Hard Drive Data Recovery?

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Of all the Macs I have (having many doesn't make me smart; just a fan) my favorite is my old faithful iBook G4 which I've had many years. Alas, yesterday, it gave up the ghost and is now a black, silent paperweight. I've tried to remember to save things but I had recent documents (legal) that I'd not yet gotten around to saving. I didn't expect the iBook to die; it's always been a great little machine.

I started another thread here, trying to bring the iBook back to life but it didn't pan out so, without getting back into that, my question is simply this: is there any sort of device that will allow one to remove the hard drive from a dead Mac and salvage what's on it? Some sort of "hard drive reader", not unlike a card reader? Pardon my ignorance, but I've been tripping along in life with my focus on other things and the knowledge of such things as salvaging hard drive data has escaped me. I've read a few articles but nothing that deals with extracting hard drive data from a Mac that won't boot up. I'm traveling now and can't devote the time to putting the little iBook "in the shop" but if there's some sort of contraption I can buy to retrieve what's on the hard drive, I'd appreciate any information.

If not, then let this be a lesson to me. :D
 
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You could remove the drive and drop it into a USB drive enclosure. Basically, think of an external drive, but without the drive. It could then be connected to any good Mac with a USB port and accessed. Newer Technology also has a drive adapter that works with both IDE (which is in your iBook) or SATA (in current model computers) and connects via USB.

USB 2.0 Bus Powered Portable Enclosure Serial-ATA 2.5" NoteBook Hard Drive Solution ($17 apx)
Newer Technology Universal Drive Adapter -... (U2NV2SPATA) at OWC ($28 apx)
 
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Oh... and instructions for removing the drive should be available on iFixit.com.
 
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gbsothere
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Thank you so much, EvenStranger! If you don't mind a follow-up question, must the working Mac that the USB drive enclosure is connected to have the same OS as the one the salvaged hard drive is related to?
 
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Also, you didn't mention whether you tried target disk mode.
 
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gbsothere
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Also, you didn't mention whether you tried target disk mode.


At one time, that was my intent, but I scrounged around and never could find my firewire cable. (I guess I forgot to bring it with me on the road.) But now that the iBook is a tombstone, I suppose it's a bit late for me to go that route. It won't fire up.

:)
 
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At one time, that was my intent, but I scrounged around and never could find my firewire cable. (I guess I forgot to bring it with me on the road.) But now that the iBook is a tombstone, I suppose it's a bit late for me to go that route. It won't fire up.

:)
Target disk mode does not require ignition of any sort. Many a Mac that won't start up can still function enough for target disk mode.
 
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gbsothere
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Target disk mode does not require ignition of any sort. Many a Mac that won't start up can still function enough for target disk mode.


I've only used a firewire once, maybe twice, in my life, but it was my understanding that the computer containing information that one wanted to move to another machine had to be started in "target" mode. Is this not the case, then? If I connect two Macs, working and non-working, with a firewire, you're saying that the working Mac will pick up the non-working Mac, even if the non-working (dead) Mac cannot be started as the target Mac?
 
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It's possible, but of course not certain, that a mostly-dead Mac that won't boot and won't even reach gray-screen will still work in TDM.

It's a long shot, but it can't hurt and if it doesn't work, you can go ahead with the disk transplant.
 
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gbsothere
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It's possible, but of course not certain, that a mostly-dead Mac that won't boot and won't even reach gray-screen will still work in TDM.

It's a long shot, but it can't hurt and if it doesn't work, you can go ahead with the disk transplant.


When it died, I'm afraid it went completely, at least, for now. It won't respond to the power button in any way. At this point, it might as well be a shoebox or a salami. :D

If I can do enough CPR to get it to cough, I'll try the firewire but, barring that, since it'll be a while before I'm home, I'll see if I can score a USB drive enclosure (again, still wondering if the OS needs to be the same on the host computer as the dead one?) and see what, if anything, I can salvage.

Thanks so much, everyone, for your help; much appreciated.
 
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Sorry for the delay, missed the thread update. No, the OS doesn't have to be identical, but I would recommend the same or higher. I've had mixed results using older OSes. One other option you might try is a unix file copy, if you are comfortable in terminal. File copies from the finder will stop if you hit an unreadable file. However, a unix file copy will chew on an unreadable file for a bit, either succeed or give up, and move to the next file.

cp -vfR sourcefiles destinationdirectory

So, if the drive mounts, it would be found under /Volumes. So, for example, if your old drive is named MacHD and your external drive is named Rescue, and you wanted to save the contents of your home directory, which is probably mostly what your worried about, the command would be:

cp -vfR /Volumes/MacHD/Users/yourusername/* /Volumes/Rescue/

sudo might be required if you receive errors that permissions is denied.

If you don't feel comfortable using the above, that's fine... some people are, some aren't, but I figured the information would be valuable to someone Googling.
 

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