Imac hard drive buggered , need those files :(

Re Here
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os...serious-mac-problem-advice-mac-osx-tiger.html

Booted up the system today and she can't get past the grey screen, did a hard drive check and it's coming up with volume errors and can't be fixed. However she is really upset because she can't access her family photos going back to 2007. Nor can we burn them to a dvdr!, Don't know what to do, all we want to do is get access to the desktop so we can back everything up so the imac can be taken in for repair

I was actually out today to purchase a pack of dvdr's but i didn't get to the imac in time to backup her family albums

Pity you did not have an external drive with important files backed up. You might like to try Data Rescue to see if it is capable of accessing the drive. Commercial recovery is as dear as hens teeth.

Two words - Time Machine. Always have a back up.

Bit late now ^, i have EVERYTHING backed up on my pc always do. But not everyone is mac savy and to be honest it's **** easier to recover files on a pc that it is on a mac. It's also easier to get the hard drive out copy just the needed folders over for a back if one fails .

Is it possible to get the mac drive out, use my sata cable on it and transfer the files over to my 1TB PC ?

Recovering files from a Mac's hard drive is just as easy or hard as from a PC. Hard drives are no different in a Mac than they are in a PC.

Removing the hard drive from your iMac is a fairly difficult task. You can do it yourself with the right tools and step by step instructions. You can get step by step instructions at iFixit: The free repair manual.

Once the drive is removed you can try placing it in an external carrier and attach it to another Mac to see if you can read from it. Attaching it to a PC would require third party software to read from the drive.

Thanks chscag

Out of interest, would Disk Warrior get me into the desktop?. I've read that it can possibly fix Invalid volume header

Disk Warrior is a good choice. Version 4 even includes a bootable DVD which can be used to run diagnostics and repairs.

chscag said:

Disk Warrior is a good choice. Version 4 even includes a bootable DVD which can be used to run diagnostics and repairs.

Click to expand...

I agree, Disk Warrior has saved me many times. In fact, right now I am using disk warrior to pull files off of one of my externals which has just died.

Thanks, i've got 4.3 today

Loads up DiskWarrior, then i get a No Entry sign appear on a grey screen and i can't do anything else

Also having no end of trouble getting the drive to eject the dvd/cdr only once it actually did with a previous dvd. Comes up with BUSS ERROR, if you use terminal or single user mode.

Using the normal boot it now just shuts itself off at grey screen.

Not good, mum is upset

Unfortunately, Disk Warrior can not repair a drive that it can not access. I believe your best solution for now is to remove the drive, place it in a USB carrier and try to use Disk Warrior from another Mac to see if you can either repair the drive or at least get your data off it.

I would suggest Target Disk Mode using the FW ports, but if Disk Warrior can't access that drive, neither will Target Disk Mode work.

I've got another drive from my PC and it's been converted to a MAC partition via macdrive 8, atleast i can for the time being replace the drive.

Would that be possible?

Hopefully she can use the mac until i get the old drive sorted

UPDATE

The imac now has a new internal hard drive, all repaired cleaned up and installed myself!. Good fun, though i prefer a pc upgrade any day

Over the week i'll be looking into data recovery from the old drive