SAVE THE MUSIC!

A year ago water has been spilled on the keyboard of this macbook computer and since then its been completely inert. So I have decided that I really want to have it repaired, however I have been discouraged because of questions whether restoring it would even be possible. If there is one thing I miss from the computer, it was this incredible collection of music, over 10,000 songs! Should it be improbable to repair the water damage - I must ask if the harddrive of the computer can be removed and installed into a different one. . . just so I can access that juicy treasure trove of music that was lost. Ultimately its come down to this - CYBERPUNKS! Is there any hope of retrieval? Could there be a method of any kind to save the music?

Absolutely, it's a trivial task. You can buy a sata-to-usb cable for a couple of dollars on eBay or your local computer store and convert the hard disk into an external drive.

>>3139 That appears to be the best possible solution! Sure hope it may work though. The computer was running hot when the water was poured and its been deactivated ever since though. So this project hinges on whether the hard disk hasn't been fried somehow. In the spirit of DIY I would be glad to attempt this with pic related (a glasses repair kit screwdriver) and post progress, however I must confess ignorance of its internal structure. Perhaps I ought to enquire a computer store first about converting the hard disk into an external drive. But if all it takes would be a sata-to-usb cable it would be remarkable.

>>3139 It is still a mac though, As far as I know wirh the recent ones, the drives are encrypted and the key is inside of a chip on the motherboard. Not sure about the older macbooks.

>>3151 Luckily, it seems like OP's Macbook is one of the older ones, from around the late 00s from the looks of it, so it most likely predates the disk encryption bullshit that newer Macs do. If that's the case then it's just a matter of plugging it into a working computer and booting it to an OS that can read HFS. Most Linux distros have an hfsutils package that makes this possible.

>>3151 >>3154 I have yet to attempt removing the old macbook's hard drive and using a SATA-to-USB cable or external case. But will be doing so tomorrow and posting progress. Pictured here is the laptop which I plan to transfer the files to. Even though its a newer mac and the hard drive is from an older one, I'm hoping it will recognize the external drive so that the music collection can be retrieved.

Why haa no one stated the obvious easy solution? Plug in a keyboard to the USB and if the track pad doesn't work plug in a mouse.

>>3156 Because the old mac, year 2009 to be exact, is totally inert from water damage. It has not been activated since a year ago. Which leaves removing the hard drive the next best solution for retrieving its data.

>>3155 I've done this before and as long as you have the correct USB interface, the new macbook should be able to read the old one's contents

So as you can see here I've bought an enclosure for twenty dollars and about to attempt removing the hard drive. The folks at the place where I bought the enclosure told me they have other methods of data retrieval, so if this project should fail I may have to resort that although beyond this I'm skeptical whether it may be true. We'll see if the music can be saved. Wish me luck cyberpunks.

Here is the internal structure of the computer. Admittedly is does not appear fuarrked up considering the water damage. Hard drive removed, as per instructions I found on ifixit.com. link here: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+Hard+Drive+Removal/85373 Now going to place the hard drive into the enclosure and with luck it can be plugged into the newer mac.

>>3164 Believe in yourself my man, we're cheering for you.

It's porn isn't it? I bet it's porn.

Having plugged the enclosure into the newer mac, it seems the next step is having the external drive recognized since its not appearing on the desktop. Its neither to be found in disk utility. Currently have the enclosure plugged in an outlet as you can see in this pucture considering the hard drive might need energy after having been inert for a year. Going forward, this tutorial lists a number of options for trying to have the external drive recognized: https://appletoolbox.com/2017/03/mac-macbook-doesnt-recognize-external-drives-troubleshooting-tips Bearing in mind the objective is retrieving the data if at all possible, its vital to avoid any mistakes that might erase its contents. Hopefully one of these methods will be successful for saving the music.

>>3168 hold on plugging it into an outlet isn't gonna do anything. Is the drive even spinning up when plugged in. That enclosure is probably made for ssds and maybe for a hard drive if it has an usb splitting off the cable for extra power. If the drive isn't spinning while plugged into the mac, nothing is gonna happen.

You shouldn't need an enclosure, here's what I use for old laptop drives, I just leave em out and plug them in using: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84

The most I've managed to detect so far was by restarting the computer via NVRAM, pictured here. Curiously, the capacity is listed having 2 GB... the rest of the information is listed on the left. I wonder in this information on the screen even applies to the hard drive I'm trying to retrieve. I'm unsure about selecting "first aid" because I'm paranoid about losing any data. So tentatively I'm going to continue attempting other methods listed from the previous link, about having hard drives recognized when you can't find them. >>3169 There is no activity in the enclosure that suggests a disk is spinning. The hard drive doesn`t look like it has a spinning disk. Do all drives function via spinning? >>3170 The enclosure I just bought is compatible with SATA or SSD and compatible with USB 3.0 and 2.0 systems. If all else fails I'll resort to buying the cable you suggested. From what I gather on the screen, the OS X base system, which I assume to be the external hard drive in the enclosure, is listed as "disk1s1" so the next method I'm considering is using the terminal to find disk1s1 and see if it might be recognized from there. Another aspect to consider is that the hard drive is from an older mac, while the one I'm using is running Sierra version 10.12.6. Perhaps the difficulty is because of a difference in operating systems?

