Proper way to transfer data from a failed Mac HD?

[thecomputerguy]

A client brought an iMac in that wasn't booting that he attempted to reload Sierra onto. I had a hunch the HD was failing so I yanked it and ran a HD test on on it and sure enough bad sectors galore. The client had no backups, and even worse not even a Time Machine backup. Normally if I were installing a new HD into an iMac I'd get a full Time Machine backup done so I can restore from it but on this computer that isn't an option.

I sold him on a new 500GB SSD and a reload but now I have to transfer the data. Thankfully whatever he did didn't wipe his data and luckily the HD does mount (albeit extremely slowly due to it failing) in a USB enclosure. I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong here since I am not as well versed in the Mac world.

I'm just going to drag and drop all of the data from their respective folders into their respective folders and then fire up the corresponding application to make sure the data is being recognized (i.e. Photos, iTunes, etc.)

This I'm sure is going to leave the client with quite a bit of work to do on their end once they get the computer back because I wasn't able to restore from a Time Machine backup including setting up their iCloud account, iTunes account, Printers, Wifi.... etc..

Is there anything more I can do to make this process easier when the client returns home or is it pretty much just going to be a bone stock iMac with data plopped in for him to setup? I assume there isn't any sort of recovery I can do from the target disc via USB.

Thanks!

 

[Markverhyden]

The 10 Commandments of data recovery.
1. Image the device.
2. Image the device.
3. Image the device.
4. Image the device.
5. Image the device.........

You get the picture.

Once you have an image you can mount it, recovery files, etc. Personally I really try avoiding imaging a faulty drive to a new disk. Imaging fixes nothing, brings along the good, the bad and the ugly. And working directly from a patient risks making things even worse. You can boot Clonezilla on a wintel box so the patient is on the native SATA interface as well.

 

[thecomputerguy]

The 10 Commandments of data recovery.
1. Image the device.
2. Image the device.
3. Image the device.
4. Image the device.
5. Image the device.........

You get the picture.

Once you have an image you can mount it, recovery files, etc. Personally I really try avoiding imaging a faulty drive to a new disk. Imaging fixes nothing, brings along the good, the bad and the ugly. And working directly from a patient risks making things even worse. You can boot Clonezilla on a wintel box so the patient is on the native SATA interface as well.

Ok so once the disc is imaged and I mount a now good non-bootable Mac HD am I simply just dragging and dropping data as mentioned in my original post?

 

[Markverhyden]

Ok so once the disc is imaged and I mount a now good non-bootable Mac HD am I simply just dragging and dropping data as mentioned in my original post?

You can image to a disc or to an image file. If you used Clonezilla disk>disk then the target should be readable when connected to the repaired iMac. Then you can drag and drop. If you did disk>image you need to open that image first to access data from the iMac. For that, the easiest is to use Linux to read the image. You could also repair the iMac, then use Carbon Copy Cloner. Personally I'd be imaging disk>image, making a second copy of the image and then going to town.

 

[phaZed]

Ok so once the disc is imaged and I mount a now good non-bootable Mac HD am I simply just dragging and dropping data as mentioned in my original post?

Possibly, but maybe not.

Imaging the drive first is to make sure that whatever happens while you work, you can revert back to the customers broken image. Not all 'bad hard drive' images are directly readable - if for instance the hard drive can't read parts of the drive, the image will be missing those parts too. Some parts are more important than others. If the imaging completes fully or close to fully it may be possible to simply write the disk image to another HDD and the thing will boot. Sometimes you will have to fix file system problems before booting is possible.

If all that fails and you can't use the image directly, you can try salvaging the customer data only.... sometimes this is not possible, as well. A proper data recovery may be required in the worst case scenario..

 

[thecomputerguy]

You can image to a disc or to an image file. If you used Clonezilla disk>disk then the target should be readable when connected to the repaired iMac. Then you can drag and drop. If you did disk>image you need to open that image first to access data from the iMac. For that, the easiest is to use Linux to read the image. You could also repair the iMac, then use Carbon Copy Cloner. Personally I'd be imaging disk>image, making a second copy of the image and then going to town.

Got it ... I'm just wondering if it's worth the potential wasted time to do a disk to disk image then reinstall it into the mac and attempt to repair it to attempt to be able to clone it or attempt a time machine backup only to find out that the OS is damaged beyond the point of repair and I end up just dragging and dropping data anyways (remember he already attempted to load sierra over it so I have no idea what shape the OS is in).

Or I just clone it and drop the data and walk away from it ... I think there could be hours of wasted time attempting to repair the clone to be able to clone it or do a Time Machine backup.

I suppose I can give him the option ... I spend hours trying to repair it to clone it or do a TM backup to make it easier on him $400 or I just drop the data in and he deals with it $150

I would just be afraid that he choses option 1 and then I dump a bunch of time into just to fail anyways and then I have to charge him for it still.

 

[Markverhyden]

Remember the 10 Commandments.....

As well as Murphy's Law and Finagle's Corollaries. You really, really, really only want to touch the patient once.

Yes this is time consuming stuff. But doing it right the first time is far less than trying to clean up. That's why I make copies and only work from the copies if there is any suspicion of a hardware problem with the drive.

 

[timeshifter]

Make a copy and then use Migration Assistant to pull all the data in on the new install.

 

[Markverhyden]

Make a copy and then use Migration Assistant to pull all the data in on the new install.

Great idea @timeshifter if the file system is pretty much intact. Which it may be.

 

[cyabro]

I would use ddrescue to clone the drive first and then see if the clone will mount on a Mac.
If it does, and you can see the files/folder OK, try the migration assistant.