HELP: MacBook Pro Corrupt HD - Backup Options?

[spraven]

My MacBook Pro 13.3 (Mid-2010) locked up and required a Forced Shutdown 2 days ago. After that, it would not Restart. All I kept getting was a white screen with a Circle and slash through the middle (like a "No Pets" sign without the "No Pets" in the middle).

I've never encountered this sign, but I could never boot past it. So, I grabbed my External HD with OS X Mavericks (same as the MacBook) and Booted from there. Inside Finder, it only shows the External HD. There is no choice for the Internal HD. So, I launched the Disk Utility and it Does show the Internal HD as the following:

250.06 GB Hitachi HTS54502B95A02 Media
(250.06 GB Internal SATA Drive)

Below that, it shows the Unmounted Partition:

Macintosh HD

That Partition will NOT Mount, no matter what I try.

So, I moved a lot of the Backup Files from a previous backup over to a 32GB Flash Drive, so that I could free up enough space on the External Drive I Booted with. I needed to Partition it into the Boot Section and a Backup Section. Once I finally got enough moved, I was able to free up around 257.89 GB on the Backup Partition. The "Unmounted" Macintosh HD shows it is 249.2 GB.

At the moment, I'm trying to do a copy from that drive to the Backup Partition of the External Drive inside Disk Utility. It has been showing "Setup" for a long time, now. That makes me wonder if it is possible to do it that way. I am leaving it overnight to see if it ever completes anything.

Below is a "Word for Word" copy of what it says if I try a Repair Disk on the Unmounted Macintosh HD...Repair Log:

Checking file system.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus Volume.
Invalid B-tree node size.
The Volume could not be verified completely.
Volume Repair Complete.
Update Boot Support Partitions for Volume as Required.
Error: Disk Utility Cannot Repair This Disk. Backup as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your files.

So, I guess my Main Question is this...

Is there Any Way Possible to somehow backup files, individually or as a group, and NOT Lose Everything on the drive? Also, without it costing us more money than we can afford right now.

This MacBook Pro is what my wife uses to work from home. All of her business files, 2 Books she is writing, and a lot of other things that we really need to not lose are on this drive in that Partition. Yes, I know I should have been backing things up. I did a LOT of files into Google Drive, Dropbox, and Copy.com...but not enough of them were backed up!

I would appreciate any help at all. I'm kicking myself for the error of not backing up enough, so please, I need Constructive Comments that are Helpful more than any Criticism.

Thanks in Advance for the Help and Assistance of Any and All who are willing to help or advise me on this issue.

Scott

 

[Taz Mangus]

My MacBook Pro 13.3 (Mid-2010) locked up and required a Forced Shutdown 2 days ago. After that, it would not Restart. All I kept getting was a white screen with a Circle and slash through the middle (like a "No Pets" sign without the "No Pets" in the middle).

I've never encountered this sign, but I could never boot past it. So, I grabbed my External HD with OS X Mavericks (same as the MacBook) and Booted from there. Inside Finder, it only shows the External HD. There is no choice for the Internal HD. So, I launched the Disk Utility and it Does show the Internal HD as the following:

250.06 GB Hitachi HTS54502B95A02 Media
(250.06 GB Internal SATA Drive)

Below that, it shows the Unmounted Partition:

Macintosh HD

That Partition will NOT Mount, no matter what I try.

So, I moved a lot of the Backup Files from a previous backup over to a 32GB Flash Drive, so that I could free up enough space on the External Drive I Booted with. I needed to Partition it into the Boot Section and a Backup Section. Once I finally got enough moved, I was able to free up around 257.89 GB on the Backup Partition. The "Unmounted" Macintosh HD shows it is 249.2 GB.

At the moment, I'm trying to do a copy from that drive to the Backup Partition of the External Drive inside Disk Utility. It has been showing "Setup" for a long time, now. That makes me wonder if it is possible to do it that way. I am leaving it overnight to see if it ever completes anything.

Below is a "Word for Word" copy of what it says if I try a Repair Disk on the Unmounted Macintosh HD...Repair Log:

Checking file system.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus Volume.
Invalid B-tree node size.
The Volume could not be verified completely.
Volume Repair Complete.
Update Boot Support Partitions for Volume as Required.
Error: Disk Utility Cannot Repair This Disk. Backup as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your files.

So, I guess my Main Question is this...

Is there Any Way Possible to somehow backup files, individually or as a group, and NOT Lose Everything on the drive? Also, without it costing us more money than we can afford right now.

This MacBook Pro is what my wife uses to work from home. All of her business files, 2 Books she is writing, and a lot of other things that we really need to not lose are on this drive in that Partition. Yes, I know I should have been backing things up. I did a LOT of files into Google Drive, Dropbox, and Copy.com...but not enough of them were backed up!

I would appreciate any help at all. I'm kicking myself for the error of not backing up enough, so please, I need Constructive Comments that are Helpful more than any Criticism.

Thanks in Advance for the Help and Assistance of Any and All who are willing to help or advise me on this issue.

Scott

I think the unfortunate problem you have now is that if you can't mount the hard drive you are not going to be able to copy any data off the hard drive. I don't think that a program like Disk Warrior could repair the hard drive at this point (it costs money to buy though to try). An option that might be only option is paying a company to retrieve the data off the hard drive on to another hard drive for you. The only issue with something like that depends how sensitive (as in personal or financial) the data that is stored on the failed hard drive.

