MacBook Hardrive failed... Free Data Recovery?

Hi everyone,

I have a MacBook (White Plastic). I upgraded the hard drive awhile back, and did this using a third party. That was my first mistake. I have some files backed up on an external hard drive but not everything, 7000 + pictures, 6700 + songs, and home videos.

I am totally grieved by this experience.

I was looking through a Digital Booklet from iTunes. I was viewing the booklet through Adobe Reader. As I would go from one page to the next I noticed that every time my computer got slower and slower. Until finally, the unthinkable. It locked up, so, I held down the power button to reboot it. When I turned it back on the screen just had the start-up bluish screen for about twenty minutes. Then a fold popped up with a question mark in it.

So, I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store. They tried to read the drive using their equipment. Didn't work.

I live in Fresno Ca, and if anyone can help me to get these files back with out spending an upwards of 1000+ dollars that would really help.

I just have to get these files back. Anything will help.

Thanks,

-Scott Parker


P.S. Just a word of the wise, NEVER buy a third party hard drive when upgrading. Always buy from the trusted Apple Store.

If you have another machine you could try putting the hard drive in there as a secondary drive then trying to recover the files using data recovery software?

scottwparker said:

P.S. Just a word of the wise, NEVER buy a third party hard drive when upgrading. Always buy from the trusted Apple Store.

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The Apple Store hard drives being sold are third party anyways. Third party HD are just as good as the one you would buy directly from Apple.

Unfortunately, once the hard drive is dead it's pretty much gone. If Apple couldn't recover the data then there's a small chance anyone else will.

Regarding your "word to the wise"..... The drives which the Apple store install at double the price are the very same ones being sold by third party resellers.

As for recovering the data from the drive, you may be able to mount the drive in an external USB case or from an adaptor and access it that way. No guaranty it will work but worth a try.

If you can't afford to lose your photos and music, then consider a professional data recovery service. And by the way, next time make a backup.

Regards.

chscag said:

As for recovering the data from the drive, you may be able to mount the drive in an external USB case or from an adaptor and access it that way. No guaranty it will work but worth a try.

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What do you mean by "external USM case"? And, are there any companies that do data recovery for a low price?

scottwparker said:

What do you mean by "external USM case"? And, are there any companies that do data recovery for a low price?

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Data recovery is extremely expensive. I don't know any cheap solutions out there.

He referred to an external USB case so you can connect it to a pc/mac and see if you can extract any data.

Is this what I would need?

USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure, 2.5" SATA Drives

scottwparker said:

Is this what I would need?

USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure, 2.5" SATA Drives

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Yes.

Also, look into Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X. It can sometimes recover data from bad drives (providing they are not totally dead).

A better word of the wise:

Backup, Backup, Backup!

Your harddrive can & will die at some point. Maybe in half an hour, maybe in 2 years. But statistically speaking, it's going to die.

The files you actually "have" are the ones that you have a backup of. Anything that's not backed up, you don't actually "have".

Sorry - I know this doesn't really help you, but lets hope this is the last time you loose data.

cwa107 said:

Yes.

Also, look into Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X. It can sometimes recover data from bad drives (providing they are not totally dead).

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When you say, "providing they are not totally dead". My computer can't read or recognize the drive at all. It's blank. Does that mean that it's "totally dead"?

scottwparker said:

When you say, "providing they are not totally dead". My computer can't read or recognize the drive at all. It's blank. Does that mean that it's "totally dead"?

Click to expand...

It depends. If the drive is recognized on the bus (it doesn't necessarily have to mount to the desktop), Rescue may still be able to see it and recover files.

Either way, it can't hurt to try - the pre-release version is free.