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Recovering data from laptop

L

lizruns

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 20, 2014
8
0
Hey MacRumors, maybe you can help me out.

My macbook pro flipped out on me. Wouldn't boot up, took me straight to utilities. Took it to the Apple store and they determined there was an issue with the software (not the hardware) and that I just needed to wipe the drive and reinstall OS X. Which is all well and good but I (of course) haven't backed my files up in ages.

The guy at the Apple store told me I could hook up my external hard drive and run the OS on it, and then try and salvage my files. Problem is... I'm having some issues locating said files. Not sure if I missed a step, but the OS is running on my external hard drive right now, but it just looks like a new computer.

Any ideas? I'd love to not lose all my work files, so I'm hoping someone here has some advice. Google searching has gotten me some advice, but of a lot of it is technically over my head or is for people with fried hard drives, which is not my issue.
 
Hi,

I understand that you have installed a new OS on an external hard drive, right ?

Go to Finder / Preferences / Side Bar / Devices, and tick the "Hard disks" box.

Your internal hard drive should now show up in the Finder's side bar, and you should be able to access your data, under : Macintosh HD / Users / your_user_name
 
Bruno09 said:
Hi,

I understand that you have installed a new OS on an external hard drive, right ?

Go to Finder / Preferences / Side Bar / Devices, and tick the "Hard disks" box.

Your internal hard drive should now show up in the Finder's side bar, and you should be able to access your data, under : Macintosh HD / Users / your_user_name
Click to expand...

By Finder's Sidebar I assume you mean when you open a file or whatever, and what displays on the left hand side. Hard Disks was already checked, but I checked the rest of them. Not showing up. I just see the external hard drive and "Elizabeth's MacBookPro" which just displays the External Hardrive again and the Network.

Any other idea? I'm 90% sure the OS is running on the hard drive because it wasn't working at all until I did that.
 
Looks like your internal hard drive is not longer "visible"...

Go to Applications / Utilities, launch "Disk utility".

Take a screenshot of the window please.
 
2zfu8zs.png

That should be it.
 
Yes, nearly it.
Launch (double-click) Disk Utility.
Take a screen shot of THAT disk utility window, which will show all active storage devices.
 
simonsi said:
Can you remember what steps you took or post which instructions you followed?
Click to expand...


I basically following the instructions the guy at the Apple Store gave me.

----------

Ha, my bad. Here it actually is.

969dvr.png
 
lizruns said:
I basically following the instructions the guy at the Apple Store gave me.

----------

Ha, my bad. Here it actually is.

Image
Click to expand...

Great. WHAT WERE THEY??? We can't talk to him so it would be really useful to know what those steps were - it may make a difference to recovering your data or not.

Want help, give information.
 
Here we can see your internal 320 GB hard drive.

Try this : select the "Macintosh HD" partition, then click on the blue "Mount" button.
 
simonsi said:
Great. WHAT WERE THEY??? We can't talk to him so it would be really useful to know what those steps were - it may make a difference to recovering your data or not.

Want help, give information.
Click to expand...

... I did. In my first post. Guy told me to install the OS on my external hard drive and I might be able to salvage files off my computer that way. The issue is I've done that, yet can't seem to locate the files stored on my computer. I was asking if anyone knew where they might be hiding since that was the extent of what he told me.

No need to be snappy.
 
lizruns said:
... I did. In my first post. Guy told me to install the OS on my external hard drive and I might be able to salvage files off my computer that way. The issue is I've done that, yet can't seem to locate the files stored on my computer. I was asking if anyone knew where they might be hiding since that was the extent of what he told me.

No need to be snappy.
Click to expand...

Nope, you just seem to be being evasive, "install the OS" can involve several differences in how you do it, what steps do you take to achieve that. You are telling me "I went to work", I am asking how - walk down the street? take a cab? fly?

