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Old Mac OS HDD

K

kellylewis81

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2017
7
0
Swindon
Hi Guys,

A newbie here to the forum so hoping I've put this in the right place.

My HDD appeared to die after installing MacOS Sierra. I have since upgraded the HDD to and SSD and have successfully installed the OS back on and have my Macbook Pro back up and running, however I would like to recover the photos off of my old HDD.

When I connect it via USB to my MacBook it doesn't mount. I navigate to Disk Utility and can see it listed but again I am unable to mount it.

Do you know of any software I can use to get the data off of it? Or is there another way I can try and mount the HDD??

Thanks
 
When you plug the drive into the USB port, do you hear it "spin up" inside the enclosure?
Or.... nothing?

Do you by chance have a DIFFERENT Mac that you could try mounting the drive on?
 
Hi, yes it spins up straight away. Doesn't sound clunky at all.

I don't have another Mac but I have a PC that I can plug in to. Again, it spins up and shows up in device manager but doesn't allow me to access it or assign it a drive letter for access.
 
Just another thought. Maybe it isn’t receiving enough power via the USB connection. Hopefully you have it plugged directly in to you MBP and not through a hub. Although not commonly used anymore there are some USB connectors that combine 2 USB ports (from your MBP) to the single USB port (to your HDD) to ensure the HDD is receiving sufficient power.
 
satcomer said:
Stop using it! Then the other poster pointed you to a hard drive specialists that can retrieve data from broken hardware!
Click to expand...

I can't see a post with a link in to retrieve the data?
[doublepost=1484055439][/doublepost]
bdj33ranch said:
Just another thought. Maybe it isn’t receiving enough power via the USB connection. Hopefully you have it plugged directly in to you MBP and not through a hub. Although not commonly used anymore there are some USB connectors that combine 2 USB ports (from your MBP) to the single USB port (to your HDD) to ensure the HDD is receiving sufficient power.
Click to expand...

Yes, connected directly in to the MBP and also have tired other ports to make sure it wasn't the port.
 
If the drive has suffered a physical failure (either hardware or perhaps the controller card), it's still possible for professional data recovery firms to get the data off of it.

BUT...be aware that using these services can be VERY expensive, sometimes running into the thousands of dollars.

Take a deep breath and think clearly:
Is the data on the drive worth that much to you?

There is another way you might be able to get the data from it (without resorting to a professional firm).
I've successfully used this procedure to recover data from a partition that would no longer mount. What needs to be done:
1. You will need ANOTHER drive to serve as "the scratch/recovery" disk. (This means having TWO drives, the bad one and a good one)
2. You'll need data recovery software such as "DataRescue"
3. Next, re-initialize the problem drive (that's the "erase" button in Disk Utility), but DO NOT ZERO-OUT THE DATA. In DU this is referred to as "secure erase". YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS! Just do a quick reinitialization.
4. Now, the drive "looks like" it's empty, because the quick reinitialization replaces the old directory with a fresh one. But the actual data IS STILL OUT THERE ON THE PLATTERS OF THE DRIVE.
5. Now run DataRescue on the drive. DR will "ignore" the empty directory, and "go right to the platters". It will scavenge around, find the data, and attempt to re-assemble it into usable files.
6. DR will save what it finds to the scratch drive (that's why you need the second drive).
7. Be aware that you'll probably lose all previous folder hierarchies and most (or all of) the previous file names. But this is "par for the course" with data recovery. The consolation is that you get the files back.

No promises here. The above procedure can work if the directory is hopelessly munged, but won't help if the drive itself has suffered a hardware failure.
 
There is software such as Disk Drill, Data Rescue, and a bunch of others; if the drive spins up and is accessible at all at the hardware level, recovery software might help you get some stuff back. Or, you can send the drive to a recovery specialist. I've never had to do either, nor has anyone I know, so I hesitate to recommend anything specific.

Edited to add: From what I can see online, I think the data recovery services tend to be oriented towards saving data from dead drives, i.e. actually removing the platters and attempting to read whatever can be read using special hardware. Obviously that's going to be $$$$. I'd be inclined to try a recovery software tool before sending the drive out somewhere.
 
Thank you everyone, think I will try some recovery software and then will have to suck it up of it doesn't work! Fingers crossed...Thank you all for your help
 
kellylewis81 said:
Thank you everyone, think I will try some recovery software and then will have to suck it up of it doesn't work! Fingers crossed...Thank you all for your help
Click to expand...
Have a look at Diskwarrior ($120) from Alsoft: http://www.alsoft.com
or Data Rescue ($99) from Prosoft https://www.prosofteng.com

The latter provides a demo to see if it'll successfully recover your files before purchase.

I keep Diskwarrior and Drive Genius up-to-date as my disaster recovery kit. If they don't work then the drive is a paperweight. But as others have said, the time/trouble/expense depends on the value of the files to you.
Hope all goes well!
 
JackRoch said:
Have a look at Diskwarrior ($120) from Alsoft: http://www.alsoft.com
or Data Rescue ($99) from Prosoft https://www.prosofteng.com

The latter provides a demo to see if it'll successfully recover your files before purchase.

I keep Diskwarrior and Drive Genius up-to-date as my disaster recovery kit. If they don't work then the drive is a paperweight. But as others have said, the time/trouble/expense depends on the value of the files to you.
Hope all goes well!
Click to expand...

Thats great thank you, I will definitely try this software.
 
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