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MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada
So tonight, I was checking Facebook when it seemed my iMac felt slow. I thought i had too many torrents running so I went to shut some off and my computer froze, really bad. I had to hit the power switch. When I went to turn it back on i saw a folder with a "?" question mark on it, and have not been able to boot up since.

I found the help topics on Apples website and have done everything, inserted the install DVD's and checked Disk Utility and it just shows a drive "Media" and says its 0 bytes in size. After trying everything several times I once got it to show the size of the drive, but it said "unpartitioned". I have not been able to get it to show that again however.

This is an Intel iMac that just came out of the 1 year warranty in August. Like a cheap idiot, I did not buy Apple care, but thats the least of my worries.

I have 3+ years of un-backed up family photos on there that I CANNOT loose. Does it sound like my drive is fried for good? Should I bring it to Apple, or an authorized mac repair place? Can I do anything? HELP!!!

UPDATE: On Page 3
 

emt1

macrumors 65816
Jan 30, 2008
1,387
20
Wisconsin
If you have other computers in the house you could pull out the hard drive and try to use Data Rescue 2

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

If that fails, someone else might be able to provide other software alternatives.

Otherwise, it's off to Seagate it goes for hardware recovery, probably costing thousands of dollars.

External hard drives (or time capsule) + Time Machine are cheap

So tonight, I was checking Facebook when it seemed my iMac felt slow. I thought i had too many torrents running so I went to shut some off and my computer froze, really bad. I had to hit the power switch. When I went to turn it back on i saw a folder with a "?" question mark on it, and have not been able to boot up since.

I found the help topics on Apples website and have done everything, inserted the install DVD's and checked Disk Utility and it just shows a drive "Media" and says its 0 bytes in size. After trying everything several times I once got it to show the size of the drive, but it said "unpartitioned". I have not been able to get it to show that again however.

This is an Intel iMac that just came out of the 1 year warranty in August. Like a cheap idiot, I did not buy Apple care, but thats the least of my worries.

I have 3+ years of un-backed up family photos on there that I CANNOT loose. Does it sound like my drive is fried for good? Should I bring it to Apple, or an authorized mac repair place? Can I do anything? HELP!!!
 

11800506

macrumors 65816
Oct 31, 2007
1,060
1
Washington D.C. Area
If you have another Mac you could try connecting them by Firewire and booting up in Target Disk Mode by pressing T (?) on startup. I'm not sure about that key, but basically that will allow you to access your files on the other Mac as if it were an external hard drive. The drive has to not be dead for that to work though.
 

MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada
I tired the Target disk mode thing and got nothing. It does not show up on my MacBook at all. I dunno about taking the hard drive out, I would have no way to connect it to my MacBook. I don't think i have the right enclosure.

and THOUSANDS of dollars? Seriously? I was expecting hundreds.
 

dmw007

macrumors G4
May 26, 2005
10,635
0
Working for MI-6
If you have another Mac you could try connecting them by Firewire and booting up in Target Disk Mode by pressing T (?) on startup. I'm not sure about that key, but basically that will allow you to access your files on the other Mac as if it were an external hard drive. The drive has to not be dead for that to work though.

"T" is the right key to press to start up in Target Disk Mode. :)
 

maclover001

macrumors 6502a
Mar 25, 2008
895
0
Vancouver, Canada
I'm sorry to hear about your troubles :(

Time Machine has saved my life several times. I highly recommend picking up a Time Capsule, so even if your iMac explodes, you still have your files.

Hey, it beats $800+ in data recovery costs.
 

MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada
Believe me, I'll be backing up from now on. i just really need to get my photos back. Our family is crazy with the amount of photos we take, and loosing 3 years worth is alot. Not to mention, my wedding pics are on there! Not exactly replaceable.

I've read things about ways to recover though terminal, but thats out of my range of knowledge. Could it be something other than the hard drive? Could it be something with the ATA connection on the mother board seeing as it won't mount, show up in disk utility or connect to my MacBook via firewire?
 

petermcphee

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2008
631
0
Believe me, I'll be backing up from now on. i just really need to get my photos back. Our family is crazy with the amount of photos we take, and loosing 3 years worth is alot. Not to mention, my wedding pics are on there! Not exactly replaceable.

