OT (Mac related)

[MikeDee]

<Posted on the SAWStudio Forum as well>

A close friend of mine has a Mac G4...about 8-9 years old. Apparently the HDD has crashed...it clicks when he turns on the machine, which will not boot.

Before he spends big buck$ on a data recovery service, I'd like to take a shot at helping him out. However, I know pretty much zilch about the Mac's internal architecture. What kind of HD does a G4 take? SATA? EIDE? IDE? SCSI? I'd like to get him a new drive, as well as an enclosure for the ailing one (perhaps it might be readable as a secondary [external] drive, allowing him to copy his data to the new [internal] drive).

Short of the expected "Get a PC" reply (touché, perhaps? -- actually, he has one), any help from our Mac experts will be appreciated.

Thanks and regards,

[airickess]

<Posted on the SAWStudio Forum as well>

A close friend of mine has a Mac G4...about 8-9 years old. Apparently the HDD has crashed...it clicks when he turns on the machine, which will not boot.

Before he spends big buck$ on a data recovery service, I'd like to take a shot at helping him out. However, I know pretty much zilch about the Mac's internal architecture. What kind of HD does a G4 take? SATA? EIDE? IDE? SCSI? I'd like to get him a new drive, as well as an enclosure for the ailing one (perhaps it might be readable as a secondary [external] drive, allowing him to copy his data to the new [internal] drive).

Short of the expected "Get a PC" reply (touché, perhaps? -- actually, he has one), any help from our Mac experts will be appreciated.

Thanks and regards,

Have you ever serviced a drive? If you have never serviced a drive I wouldn't recommend trying with a friend's drive. A data-recovery service is definitely the way to go if he needs it. Shop around and you might find a reasonably priced service.

[MikeDee]

Not looking to actually service the drive itself...just looking to make it a secondary in the hope that it might be read by the computer.

In PC land, I've been able to hook up an unbootable drive (in a bracket or enclosure) and use it in Windows as a secondary drive. I would quickly copy all the data from this drive (to the computer's internal drive); then I would reformat the drive (else, discard it if it's problematic).

If I can't access the drive, then I will suggest a data recovery service.

[905shmick]

The G4s use run of the mill IDE drives. You can stick it in an enclosure and do what you want with it. Also, if you have another mac, you can boot the G4 into target disk mode, hookup a firewire cable between the 2 macs and you'll see the disk on the G4 as an external firewire disk.

I've seen things from walloping drives hard to sticking them in the freezer work. You'll find all sorts of various suggestions on the intarweb.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

[MikeDee]

Thanks for the advice, 9Ø5...hopefully I can retrieve the data for him.

Best regards,

[gdougherty]

If it clicks and is not recognized by the bios, a recovery service is probably your only recourse.

[ffarrell]

If it's that important then they will spend the 3 grand or so for a clean room recovery. (Been there with Kenny's stuff ) If it's not that important then try the freezer for 1 hour than quickly plug it in and boot. Use quick silver or something like it to mount and IMMEDIATELY copy to a 2nd drive.


good luck

fvf

If it clicks and is not recognized by the bios, a recovery service is probably your only recourse.

[janneman]

hello
maybe this software will help you to do the job
it helped me to recover a Harddisk wich was attached to my G4
they deliver also a rebootDvD, in case your system disk fails
http://www.alsoft.com/Diskwarrior/index.html

jan

[MikeDee]

Thanks for the additional info, Guyz...more føød for thought.

Best regards,

[Mark Stebbeds]

Let us know how it works out. I've dealt with the data recovery services as well, and they can recover most ....but not all ...of the data. It's the damaged sectors that may have data that is lost forever.

Give it a go with all of the "free" data recovery software options. The popular Mac options are Disk Utility (on board), Disk Warrior, Drive Genius, and File Salvage ...but don't hold your breath. It usually has to do with the alignment of the "laser head", or whatever the correct terminology is.

Mark