Did you erase the drive, format it, Cmd-R recovery boot? The devil is in the detail....maybe

Just to add, I'm not convinced you are running the OS on your external drive, that would indicate you may have formatted/erased your internal drive.....
 
Bruno09 said:
Here we can see your internal 320 GB hard drive.

Try this : select the "Macintosh HD" partition, then click on the blue "Mount" button.
Click to expand...

Not letting me mount Mac HD. Tells me the disk need to be repaired, so I try running First Aid and it's like "sorry, back up your files and wipe your OS".
 
lizruns said:
Not letting me mount Mac HD. Tells me the disk need to be repaired, so I try running First Aid and it's like "sorry, back up your files and wipe your OS".
Click to expand...

Can you screenshot that please, I can't remember anywhere OSX asks you to backup files on a drive it can't mount....
 
simonsi said:
Nope, you just seem to be being evasive, "install the OS" can involve several differences in how you do it, what steps do you take to achieve that. You are telling me "I went to work", I am asking how - walk down the street? take a cab? fly?

Did you erase the drive, format it, Cmd-R recovery boot? The devil is in the detail....maybe

Just to add, I'm not convinced you are running the OS on your external drive, that would indicate you may have formatted/erased your internal drive.....
Click to expand...

Okay, be more specific next time. If you want a play by play, say that.

Basically, I hooked up the external hard drive. Had to reformat is to support partitions or something to that effect, which I did, which wiped it which was fine. Then I used Disk Utility to install my OS. It basically gave me a screen that allowed me to select the Mac HD or my external HD. I selected the external one, installed it, and my computer now functions like it should in that I can surf the web. It looks like my files still exist somewhere because I still see what I believe was the name of my old HD (Elizabeth's MacBookPro or whatever it was) but I don't see a way into it.

It should be noted that it wouldn't let me install a new OS on my HD because it was telling toto repair it in utilities, which then told me to wipe it (which I didn't do) and prior to putting it on my external HD it just booted up straight to the utilities screen. So I'm pretty certain it's running on my external HD and I didn't accidentally delete my hard drive.

----------

So this is is what I get when I try to mount...
2i6vc.png


And when I do disk repair, I get this.
24yp7cw.png


Perhaps I need to to the Hitachi HD? The guy at the store mentioned mounting that, but it was prior to him recommending me doing the extern HD thing.
 
Last edited:
See the "invalid B-tree node size" message in red - that indicates the problem, or one of them. I'd recommend you download diskwarrior and run that, it may be able to rebuild the file structure to enable you to get your files off.

http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

Failing that I see reformat as your only option but TBH I wouldn't trust that disk again, I would replace it then format/install your OS.
 
T5BRICK said:
I've found that there are utilities out there that do a better job at disk repair than others. I used to use Disk Warrior, but there are some others. You can try that, but your data may be lost.
Click to expand...

I'll look ingot Disk Warrior. I'm thinking it may be gone too, but I just wanted to check and see if there were any secrets someone on here might know.

----------
simonsi said:
See the "invalid B-tree node size" message in red - that indicates the problem, or one of them. I'd recommend you download diskwarrior and run that, it may be able to rebuild the file structure to enable you to get your files off.

http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

Failing that I see reformat as your only option but TBH I wouldn't trust that disk again, I would replace it then format/install your OS.
Click to expand...

Hm, well replacing the disk probably isn't doable right now as I'm sure that'll cost some money. But I guess it won't matter if all my files are gone anyway.

I'll try disk warrior. Thanks for all your help!
 
lizruns said:
Hm, well replacing the disk probably isn't doable right now as I'm sure that'll cost some money. But I guess it won't matter if all my files are gone anyway.

I'll try disk warrior. Thanks for all your help!
Click to expand...

Probably same money for Disk Warrior or a new bigger disk. If you re-use the disk I'd be worried the error could reoccur (for instance if this is the first indication of a physical patch of disk degrading.....you could lose data all over again.)
 
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