I need the data off of a dead hard drive

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Dina864

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Would anybody have any ideas for getting a user account off of a dead hard drive from a Power PC G5? I've heard alot about Disk Warrior but it's a company computer so I won't be allowed to use any software we don't currently own.
I was reading freezing the hard drive would help the contraction of the materials and causes whatever is stuck to become unstuck. So I left the hard drive in my car last night in zero degree weather but it didn't help. It still doesn't mount. Any ideas even if they are crazier than putting it in the freezer would be appreciated.
 
A drive can "break" in more than a handful of ways, and there is no sure-fire way to get the data off. There is no guarantee that the data is still on the drive at all!

When you supply power to the drive, do you hear it "spin up?" Does it make any noises? Clicking? Scratching? Does it sound like it spins up, then spins down, then up again? Does it not spin at all?

If you can't get the drive to spin up at all, then Diskwarrior will not be able to do anything to the drive. If the failure is mechanical and the platters inside the drive won't spin, no amount of software is going to help you.

Depending on how valuable the data is to you, you may want to look into professional data recovery services. They range anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and can typically recover 80% of the data or more depending on what, exactly, is wrong with the drive.
 
When you first turn it on it ticks about 5-6 times then spins up and down, ticks again and spins up and down repeats this a few times than I finally get the apple logo and the flashing question mark.
I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get the info off but since it's not my computer I wanted to try. The only thing the user is worried about is her music so It's not that big of deal if I can't recover it. Thank you for the info.
 
Unless the disc platters are shattered, then your data can probably be recovered. The only question is how much are you or your employer willing to pay. Disk Warrior is considered to be the best file recovery utility available to users. If it can't do the trick, then your best bet is a professional file recovery service. I used one. It recovered virtually everything. It cost me $200/CD of recovered data. The price was worth the $1000 that it cost me.
 
Everything work related is already backed up by our servers so it would just be her personal stuff. So there will be no company support. I think she'll just have to reimport her music.
 
Dina864 said:
When you first turn it on it ticks about 5-6 times then spins up and down, ticks again and spins up and down repeats this a few times than I finally get the apple logo and the flashing question mark.
I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get the info off but since it's not my computer I wanted to try. The only thing the user is worried about is her music so It's not that big of deal if I can't recover it. Thank you for the info.
Click to expand...

Could be a system problem of sorts. Is it possible to boot from a CD or external drive and try to access the faulty drive?
 
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