Recovering data from dead macbook

A

Asgorath

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 12, 2004
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I have a macbook that had water spilled on it. I have to return it in order to have it replaced under insurance. I would like to recover the data first.

I'm a windows user, how do I pull the data off the drive? Am I going to run into security problems? Run into file system problems? If I slave the drive onto one of my apples, can I just read the data off?
 
If the data is readable from the drive, I would assume you could read just like a windows disk attached to another windows machine.
 
here's what i'd do.

google how to remove a hard drive from a macbook... it involves removing the battery and taking out some tiny screws. After that pop out the HDD.

hopefully you have a external hard drive enclosure for 2.5" HDD's. If not order one from newegg or if you are in a pinch of time.... go to BB or something to pick one up... althought BB might be a little pricey.

install the HDD in the enclosure and connect to a computer... This part I'm a little confused on. Not sure if a windows machine will read the external HDD or not. Give it a shot!
 
Cool. Yeah, not worried about the physical part of working on the drive...was just wondering if i was going to run into some sort of security/ permissions problems.
 
Windows doesn't read the HFS+ Filesystem that Mac's use, it wont be readable on a Windows PC, you can however mount it using a Linux live CD, I recommend Ubuntu for simplicity.
 
You can try Traget Disk Mode if you have another Firewire capable Mac around. Hook both machines up via Firewire then boot the Macbook holding down the "T" key until the Firewire logo appears. The Macbooks drive will show up as a an external Firewire drive on the target Mac.
 
if the macbook is dead, target mode will not work.

as previously stated, windows can't read hfs format so you'll have to take out the macbook's hd and put it into an external enclosure and grab whatever you need when you plug it into another mac.

good luck
 
turb0 said:
here's what i'd do.

google how to remove a hard drive from a macbook... it involves removing the battery and taking out some tiny screws. After that pop out the HDD.

hopefully you have a external hard drive enclosure for 2.5" HDD's. If not order one from newegg or if you are in a pinch of time.... go to BB or something to pick one up... althought BB might be a little pricey.

install the HDD in the enclosure and connect to a computer... This part I'm a little confused on. Not sure if a windows machine will read the external HDD or not. Give it a shot!
Click to expand...

Theres a handy program called MacDrive, comes with a free trial that will allow this.

The drive should be SATA, meaning you dont even really need the external, you could just hook it up to the computer like a normal drive. . .
 
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