Need help reading HDD pulled from an Acer laptop...

[davidg4781]

I'm working on a friend's laptop that won't start Windows (trying my best to get her to buy a MBP in January).

I pulled the hard drive and put it in an enclosure to try to back up any information that may be on there. I currently only have a Mac, so I'm not sure if that's the issue.

When I plug in the HDD, I can only access one partition, but there are 2 others on the drive. The one I can see looks to be a restore partition or something, but I can't get into the normal drive.

This partition is formatted as NTFS, the other as MS-DOS (FAT16) and the small one as 0x27 (whatever that is).

I'm not sure if this is in the right forum, but being that I'm using a Mac, I thought I'd ask here. I can install Windows XP on my Mac if that would help, but I'd have to reinstall Snow Leopard since Bootcamp won't partition the space.

I think I am going to need to so that I can do a drive fitness test.

And I just found out I can download Parallels Desktop as a 14 day trial, so I may just do that.

 

[dissolve]

You could try something like this or any number of software that allows you to mount and read from a NTFS drive. I just came up with that one but there are many others.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

There is no need for any third party application to read from NTFS formatted volumes, as Mac OS X can do that natively. You only need a third party application to enable write capability.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11568828/

Anyway, what do you see in Disk Utility as partition scheme and what not? Maybe you can take some screenshots with the different partitions selected?
http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X

 

[dissolve]

There is no need for any third party application to read from NTFS formatted volumes, as Mac OS X can do that natively. You only need a third party application to enable write capability.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11568828/

Anyway, what do you see in Disk Utility as partition scheme and what not? Maybe you can take some screenshots with the different partitions selected?
http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X

Very true. OP said the partition scheme is NTFS, FAT16, and an unknown type (I assumed this was the readout from Disk Utility). It's possible that the NTFS partition is corrupted, which would be why Windows isn't booting. 3rd party software may help access the drive if you are unable to through normal means.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Very true. OP said the partition scheme is NTFS, FAT16, and an unknown type (I assumed this was the readout from Disk Utility). It's possible that the NTFS partition is corrupted, which would be why Windows isn't booting. 3rd party software may help access the drive if you are unable to through normal means.

NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 (called "MS-DOS file system/format in Disk Utility) are not partition schemes, but file systems or formats as Apple calls them.
Master Boot Record (MBR), GUID or Apple Partition Map are partition schemes.

But I agree, that a 3rd party software might help to get proper readings.
NTFS-3G is free and easily to install.
http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/2010/10/ntfs-3g-for-mac-os-x-2010102.html

 

[dissolve]

NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 (called "MS-DOS file system/format in Disk Utility) are not partition schemes, but file systems or formats as Apple calls them.
Master Boot Record (MBR), GUID or Apple Partition Map are partition schemes.

But I agree, that a 3rd party software might help to get proper readings.
NTFS-3G is free and easily to install.
http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/2010/10/ntfs-3g-for-mac-os-x-2010102.html

You're right, my mistake. Thanks for the correction