Jun 09
Before you “try stuff” to recover a hard drive that won’t come up on you Mac please listen to this podcast. What to do if your hard drive doesn’t come up.
Fixing a Mac that won’t Boot [link]
Hard Drive Recovery Check List [link]
July 30th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Really nice and informative show!
Is it possible to get the links in the show notes working?
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 am
The links would be great guys, love the show, I do this stuff and it’s what keeps me going.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Can you post some of the external HD enclosures you do recommend (not the double prong USB cable enclosures)?
November 1st, 2007 at 2:40 am
The links aren’t active. I would really like to read the Hard Drive Recovery Checklist.
November 15th, 2008 at 3:59 am
love the pod cast very useful
November 15th, 2008 at 4:05 am
Hi i found the podcast very useful and I have made a transcript of part of the podcast and have tried to post it her with no luck, but I have also uploaded it to media fire at this link http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=9a72117f9799bc31ab1eab3e9fa335ca4fb77c6f3cf7f15a
November 15th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Hi I liked the pod cast and found it useful. I done a transcript of it
After listening to the podcast I have made some notes from it
The check list
1st Check the power, is it computer plugged in and powering up does the power light go on.” (Starts 12:00 mins in)
2nd Feel the hard drive. “ put your hand next to the hard drive next to were the hard drive is meant to be and then you get a feel for what is going on. You can also do this with a desktop, what you have to do is open the case and put you hands on it. For internal drive make sure you are properly grounded. What this means is you just hold on to the case with the other hand. As long as it is plugged in to a ground outlet you be ok. If you are wearing a sweater take it off and touch a lamp or something to ground yourself also if you are wearing crocs take them off as they produce a static charge. When you put you hand on the drive it you are trying to feel reparative sequence and it make the sound click berrrr click click berrrr click click berrr click . This means that the head is trying to find track zero”.(Starts 12:32 mins in)
3rd Check the power supply. “ is it bad , is not enough voltage goin to there hard drive. Some USB enclosures require to a double prong to fully. Check the cables are not damages and are plugged in” (starts 15:35 mins in)
4th Zap the PRAM. To do this start up the computer and hard down P and R
here the link to the apple tech note on it no 3 w just h t t p support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
5th Zap the Nvram to do this follow apple tech note no 3 w just h t t p support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
6th “On some power books they had power management problems which cause the CD drive and the hard drive not to functions properly. (starts 22:00 mins in) to reset it you have to smash down function, control, command and the power button. Apple tech note no 3 w just h t t p support.apple.com/kb/HT1781 for MacBooks MacBook Pro and MacBook Air got to this tech note no 3 w just h t t p support.apple.com/kb/HT1781 (starts 22:00 mins in)
If you still can not fix you hard drive then boot from a CD or external hard drive.
7th Boot from CD, “ By turning the computer on holding down the c key. Once it has booted click on the utilities menu and go to disk utility.” You can then see a list of all the hold drives connected up to the machine. If the name of the hard drive should be something like Toshiba 250GB, but if it does not have a human readable name you have problems. Stop you need help from a another source. (starts 23:00 mins in)
8th “Do not get desperate and do crazy things like pull out a copy of Norton OS9 “ “ Norton OS9 does not know anything about OS X files as they are HFS+ files which have be modified they 10.3 and 10.4 files. Norton multiply your problems. Having said that if you are looking to recover an OS9 hard drive then go ahead and run Norton. It was the best for this at the time.
Tools which can help.
Testdisk- “It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.” 3 w .cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Spinrite- 3 w .grc.com/spinrite check the web site for more information. I personal find this to be excellent.
Diskwarrior - 3 w .alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html
TechTool pro- 3 w .micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83
Dongle version http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=49
Disk utility – on you boot CD under utilities 1st choices do this first.
Apple tech note no 3 w just h t t p support.apple.com/kb/TS1417
Data rescue 2- 3w .prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php