 

[Big Ron]

I think the unfortunate problem you have now is that if you can't mount the hard drive you are not going to be able to copy any data off the hard drive. I don't think that a program like Disk Warrior could repair the hard drive at this point (it costs money to buy though to try). An option that might be only option is paying a company to retrieve the data off the hard drive on to another hard drive for you. The only issue with something like that depends how sensitive (as in personal or financial) the data that is stored on the failed hard drive.

If the data is valuable you can always remove the hard drive and try to mount it on another Mac. There are plenty of inexpensive USB caddies/connectors out there that will allow you to attach a bare drive. See IFixit for a step by step guide to getting at your hard drive.

 

[Taz Mangus]

If the data is valuable you can always remove the hard drive and try to mount it on another Mac. There are plenty of inexpensive USB caddies/connectors out there that will allow you to attach a bare drive. See IFixit for a step by step guide to getting at your hard drive.

The only way that I can see the hard drive even able to mount in an external enclosure is the assumption that the OP issue is not the hard drive but the logic board in his MacBook Pro. Is that what you are suggesting?

 

[throAU]

The time for backup has passed - you can only really back up stuff from a drive that is functional.

You're now in the phase where you need to attempt data recovery.

If the data is important, don't screw about, find a reputable data recovery company near you and engage their services.

Unless you know what you're doing - the more time you spend messing with it while the drive is in the process of dying the less likely you are to get your data back.

 

[spraven]

I think the unfortunate problem you have now is that if you can't mount the hard drive you are not going to be able to copy any data off the hard drive. I don't think that a program like Disk Warrior could repair the hard drive at this point (it costs money to buy though to try). An option that might be only option is paying a company to retrieve the data off the hard drive on to another hard drive for you. The only issue with something like that depends how sensitive (as in personal or financial) the data that is stored on the failed hard drive.

So far, it seems that "Stellar" is actually allowing me into the corrupted drive. I has been copying about 161 GB of Data since last night. It's such a slow process, but if it allows me to save the most I,portent stuff, then I can deal with the wait!

Thank you for your help and suggestions. I'm going to be Very Careful about what doesn't back up and when, after this. I need to buy a new External Drive to do it, but it beats worrying about issues...especially if this were a total Hard Drive Failure.

Thanks, again!

Scott

 

[spraven]

The time for backup has passed - you can only really back up stuff from a drive that is functional.

You're now in the phase where you need to attempt data recovery.

If the data is important, don't screw about, find a reputable data recovery company near you and engage their services.

Unless you know what you're doing - the more time you spend messing with it while the drive is in the process of dying the less likely you are to get your data back.

Fortunately, I do have some skills in Computers and Software/Hardware...just not as many on Mac as I did on Windows (which I hope to never own again). I worked for the University of Arkansas in the Computer Science Department for awhile, and that allowed me to know some things from Reql experts in a hands on environment, which I wouldn't trade my time there for anything in the world!

I am in the process of Data Recovery using Stellar 7, which appears to be salvaging the important stuff, so far. It's a slow process, but worth the wait for a successful outcome!

I will be using the External Drives for storage of All Important and/or Sensitive Data (as well as in the cloud, for backup redundancy) after I reformat this drive and try to use it again. I realize it's possible that it is Failing, completely, so I am going to do what it takes to keep Data Safe, even while giving the drive 1 More Chance!

Thanks for your advice!

Scott

 

[Taz Mangus]

So far, it seems that "Stellar" is actually allowing me into the corrupted drive. I has been copying about 161 GB of Data since last night. It's such a slow process, but if it allows me to save the most I,portent stuff, then I can deal with the wait!

Thank you for your help and suggestions. I'm going to be Very Careful about what doesn't back up and when, after this. I need to buy a new External Drive to do it, but it beats worrying about issues...especially if this were a total Hard Drive Failure.

Thanks, again!

Scott

Thanks great that you are able to recover some if not all of your data. As a suggestion going forward, do yourself a favor and start doing at least 2 backups. I had the case not too long ago where I was doing automatic Time Machine backups to a external hard drive. One day, my backup hard drive starting having issues and not long after that failed. This led to me loosing all the data on the backup hard drive. So now I do 2 Time Machine backups, one automatic to one external hard drive and the second is a manual Time Machine backup to a completely different external hard drive. The manual backup is where I plug the external hard drive into a USB port and tell Time Machine to start a backup, I do this every few days. This works well because if my primary backup hard drive fails, I can switch to the secondary hard drive and replace the failed primary hard drive. The chances of 2 backup hard drives failing at the same time is pretty low.

 

[throAU]

Definitely have multiple backups. I have 3 myself - my NAS which I back up to "automatically" whenever i'm plugged into AC power, and 2x external hard drives I back up to regularly to take off-site (work) in case my house burns down.

One is always at work, i swap them once a month or so.

 

[spraven]

Thanks to you all for the suggestions and help. Stellar has been running for 3 days to back up 161GB or so. I chose to backup some files that weren't necessarily "crucial" to me, but would add some convenience as I reset it all after a Format.

As for redundant backups...

That has been my goal, but finances has kept me from being able to pick up at least 1 more drive. I know I can get one for only $60 or $70, but lately, that may have as well been $6,000 to me. I do have plans to try to sell a few things I no lomger use around the house and use the proceeds to get at least 1 and hopefully 2 more drives.

Thanks Again!

Scott