Data Recovery from old drive that crashed

[Kirodoc]

So, I have replaced my hard drive with a new one, which went smoothly. I have the old drive in an enclosure and have been trying to pull data from it. This isn't going so smoothly.

When I connect the drive to my machine (MacBook Pro mid 2012, 15" 9,1 running Yosemite), it says that the disk has errors and can't be repaired, so back it up and recover files, etc. I can access the files from the drive, but only a handful of files are copying over, successfully. Most often, it starts the copying process and then hangs up, indefinitely. I can't even stop or cancel the copying. It just stays there and I have to reboot to get it to go away. It has even crashed my machine a couple of times, so now I'm getting a little worried.

The old drive was analyzed and reported a "Bad sector error" on the OS X side. I had a Windows 7 partition also and that continued to work.

Any insight into what I'm dealing with? How can I get these files from the drive?

Thanks for any help.

 

[pigoo3]

I'm thinking that your expectations are a bit on the high side. A crashed hard drive is just that...a crashed hard drive. It sort of sounds like you're expecting to be able to recover files like this HD is operating normally...and this just isn't the case.

Now it does actually sound like you are able to access the HD in a partial manner (which is good). In many cases folks dealing with a crashed HD have ZERO access! But you are still faced with the issues of a crashed HD. Which is...problems. Things won't go smoothly or as expected.

What I would do is...only transfer or copy small amounts of info at a time (no BIG chunks). This improves your chances of at least getting some info transferred. Instead of an error in the middle of a big transfer & having to start over (due to the indefinite hanging).

If you continue to have trouble...there are programs like "Disk Warrior" that can help. Here's also a review of 10 Mac Hard Drive Recovery apps (for some reason Disk Warrior is not included):

Mac Hard Drive Recovery Review 2015 | Best Mac Disk Recovery | Mac File Recovery Software - TopTenREVIEWS

- Nick

p.s. Of course I shouldn't have to say that if you had a backup...this would be easy!

 

[Kirodoc]

Thanks for the reply. To be honest, my expectations were low. I'm basing my actions on what a ton of folks told me to do. I am actually transferring things in many small batches, some even a file at time, rather than a folder. I'm not expecting too much, but I'm also completely unfamiliar to doing this, so I don't know if what I'm seeing is "normal" or the telltale result of something that could be done a better way. I've had someone do this for me before and a ton of the data was recovered. This time around, it seems very little. Anyway, I'll just keep trying.

 

[pigoo3]

To be honest, my expectations were low.

My definition of "high expectations" for recovering files from a crashed hard drive is...expecting to be able to have ANY access to the HD or being able to even recover one file! Usually when folks have a crashed HD...it's basically a paperweight/doorstop.

The fact that you do have access to the HD...and seem to be recovering at least some info..puts you wayyy ahead of the curve.

Of course maybe calling this HD "crashed" is not the proper term. Maybe it's a "failing HD".

- Failing HD = Cracked raw egg.
- Crashed HD = Egg got run over by a car!



- Nick

 

[Kirodoc]

Hahaha, OK it definitely "failed".

Thanks for the link to those apps, I'll keep those for consideration.

I do have a backup, but it's a few months old and on the other side of the country.

Have you ever heard of cooling the bad drive down by keeping it in the freezer for an hour and then trying to get it to show up in Migration Assistant? I have read a thread where a lot of folks had success with this. Anyway, I tried it and nothing was different.