data recovery?

I have a MacBook. A couple months ago my harddrive went bad to the point where it couldn't be reformatted or even "found" when trying to reinstall operating system. I have a new harddrive now that works well, but I am wondering if there is ANY way to get a few files off of the bad harddrive? There are only a few files I'd really like to get, but those files are very very important to me. I'm having a hard time accepting I may not ever get them back.

If the drive cannot even be seen, chances are the controller board has gone.

Unless you are willing to pay a professional company top dollar, there's no way to recover data

Make sure you have a time machine backup from now on, its saved my bacon a number of times

cabeatty said:

I have a MacBook. A couple months ago my harddrive went bad to the point where it couldn't be reformatted or even "found" when trying to reinstall operating system. I have a new harddrive now that works well, but I am wondering if there is ANY way to get a few files off of the bad harddrive? There are only a few files I'd really like to get, but those files are very very important to me. I'm having a hard time accepting I may not ever get them back.

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The cheapest (and IMO best option) is to purchase an External HD enclosure (~ $30) and Data Rescue 3 from the APP Store (I thnk this is now about $50). For a total investment of under $100 you can try to recover your files. I have had a fair amount of success tis way, but the risk s you will get nothing for your money.

More likely to succeed, but far more costly, is to send your drive to data recovery specialists.

When we say costly, we are talking $1200-2500 or so depending on a number of factors. DriveSavers is the best in the biz, but also the most expensive.

Hi Chas M -

You could try a quote from The Data Rescue Center , they are a sister company of Prosoft Engineering.
If a drive doesn't show up in Disk Utility that is your major indication to stop and not try anything more if your interesting in recovering the data from it. Formatting and attempting to reinstall a OS will only make matter worse for data recovery efforts. Even connecting the drive via: enclosure , docking bay within the OS. If you must try to access the drive do it by the Data Rescue 3 DVD , this method prevents Disk Utility / OS to attempt to run SMART status on it and it can be costly if it does. The best approach is data recovery services if within the budget from a truly failing drive. If data recovery services are not in the budget, try cloning the drive to another drive first and then scan the cloned drive afterwards. This is the safest way and it is more consistent throughout the process.

Data Recovery Experts | Data Recovery Expert | Data Recovery Specialist | The Data Rescue Center

Cheers,

Mike