iMac crashing after fuses blew.. advice please?

[oililymad]

I have an iMac with 2 external hard drives, one is mains powered, one USB.

The kettle blew taking the earth leakage with it. Several things have broken, My amplifier is gone, and for a few nail biting hours I thought the iMac had, Im still not sure.

What happens is that after a short while, I get a screen of death, telling me I need to turn the iMac off, I do so, then on restarting it has an error message that it wants to send to Apple. Always the same one.
a few minutes later it goes again.

I unplugged everything, just leaving the iMac and the external Monitor that I use.

It seems ok. Then I plug things in slowly, one by one. The Western Digital mains powered hard drive appears (though still not 100% sure, it may be coincidence) looks like the culprit in making the Mac crash.

Im relieved that its not looking like the iMac thats been damaged. But I need the content of the HD. Its partitioned, so that half is utilised by TM and the rest as extra storage.

Thing is how do i get that data off? Its still there, and I can access it very briefly until it crashes again, though nowhere long enough for me to transfer it

I am very very grateful to an Ex who installed at least some sense about back-ups into me, as I have music/photos and books backed up on another drive.

But I really want these 'other' (yes more personal ) photos back!!
also because of the content, I can't hand the drive over to anyone to retrieve it!

any one got any ideas? Is it even conceivable that the external HD could make my iMac crash like this?

thanks
and no, I'm not a dirty old man with dodgy photos, Im female, the photos are of me, and no, you can't see them..

 

[willieva]

How briefly is very briefly? If it's long enough to copy some of the files, you could try doing an rsync of the files on the bad drive to your local disk. Depending on how long it stays up for and how much data you have, it might be the easiest/quickest way of getting your data. It would probably take multiple attempts, but each time you would get more files.

It might be possible to buy a new drive or enclosure and put the old drive in it.

 

[macspert]

couple things

There are two things I can think of that could be causing the crash. First, since you said this drive is the Time Machine backup drive, TM could be crashing right after you plug it in. Try disabling TM on the Mac and then plug in the drive.

The other thing is that the USB in the drive is bad from the power short. The drive might be just fine and could be taken out of the external case and put in another or connect up using a temporary USB connection (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119244). If the drive is ok this would allow you to get the data off.

Good luck.

 

[oililymad]

How briefly is very briefly? If it's long enough to copy some of the files, you could try doing an rsync of the files on the bad drive to your local disk. Depending on how long it stays up for and how much data you have, it might be the easiest/quickest way of getting your data. It would probably take multiple attempts, but each time you would get more files.

It might be possible to buy a new drive or enclosure and put the old drive in it.

anything from 10 seconds to 2-3 minutes, but with nearly 1Tb of data and most of that being large photo files..

 

[oililymad]

update:
Well it was the WD HD.
I went and bought an identical one, and changed out the case.
Problem solved, and a happy lady here.
Thank-you

Now off to buy something that will stop power surges, and also if possible provide emergency power in case of a power cut, while the fear of losing my data is fresh in my mind

 

[Razorhog]

update:
Well it was the WD HD.
I went and bought an identical one, and changed out the case.
Problem solved, and a happy lady here.
Thank-you

Now off to buy something that will stop power surges, and also if possible provide emergency power in case of a power cut, while the fear of losing my data is fresh in my mind

Sounds like you definitely need to invest in a UPS.

 

[oililymad]

yes, Ive ordered a UPS. should arrive tomorrow with luck

 

[old-wiz]

yes, Ive ordered a UPS. should arrive tomorrow with luck

We have UPS devices on both of our desktops, and they saved both computers when there was a nasty electrical storm that killed the TV, a clock or two, and a light.