>>3174 So the volume is not being mounted. You system is mounting the free space, which was likely used as a boot sector originally. I recommend that you plug the disk into a linux box, and run Scalpel: http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Recovering-Deleted-Files-with-Scalpel Scalpel can read the volume even if the index of the volume is not present. It will recover all data that is complete, as well as any file fragments which may still be present.

>>3176 Fuarrk I restarted NVRAM without the enclosure the plugged in and the screen display remains the same as on the previous picture. This suggests to me that the NVRAM failed to detect the external drive that was meant to be recognized. To summarize where this project is at so far: 1. Hard drive placed in potentially soykaf enclosure, which means I probably ought to try using an adapter cable 2. Hard drive is probably fuarrked from water damage a year ago. Pictured here, as mentioned before its not spinning when the enclosure is plugged into the mac 3. If the issue isnt the enclosure or hard drive, its how to have the 2011 model Macbook Air recognize a 2009 Macbook's hard drive Objective - find a way to retrieve files from old water damaged mac's hard drive At this point the best I can do is try different ways to have the enclosure recognized. If none of those methods are effective, I'll try using a SATA-to-USB cable instead. If the cable doesn't work either, I'll have to bring the hard drive to a shop for data retrieval (assuming the hard drive isn't dead)

Hello again cyberpunks. Back here with updates on the project. So as I mentioned before the disk on the external drive wasn't spinning when I plugged it in. I've been to a repair shop and they told me the hard drive has failed. So what I've decided to do is this: I bought a replacement hard drive (same model, same specs, same year, manufacturer, GB, rpm, made for Apple) and what I hope to do is install the disk from the failed hard drive into the replacement. This is based on the assumption the data is all contained in the disc, which looks to me like a record player. I'm hoping that reinstalling the disk into a functioning hard drive will enable me to recover the data.

>>3200 if the pcb is the thing that failed, then sure, go ahead and replace it. If it is anything else, go to a professional. There is no way you are going to be able to swap platters without enough practice and a clwan room.

>>3138 Melvins is the greatest band ever, I've seen them too many times to count and they never disappoint.

>>3200 I hope you got your data dude. I also have a hard drive with old soykaf on it that I am trying to save. I just hope the platters haven't been scratched by the read/write heads

>>3200 Go to a pro if there's data on it you made yourself. t. nearing 50,000

>>3200 Don't open up the drive. If the PCB is corroded you can swap it but things like a head swap are a terrible idea when doing them at home. A single dust particle can screw you over. Furthermore, getting a pro to fix your drive after you opened it is reeeeealy fuarrrking expensive. I'd not risk it and ask a data recovery firm to take care of it from the start.

>>3138 Pretty good taste in music, friend. I'd post some tunes from my band, but not sure about the community opinion on shameless self promotion.

>>3513 How is the thing from picrel called? I've been looking for this, but couldn't find. Does it even work, or is it a meme?

>>3962 It's a juxtaposition joke picture. but you can achieve same sort of thing by plugging in a router or access point extender which is technically a router itself, but has only one ethernet port, and run it in client mode, and use router's wireless interface to connect to a desired access point as if you do with wireless interface card in your PC. It would require two cables though, extra one for power as regular computer network cards don't deliver power, and not all routers can receive it that way either. There are some very tiny routers with ethernet and wifi sold out there, barely bigger than standard USB drive. You can turn one into such device with openwrt. Pictured, one such device, generic unbranded A5-V11 travel 3G/4G router (it has a USB host port which in turn could allow it to have cellular modems to be plugged in, and then share the Internet connection over wired and wifi). It has internal ceramic antenna, although the antenna can be extended with careful soldering. Here's a link of machine-translated article from russian blog touching all aspects of what could be possible done to such device: https://weekly-geekly.github.io/articles/425281/ and original: https://habr.com/ru/post/425281/ Or in some rare cases, there are pluggable USB devices that present a virtual network interface, they usually come in form of lte modems with wireless AP, for the sake of compatibility with all host operating systems without extra proprietary drivers, and also sharing this lte connection through access point to nearby devices. They look exactly as other USB-pluggable LTE modems, but it's usually stated that they act as wireless access point, therefore being technically a router with normal web interface.

>>3965 Check this out: https://youtu.be/XKnyAYKP434

>>3965 Thanks!

>>3966 This thing should have dhcp server and packet routing/bridging software to do the whole wireless client function, but it would be cool to see.

OP, if you are reading this and you save the music, please make a zip file and drop a magnet link, please and thank you.

what model and year is the device? if it's an older one (before 2012-ish) , then absolutely. however, the computer you use to read the MacBooks harddrive needs to be able to read HFS is its another mac then that is no problem, but if it's a pc with Windows it will be some extra work before it can access and read hfs

looks like a 2007 model piss easy to take the hdd out

>>3164 you didn't need to go so far dude literally only need to take the battery and ram shield off and then you can pull it out

>>3168 you need to mount it