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Neighbor wants me, a PC guy, to fix a Mac. HDD crash likely. Replace? Recovery?

CZroe

CZroe

Lifer
I've asked this before but then the people asking me never came through, so nowthat I'm being asked to do it again, I'm back to the same questions:

#1: A neighbor's son kicked his somewhat-modern desktop Mac and it's coming up with a "?" computer icon. Can I replace the HDD with any unpartitioned 3.5" SATA HDD and have the OSX disc partition, format, etc?

#2: What should I do to attempt recovery of the old drive? I have a USB adapter for IDE/SATA and so I can hook it up to a PC with Windows or Linux, but are there any recovery programs that can handle Mac formatting on these operating systems? Should I just try to access it on the same Mac after reinstalling OSX with a replacement HDD?

Thanks guys.
 
1: Yes
2: MacDrive will let you read/write it from Windows, Linux should be able to do it out of the box. Hooking it up to the existing Mac could also work. DiskWarrior will do limited drive recovery.
 
Which Mac? I've personally done that in an iBook, G4 iMac, and G4 Cube, but that's just for my own Macs.

If it is any of the difficult Macs to work on I'd tell him to take it to a service centre.
 
TheStu said:
1: Yes
2: MacDrive will let you read/write it from Windows, Linux should be able to do it out of the box. Hooking it up to the existing Mac could also work. DiskWarrior will do limited drive recovery.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll look into those.

Eug said:
Which Mac? I've personally done that in an iBook, G4 iMac, and G4 Cube, but that's just for my own Macs.

If it is any of the difficult Macs to work on I'd tell him to take it to a service centre.
Click to expand...

I don't know yet. I only know that it's a desktop unit and that it's probably Intel-era but not super new. Regardless, I'd assume that any desktop Mac should have easily serviceable desktop components, like HDDs.
 
CZroe said:
Thanks. I'll look into those.



I don't know yet. I only know that it's a desktop unit and that it's probably Intel-era but not super new. Regardless, I'd assume that any desktop Mac should have easily serviceable desktop components, like HDDs.
Click to expand...

Depends. I personally wouldn't want to mess with one of the newer iMacs.
 
I had a weird issue with my Hackintosh last week where the main 1.5 TB media drive wasn't coming up on boot, was mounted read-only in OSX when I could get it to come up, was very slow, and wouldn't repair with disk utility or fsck.

I got a new 1.5 TB hard drive and spent 2 days (it was SLOW!) copying the old drive to the new. A few files were corrupt, but most everything made it okay. I then reformatted and repaired the old drive and everything is fine now.

So if I were you, I'd put a new hard drive in, install OSX, then put the old drive in a USB enclosure and see if you can get it to be recognized. If so, run disk utility's repair and/or verify function, and maybe do an fsck from the command line too. If that all fails, try a reformat. If that fails too, maybe the drive is FUBAR.
 
KeithP said:
Maybe a cable in the machine was never seated properly and the kick somehow dislodged it? Hopefully someone has checked that. 🙂

-KeithP
Click to expand...

Yea, it doesn't seem that it was actually an iMac. The machine was on the floor and running, and nobody puts baby in the cor... I mean the iMac on the floor, certainly not in a running state.

So it was probably a Mac Pro, in which case the SATA ports are hard mounted, not cables, and so a loose cable would not be an issue there.
 
A hard drive is by far the component most sensitive to shock. It's the only component I would expect could die from a kick to a system chassis.

With that said, I'm amazed that hard drives are as durable as they are.
 
CZroe said:
#1: A neighbor's son kicked his somewhat-modern desktop Mac and it's coming up with a "?" computer icon. Can I replace the HDD with any unpartitioned 3.5" SATA HDD and have the OSX disc partition, format, etc?
Click to expand...

The correct nontechnical answer is to decline to do it in the first place, as you really don't want to be under any future obligation to these neighbors when the kid throws his next temper tantrum. The parents should punish the kid appropriately, and then decide what to do about the Mac.
 
Imagine my surprise: though they told me it was a desktop, it really is a 20" iMac that he kicked and ruined the HDD. Ah well. I'm no stranger to tightly-integrated electronics.

Kadarin said:
The correct nontechnical answer is to decline to do it in the first place, as you really don't want to be under any future obligation to these neighbors when the kid throws his next temper tantrum. The parents should punish the kid appropriately, and then decide what to do about the Mac.
Click to expand...

He's actually a mid-20s adult with serious issues (he rages when awakened) and manic depressive.
 
CZroe said:
Imagine my surprise: though they told me it was a desktop, it really is a 20" iMac that he kicked and ruined the HDD. Ah well. I'm no stranger to tightly-integrated electronics.



He's actually a mid-20s adult with serious issues (he rages when awakened) and manic depressive.
Click to expand...

If you have opened it up yet, ifixit.com should have the guides you need.

Suction cups and magnets are what you should need to open that sucker up, and then the drive is pretty easy to get to if i recall correctly.
 
Hmm... well, I plug it in and push the power button and all I get is a nice-sounding tone and a white screen. No "?" HDD icon or anything, so... "NOT AS DESCRIBED" in any way. 🙁

Edit: Well, I walked away and when I came back it had the flashing folder icon with a "?" on it, so I guess it's just another example of one of Apple's "rare" UI gaffes (never leave a user waiting on a blank screen; AFAIK, only the backlight was working).

More specifically, it seems to be a 20" aluminum unibody iMac, so I'll get to work tearing it down now.

Oh! And he apparently didn't have the Apple keyboard due to an earlier tantrum. Anything I should know about what maps to what on a PC keyboard?
 
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CZroe said:
Hmm... well, I plug it in and push the power button and all I get is a nice-sounding tone and a white screen. No "?" HDD icon or anything, so... "NOT AS DESCRIBED" in any way. 🙁

Edit: Well, I walked away and when I came back it had the flashing folder icon with a "?" on it, so I guess it's just another example of one of Apple's "rare" UI gaffes (never leave a user waiting on a blank screen; AFAIK, only the backlight was working).

More specifically, it seems to be a 20" aluminum unibody iMac, so I'll get to work tearing it down now.

Oh! And he apparently didn't have the Apple keyboard due to an earlier tantrum. Anything I should know about what maps to what on a PC keyboard?
Click to expand...

Start is Command, past that they are the same. In OS X, CMD=Ctrl so instead of Ctrl+C it is CMD+C.
 
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CZroe said:
Imagine my surprise: though they told me it was a desktop, it really is a 20" iMac that he kicked and ruined the HDD. Ah well. I'm no stranger to tightly-integrated electronics.



He's actually a mid-20s adult with serious issues (he rages when awakened) and manic depressive.
Click to expand...

HAH. I am vindicated!!!! 😀
 
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