The hard drive in my (almost) 4 year old macbook pro failed, tonight. I've never had a HD failure but from what I've heard from others it seems pretty typical (loudish clicking). That's the bad news. The worse news? My last full time machine backup was july 2008. Last partial backup (email and documents) was Feb 2009.
I know, I know. There's no excuse for no backups. In my defense, Time Machine stopped working for me - after HOURS it would always give the same error.
- Running disk utility from the osx install DVD, trying to "repair" the drive ends in a failure.
- Trying to create a hard drive image on the external ends in a failure.
- Neither of these facts are surprising, because this is a hardware and not software issue.
ANYWAY, here's where things get a little weird -
...BUT, I can physically navigate the Hard Drive's menu trees, via disk utility. I can go into my documents, I can do into Applications, etc. The files are THERE. Tantalizingly close. Disk utility just doesn't have the ability to copy individual files. You either have to make a backup of the FULL drive, or make no backup at all.
So what I need is some sort of mac bootup tool (or terminal command line?) that will let me copy INDIVIDUAL folders and files from my failing HD, onto my external.
I'm pretty convinced that the majority of my HD's data is intact and accessible... there is just no default tool on the OSX boot disk that allows you to copy individual folders. I've given up on a full recovery, but if I could back up documents, email, address book other essentials... it would be a HUGE load off my shoulders.
I know, I know. There's no excuse for no backups. In my defense, Time Machine stopped working for me - after HOURS it would always give the same error.
- Running disk utility from the osx install DVD, trying to "repair" the drive ends in a failure.
- Trying to create a hard drive image on the external ends in a failure.
- Neither of these facts are surprising, because this is a hardware and not software issue.
ANYWAY, here's where things get a little weird -
...BUT, I can physically navigate the Hard Drive's menu trees, via disk utility. I can go into my documents, I can do into Applications, etc. The files are THERE. Tantalizingly close. Disk utility just doesn't have the ability to copy individual files. You either have to make a backup of the FULL drive, or make no backup at all.
So what I need is some sort of mac bootup tool (or terminal command line?) that will let me copy INDIVIDUAL folders and files from my failing HD, onto my external.
I'm pretty convinced that the majority of my HD's data is intact and accessible... there is just no default tool on the OSX boot disk that allows you to copy individual folders. I've given up on a full recovery, but if I could back up documents, email, address book other essentials... it would be a HUGE load off my shoulders.