Pulling data from a PC hard drive

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ziomatrixacs

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Ok guys.. I have an Ibook G4 with 30gb HD 256mb of ram and 1.2ghz processor on OS 10.4.. I also have a PC desk top with a 40gb HD, 256 mb of ram and 1.5ghz processor. The PC is now saying "Operating system not found" and I tried using the windows CD to fix the disc, but it says No hard drive detected. BIOS says no master or slave primary drive is detected. So, I have a possibly dead hard drive in my PC. My mom has some invaluable pictures of a family member who passed away, and they are only on that HD. Is there a way I could use a program on my mac to pull the data off the hard drive? I will buy a fire wire if I must.
 
It seems that way to me too, but I pushed the power and data cables in, and the hard drive spun up but it still said the same thing.

Id like to use my Ibook to get into that hard drive and take all my important data off..then just start over if I can.
 
If there's physical damage to the hard drive (ie, a typical "crashed" hard drive), then it may not be accessible from the Mac-side, either -- so to begin with, don't get your hopes up.

You can remove the hard drive from the PC and put it in any old USB or FireWire external case, then hook that up to your Mac and see if the hard drive mounts. If so, great -- get the data off as quick as possible.

If it doesn't mount, then there's something wrong with the drive that may potentially not be fixable, and you'll have to resort to data recovery services like http://www.drivesavers.com. They're quite expensive, though -- so be prepared to pay an upward of maybe $1,000 for a single drive recovery. And even then, the data is not guaranteed to be recoverable.

You could take the easy route, though -- buy a new hard drive for the PC and restore the pictures from the backups that you keep.
 
I took the hard drive out, and it did the same thing.. turns out the fan was making the loud noises I heard before.. The hard drive is silent.
 
Nothing, I know my I books HD makes a whirring noise when you wake it up but this HD makes no sound at all. Perhaps it is an electrical problem with either the power source or the HD.

If this helps at all, the computer would shut off by it self at random times and turn it self back on. Some times it would do this multiple times. I so not see any physical damage on the hard drive at all, so it would have to be on the inside. I dont have another power source to test it. My friend might let me have one of his old IDE HD's (Mine is an IDE) to see if I can install windows then run it. I just need another computer to be able to narrow things down.
 
Yep, sounds to me like the drive is toast. I would suggest just replacing the drive and restoring the photos from your backups.
 
Nothing, I know my I books HD makes a whirring noise when you wake it up but this HD makes no sound at all. Perhaps it is an electrical problem with either the power source or the HD.

If this helps at all, the computer would shut off by it self at random times and turn it self back on. Some times it would do this multiple times. I so not see any physical damage on the hard drive at all, so it would have to be on the inside. I dont have another power source to test it. My friend might let me have one of his old IDE HD's (Mine is an IDE) to see if I can install windows then run it. I just need another computer to be able to narrow things down.


I dont have any back ups either :(
 
The hard drive is a completely separate entity from the "computer" itself, so the fact that the computer turned on and off by itself is a separate issue from the hard drive working or not working... while they may be related in some way, it doesn't help us in troubleshooting the problem, unfortunately. It may be the cause of the hard drive problems, but has nothing to do with the solution.

If the hard drive isn't working, then it's not going to matter whether you're troubleshooting the problem with a Mac or a PC -- the hard drive isn't going to magically "mount" under Windows but fail under Mac OS X. The underlying problem is that the hard drive itself is damaged -- when I say "damaged", I don't mean little nicks or scrapes or holes in the hard drive casing -- I mean that some internal component vital to the operation of the hard drive has failed, and that part may or may not be physically damaged (ie, bent, broken, stuck, etc.) and it may or may not have just ceased working. The hard drive is damaged in a way that prevents it from physically operating.

One trick I used to try was to put my hard drives in an air-tight bag and place them in the freezer for a few hours. Take 'em out, power them on immediately, and salvage data. This worked in cases where a physical, mechanical part of the internals of the hard drive became "stuck" in place (like the read/write arm/head assembly), and the freezing process (as any high school physics student knows!) causes the metals of the hard drive to contract, ever so slightly. This slight movement would sometimes (not all the time) "unstick" the stuck components and the hard drive would work for a short while afterward, letting me get any data off it I could.

I don't think this procedure will work in your case, since even if a mechanical part of the hard drive is stuck, you can't even power on the hard drive anyway, since you have the impression that there's something wrong with the power to the hard drive.

So, I have a possibly dead hard drive in my PC. My mom has some invaluable pictures of a family member who passed away, and they are only on that HD. Is there a way I could use a program on my mac to pull the data off the hard drive? I will buy a fire wire if I must.
Click to expand...
Are we troubleshooting the hard drive data recovery issue still, or are we now trying to figure out what's wrong with the computer and why it turns on and off by itself?
 
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