• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Gettig gdata from an OSX drive, and needing facts.

Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
512 (0.08/day)
System Name HAL_9017
Processor Intel i9 10850k
Motherboard Asus Prime z490-A
Cooling Corsair H115i
Memory GSkill 32GB DDR4-3000 Trident-Z RGB
Video Card(s) NVIDIA 1080GTX FE w/ EVGA Hybrid Water Cooler
Storage Samsung EVO 960 M.2 SSD 500Gb
Display(s) Asus XG279
Case In Win 805i
Audio Device(s) EVGA NuAudio
Power Supply CORSAIR RM750
Mouse Logitech Master 2s
Keyboard Keychron K4
Hey Guys,

I just have a few questions before I try this, though I do not believe it will be a huge problem.

My friends iMac I think has a dying Hard Drive. On boot, it just sits at the grey screen, and goes no further. I am not familiar with the BIOS ends of a Mac system. So first thing is first:

I want to take her drive and plug it into my desktop (PC) and just get inside Win7 to read her files, back them up, and at least get that far. I don;t think this will be to bad an issue, seeing I would just be reading the files from that disk to mine, and not doing an OS booting.

From there though, I want to test if there could be any other problems. I know you can hit a key at boot to get into the Bios of a Mac, but which one, ones, to I push. Once I do this, is there anything special with Mac over PC that i should take notice of?

Thanks to anything you can offer,
-At
 
Joined
Aug 22, 2007
Messages
3,450 (0.57/day)
Location
CA, US
System Name :)
Processor Intel 13700k
Motherboard Gigabyte z790 UD AC
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 64GB GSKILL DDR5
Video Card(s) Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
Storage 960GB Optane 905P U.2 SSD + 4TB PCIe4 U.2 SSD
Display(s) Alienware AW3423DW 175Hz QD-OLED + Nixeus 27" IPS 1440p 144Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent
Audio Device(s) MOTU M4 - JBL 305P MKII w/2x JL Audio 10 Sealed --- X-Fi Titanium HD - Presonus Eris E5 - JBL 4412
Power Supply Silverstone 1000W
Mouse Roccat Kain 122 AIMO
Keyboard KBD67 Lite / Mammoth75
VR HMD Reverb G2 V2
Software Win 11 Pro
so your friend's iMac has win 7? or are you using Win 7?

if your friend has OSX and u Windows, you can try using MacDrive you can retrieve the files with it, and do some diagnostic testing to the filesystem. hope it helps
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
512 (0.08/day)
System Name HAL_9017
Processor Intel i9 10850k
Motherboard Asus Prime z490-A
Cooling Corsair H115i
Memory GSkill 32GB DDR4-3000 Trident-Z RGB
Video Card(s) NVIDIA 1080GTX FE w/ EVGA Hybrid Water Cooler
Storage Samsung EVO 960 M.2 SSD 500Gb
Display(s) Asus XG279
Case In Win 805i
Audio Device(s) EVGA NuAudio
Power Supply CORSAIR RM750
Mouse Logitech Master 2s
Keyboard Keychron K4
so your friend's iMac has win 7? or are you using Win 7?

if your friend has OSX and u Windows, you can try using MacDrive you can retrieve the files with it, and do some diagnostic testing to the filesystem. hope it helps

I am running Win7. I also have another Hard Drive with Xp on it I could use to boot into. SOrry for the confusion.

Are there certain limitations of the Trial I should know about? I know I dont want to do a full backup of the drive, merely copying say their photos, some music, documents, ect. Not looking to do a full ghosting or anything.
 

