drive. I only see a few folders like system, library, etc. These look empty when I open them. But when I click info on my internal hard disk, it looks full.

It sounds to me like you are seeing the root level of the partition, that you perhaps are not used to seeing.

Do you see the folder "Users"? If so, open it.

Do you see a folder with your user name? If so, open it.

This should show you the files in your account.

If your Photos are in the Photos app, you should open the "Pictures" folder, where you should find a .photolibrary "file" (it is actually a folder disguised as a file) which hopefully contains your photos. Do not double-click this as that would attempt to open the library in Photos.

Try dragging this entire "file" to your external drive.

 

[DoNoHarm]

It sounds to me like you are seeing the root level of the partition, that you perhaps are not used to seeing.

Do you see the folder "Users"? If so, open it.

Do you see a folder with your user name? If so, open it.

This should show you the files in your account.

If your Photos are in the Photos app, you should open the "Pictures" folder, where you should find a .photolibrary "file" (it is actually a folder disguised as a file) which hopefully contains your photos. Do not double-click this as that would attempt to open the library in Photos.

Try dragging this entire "file" to your external drive.

No, under users I only see “shared” which is an empty folder. Nothing else.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

You now have an external drive that is bootable, is this correct?

Then, your next step is to try this:
1. Boot up (from the external drive, of couse)
2. Open Migration Assistant (in the Utilities folder)
3. Migration Assistant will ask FROM WHERE you want to migrate (such as from another drive)
4. Click on the INTERNAL drive (as the drive you want to "migrate FROM")
5. Give migration assistant time to "digest things".
6. Migration assistant will present you with a list of stuff to migrate
7. I suggest you just "migrate EVERYTHING" for now.
8. Let migration assistant do its thing -- it will take a while.
9. When done, you should have another account (actually your "old account" from the internal drive).
10. Try logging out of the account you created when you made the Big Sur boot drive, and log into your other (old) account.
11. Is your stuff there now?

 

[DoNoHarm]

Ugh... internal drive is not coming up as an option.

 

[Fishrrman]

Let's try something else:

1. Download CarbonCopyCloner from this page:

Download CCC - Bombich Software

www.bombich.com

CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days (trying this costs you nothing)

2. Open CCC (while booted from the external drive). Accept the defaults for now.

3. Get to the main window (the one with "3 boxes"). It looks like this:

4. Click on the "leftmost" box. This should produce a popup menu with a list of drives. Do you see BOTH the external and internal drive?

We need to know the answer.
If you see the internal drive, then it's probably "clone-able".

You will need a SECOND external drive.
Then run CCC again, put the internal drive on the left.
Put the SECOND external drive (which will become the target) in the middle.
Leave the right box alone (that's for scheduling, not needed).

Then, you "clone" the contents of the internal drive to the external.

But again, we need to know if CCC can see the internal drive.
If it can see it, it can probably "clone" it as well.
Once you get the data onto an external drive, it may then become "reachable".

If it's "reachable", it may be "recoverable".

Do this stuff, and get back to us.

 

[Arctic Moose]

@DoNoHarm, was it a Big Sur update you were installing when it went pear-shaped? If yes, were you upgrading from Catalina, or had Big Sur already been successfully installed?