I've read things about ways to recover though terminal, but thats out of my range of knowledge. Could it be something other than the hard drive? Could it be something with the ATA connection on the mother board seeing as it won't mount, show up in disk utility or connect to my MacBook via firewire?

My wife takes a ton of pictures, and she uses Flickr Pro account. It's $30 per year or something like that, and it has almost unlimited upload capacity. Great way to backup photos.
 

philbeeney

macrumors 6502
Jul 24, 2004
496
50
Vankleek Hill
I tired the Target disk mode thing and got nothing. It does not show up on my MacBook at all. I dunno about taking the hard drive out, I would have no way to connect it to my MacBook. I don't think i have the right enclosure.

and THOUSANDS of dollars? Seriously? I was expecting hundreds.

My PowerBook drive died last year (80GB) and I didn't back it up either. It cost me approx $1800 to recover the files from it. I replaced the PowerBook drive myself and bought a 500GB Time Capsule.
 

MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada
Ya I tried fsck and I can't get it into safe mode or single user mode.

I feel like everything I try just comes up with the folder and the ?. UGH!
 

maclover001

macrumors 6502a
Mar 25, 2008
895
0
Vancouver, Canada
Ya I tried fsck and I can't get it into safe mode or single user mode.

I feel like everything I try just comes up with the folder and the ?. UGH!

Open the iMac, and take out the hard drive, then put the drive in the freezer in a ziplock bag for about 20 minutes. This usually fixes the drive temporarily, just enough for you to get your data off it.
 

sushi

Moderator emeritus
Jul 19, 2002
15,639
3
キャンプスワ&#
But did you try restarting on the system restore disc?
He mentioned that he started with the Install DVD and tried Disk Utilities.

To the OP, if you have access to a PC and the hard drive is spinning, you could try SpinRite.

Of course with SpinRite you will need to remove the HD and connect it to a PC. SpinRite works great.
 

sn00pie

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2008
593
0
United States
This is a shot in the dark. Can't you boot off the Leopard disks and just do the upgrade install; where all your data is still intact, its just the system folder gets replaced?
 

hayduke

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2005
1,177
2
is a state of mind.
My advice is to be patient and to not do things your don't *entirely* understand or feel *entirely* comfortable doing. You hard drive sounds like it is toast, but you may be able to recover, but you can also further screw it up if you don't know what you're doing. Be patient. Take deep breaths. Go slow. Read a lot.

Good luck!
 

MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada
I have not tried taking the drive out because I'm not entirely comfortable taking apart my iMac, and also I have no enclosure to hook it up in to recover the files.

When i try and do the upgrade from the install disks it shows no drive to select as my target for install.

I'm making some calls tomorrow to the Apple store and my authorized apple repair place in town. Hopefully I'll get some help.

The freezer thing sounds intriguing.
 

sn00pie

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2008
593
0
United States
Oh and if you bought it last August, you still have a 1-year window to extend your AppleCare upto 3-years. So you have until August before your 1-year is up.
 

beatledud

macrumors 6502
May 4, 2006
269
0
similar problem, my friend's drive died, i ripped it out of his notebook, placed it in a usb enclosure, ran diskwarrior, and it said it was too damaged to replace, and suggested looking at the preview disk and backing up what you needed. Now if it's under 10 meg, I can copy it over, usually as the same size as it was, but every file is corrupt, and if I open, say a pdf, in text edit, there is nothing there. Even when I copy it, it always gives me an error 36 "the finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "xxxxxxxx" could not be read or written. Larger files it just waits on the "estimating time to copy" prompt and I can't end the copy, have to restart Finder itself. Thoughts?
 

MVallee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 8, 2007
810
183
Ontario, Canada

Yes, I know. I have learned my lesson and my computer is backup up like nobody's business. This is my Mom's computer, who does not backup. She takes 99% of all the family pictures, so they all are on her computer. I should have backed it up for her I suppose, but she never asked :p

I dropped it off at an Apple repair place in town (The Apple Store said they would replace the hard drive, but not try to get the data back). The guy in town is going to replace my hard drive and have the iMac back tomorrow. Then he's going to work on the old drive and see what he can get out of it. He's also upgrading to Leopard so I can set my mom up with Time Machine to prevent this from happening again.

I hope he can get the files back.
 
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