Mounting a Dead Hard Drive

[marisa406]

Hi there - Looking for some advice.

I recently pulled a Mac hard drive out of my old 2006 iMac with the help of a friend. I think the hard drive is "dead", but I was wondering if anyone here could provide me with some options for mounting it and attempting to get the data off.

The old iMac isn't currently working anymore, but I do have on hand a Windows 7 Desktop, Windows Vista Laptop, and External Optical and Hard drives.

- I think this is in the wrong topic, but I'm not sure how to switch it - sorry!

 

[MindoverMaster]

You would need some form of Linux, as Ubuntu, to even hope to see the data. As it is probably in a different format than Windows can read. Get a Ubuntu LiveCD and boot up with it. Choose you want to try it first. Then with the drive connected, see if your system will recognize it.

 

[hikaricloud]

Actually, there are programs to read HFS drives on windows. HFSExplorer is pretty good, though hasn't been updated in a few years. I haven't used MacDisk, but it seems to work alright from what I've read. MacDrive is probably the best, but it's a paid program. They do have a 5-day free trial on both standard and pro version, but you should only need standard.

 

[MindoverMaster]

I never used any of those, so naturally, I never recommend them. It's just easier, in my mind, to use Ubuntu.

 

[hikaricloud]

I never used any of those, so naturally, I never recommend them. It's just easier, in my mind, to use Ubuntu.

If you have the distro laying around, sure. And of course you could download it, but downloading a distro, burning it as a LiveCD or even transferring it to a jump drive takes waaay more time than just downloading a program for Windows. Besides, I would more recommend Knoppix for recovery anyway, but that's just me.

Also, I understand you wouldn't normally recommend something you haven't used, but I responded as I did since you said "to even hope to see the data" you would need Linux, which was incorrect.

Having used MacDrive myself, I can attest it is a good program. I've also used HFSExplorer, but as I said previously, it's no longer updated...last update in 2008. Sad face.

Hey look, something useful came out of me owning a crappy Macbook.

 

[marisa406]

Ok! I've got the file system hooked up to a linux machine that doesn't have internet yet so I can't copy the output

sudo fdisk -l

shows me 6 paritions, 2 HPFS, 1 extended, 1 linux swap, and 1 linux.
The largest is sda3, extended, and it's definitely not the second largest ntfs/hpfs, because I mounted that and it's the linux machine itself

fsck - N /dev/sda3 - says it's fsck.ext2

sudo mount -t ext2 /dev/sda3 temp

returns wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda3...

what now?

 

[luke127]

Well I suppose you could try putting it in an external drive case and hooking it up to a windows PC. Then just change the security permissions. But if windows can't read the formatting than that is another issue all together.

 

[hikaricloud]

Which distro are you using? I know with Knoppix, it should just pull up the drive and allow you access in the GUI without messing with terminal if it can read HFS. I haven't tested an OSX drive before using Knoppix or any distro for that matter.

I'll be honest, my Linux experience is lacking for terminal commands and the like, though again, not sure why you need them. Your best bet at this point is to try one of those programs on a windows machine, either hook it up internally or get a SATA/IDE to USB converter.