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imac crashed and data recovery needed..

L

leelaw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 21, 2011
5
0
All,


I am suffering here, my 2009 imac 24in 3.06 is giving me the grey screen with the spinnig wheel and i have got to the point (hitting c with an install disk for example) wherer i can select disk utility, when i run repair disk it says it fails and i need to backup - but guess what I switched off time machine in july 2009.
I can get to the teminal app from this screen, is there a way from here to retrive my photos/videos etc? I cant stand the idea of losing all this stuff of my kids groiwing up... I should know better I know... I am in IT as a network engineer for a living. Any help gratefully received.

Thanks.
 
The good news is that your data is most likely intact, it's just a matter of getting it off the machine.

Do you have another Mac and an appropriate firewire cable to link the two? You can start up the faulty mac in target disk mode and transfer files that way.

Alternatively, it would be worth a look at DiskWarrior. It can (and does) fix a surprising amount of 'failed' disks and is highly recommended. I often find the best way to run it is from another Mac with the faulty Mac connected via target disk mode. Next best is running it off a system installed on an external drive connected to your faulty mac and least best (slowest and depends on hardware as to whether it works or not) is running it from the disc itself.
 
Maybe your hard drive is dying or corrupt. As mentioned already, use another mac to copy your data in target mode. When your data is safe you can wipe the drive and do a clean install.
 
I have an additional quesiton. If tc didn't switch off Time Machine and had a back-up from say.. last week. If the problem is really outside of the HDD (something to do with a fry chip or something) then can one recover a Time Machine backup from one machine to another? If yes then the 2 machines need to be the same year model? Can one buy a 2011 model and do a recovery on a Time Machine backup done in a 2009 machine?
 
Pretty sure you can restore a Time Machine back up to a different machine. You'll just need an administrator user/password from the backed up machine.
 
Thanks Guys,

Excue my ignorance but how do i use the 'use target disk mode' I can only get to the screen where disk utility is (after the language screen and selecting 'restore'?
 
You can hold down the 't' key directly after startup the same way you hold down the 'c' key to boot to the optical drive.

Alternatively use startup disk and click 'Target Disk Mode...' (see attached screen)
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2011-06-21 at 16.42.12.png
    Screen shot 2011-06-21 at 16.42.12.png
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Ok, so after hitting target disk mode, what does this actually imply? I can connect ,my sons MBP to the imac, can this be only via firewire or will USB do?

Thanks again!
 
You'll need Firewire. I'd suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot volume to another external hard drive of the same capacity if possible...if not just copy the user files (media, docs, etc.) you actuallly need to the MBP if there is sufficient room.
 
Fuith said:
Back when I was using Windows machines (Just got my new iMac:)) I just booted up a Linux live cd for data recovery/system access. Would this work for Macs?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if Linux can read HFS partitions out of the box, but Ubuntu booted up okay on my Mac last time I tried.
 
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