Solaris17

Super Dainty Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Aug 16, 2005
Messages
25,774 (3.79/day)
Location
Alabama
System Name Rocinante
Processor I9 14900KS
Motherboard EVGA z690 Dark KINGPIN (modded BIOS)
Cooling EK-AIO Elite 360 D-RGB
Memory 64GB Gskill Trident Z5 DDR5 6000 @6400
Video Card(s) MSI SUPRIM Liquid X 4090
Storage 1x 500GB 980 Pro | 1x 1TB 980 Pro | 1x 8TB Corsair MP400
Display(s) Odyssey OLED G9 G95SC
Case Lian Li o11 Evo Dynamic White
Audio Device(s) Moondrop S8's on Schiit Hel 2e
Power Supply Bequiet! Power Pro 12 1500w
Mouse Lamzu Atlantis mini (White)
Keyboard Monsgeek M3 Lavender, Akko Crystal Blues
VR HMD Quest 3
Software Windows 11
Benchmark Scores I dont have time for that.
you can also try a linux system if you cant get win to pick up the drive..that should read it.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
4,012 (0.75/day)
Location
Sarasota, Florida, USA
System Name Awesomesauce 4.3 | Laptop (MSI GE72VR 6RF Apache Pro-023)
Processor Intel Core i7-5820K 4.16GHz 1.28v/3GHz 1.05v uncore | Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 3.1GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5 WiFi LGA2011-v3| Stock
Cooling Corsair H100i v2 w/ 2x EK Vardar F4-120ER + various 120/140mm case fans | Stock
Memory G.Skill RJ-4 16GB DDR4-2666 CL15 quad channel | 12GB DDR4-2133
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid SC2 11GB @ 2012/5151 boost | NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB +200/+500 + Intel 530
Storage Samsung 840 EVO 500GB + Seagate 3TB 7200RPM + others | Kingston 256GB M.2 SATA + 1TB 7200RPM
Display(s) Acer G257HU 1440p 60Hz AH-IPS 4ms | 17.3" 1920*1080 60Hz wide angle TN notebook panel
Case Fractal Design Define XL R2 | MSI
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster Z | Realtek with quad stereo speakers and subwoofer
Power Supply Corsair HX850i Platinum | 19.5v 180w Delta brick
Software Windows 10 Pro x64 | Windows 10 Home x64
From there though, I want to test if there could be any other problems. I know you can hit a key at boot to get into the Bios of a Mac, but which one, ones, to I push. Once I do this, is there anything special with Mac over PC that i should take notice of?

Macs don't have a BIOS. They use EFI technology. I don't believe there is anything you could really do/change in OpenFirmware anyway.

As far as getting the data off the drive, if you are going to use Windows you will need something like MacDrive to make Windows able to interpret the OS X (HFS+ I believe) file system.
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
512 (0.08/day)
System Name HAL_9017
Processor Intel i9 10850k
Motherboard Asus Prime z490-A
Cooling Corsair H115i
Memory GSkill 32GB DDR4-3000 Trident-Z RGB
Video Card(s) NVIDIA 1080GTX FE w/ EVGA Hybrid Water Cooler
Storage Samsung EVO 960 M.2 SSD 500Gb
Display(s) Asus XG279
Case In Win 805i
Audio Device(s) EVGA NuAudio
Power Supply CORSAIR RM750
Mouse Logitech Master 2s
Keyboard Keychron K4
Thanks guys,

One of the guys at work said if I get a FireWire cable, and hold some keys at Boot, I can turn the iMac into an external Hard Drive then should I hook say a MacBook to it.

Is this possible, and if so, can someone do a quick run down? (yes, Mac issues...god I wish it were as easy as PCs in this case).
 
Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Messages
1,349 (0.23/day)
Location
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Processor i7-3770K
Motherboard Biostar Hi-Fi Z77
Cooling Swiftech H20 (w/Custom External Rad Enclosure)
Memory 16GB DDR3-2400Mhz
Video Card(s) Alienware GTX 1070
Storage 1TB Samsung 850 EVO
Display(s) 32" LG 1440p
Case Cooler Master 690 (w/Mods)
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi Titanium
Power Supply Corsair 750-TX
Mouse Logitech G5
Keyboard G. Skill Mechanical
Software Windows 10 (X64)
Command-V will allow you to boot in Verbose mode so you can see what kind of errors you are getting. Holding down "T" is used for Target Firewire mode which would allow you to do what the guy at work was telling you.

Every Mac user should have a copy of Diskwarrior. Have you tried running Disk Utility from another drive or bootable CD (The OS install disk) to check the disk?

Here is the complete list of startup key commands.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
 

Wile E

Power User
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
24,318 (3.81/day)
System Name The ClusterF**k
Processor 980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory 3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s) Evga GTX 580
Storage Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s) HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s) Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4
Before you try any of that, turn on the Mac, then immediately hold Apple+Option+p+r until it reboots on its own, then release the keys.

That does a pram reset, and might bring it back. Pram is kinda like a PC's CMOS, it stores all the hardware settings for the computer.
 
Top