Macbook crashed - no time machine- recovery options?

skerry

Hi folks, my other half's Macbook Pro ran out of battery the other day and when she turned it on it appears to have completely crashed and is showing the OSX Utilites screen and is asking to reinstall OSX.

Unfortunately she has not time machine backup so I'm trying to figure out how to recovery her pictures etc. Is there a recovery disk I can use to boot up and save files such as Ubuntu?

I have a bootable Mavericks USB and I booted from that but it's only giving me the same OSX Utilities screen. Is there something I can do to save down her files using this?

Couldn't find much online and said I'd explore options on here before I that the big step and reinstall OSX (which I presume wipes everything)

Tipsy McSwagger

Reinstalling the OS doesn't delete anything, it simply puts a fresh OS on the MacBook. It's not even a big step to be honest.

skerry

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Reinstalling the OS doesn't delete anything, it simply puts a fresh OS on the MacBook. It's not even a big step to be honest.

Great tidings indeed So if I reinstall OSX from the below screen it'll keep the HD contents as opposed to a clean install?

Tipsy McSwagger

skerry wrote: »

Great tidings indeed So if I reinstall OSX from the below screen it'll keep the HD contents as opposed to a clean install?

Yes you will keep everything. The only way you would lose anything is if you went into Disk Utility and erased the Hard Drive. To be honest I would try boot into safe mode first, restart the MacBook and when you hear the start up sound hold down the shift key until you see the Apple logo.

skerry

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Yes you will keep everything. The only way you would lose anything is if you went into Disk Utility and erased the Hard Drive. To be honest I would try boot into safe mode first, restart the MacBook and when you hear the start up sound hold down the shift key until you see the Apple logo.

Cheers, I've tried running disk repair, safe mode and fsck -fy command but no joy so will reinstall OSX and hopefully all will be well. Thanks for the help, it will be reflected in your Christmas bonus

skerry

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Yes you will keep everything. The only way you would lose anything is if you went into Disk Utility and erased the Hard Drive. To be honest I would try boot into safe mode first, restart the MacBook and when you hear the start up sound hold down the shift key until you see the Apple logo.

Tried it there and I'm getting a message saying that 'OSX cannot be installed on Recovery HD'. It's the only HD option showing. No clue what to do now.

beauf

Maybe the hard drive has died?

skerry

beauf wrote: »

Maybe the hard drive has died?

Hope not. Couldn't get disk utility to repair disk the other night but it didn't say hard drive hard failed or anything.

Tipsy McSwagger

skerry wrote: »

Tried it there and I'm getting a message saying that 'OSX cannot be installed on Recovery HD'. It's the only HD option showing. No clue what to do now.

a) Try internet recovery
b) Get an external Hard Drive and install the OS there, then log in and move all your stuff from the Mac HD to the desktop. That's all the data saved. Next step is to go into recovery mode, disk utilities and erase the internal hard drive and reinstall OS to it. If you can boot from internal hard drive great, just move the data back over.

skerry

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

a) Try internet recovery
b) Get an external Hard Drive and install the OS there, then log in and move all your stuff from the Mac HD to the desktop. That's all the data saved. Next step is to go into recovery mode, disk utilities and erase the internal hard drive and reinstall OS to it. If you can boot from internal hard drive great, just move the data back over.

Does Internet recovery not just give me the same options as OSX Utilities screen I currently see when I start up? Have it running there now anyway, will see what comes up.

Apologies, I don't understand your (b) option. I have a Mavericks bootable USB but I put it in and booted from that but still get the OSX Utilities screen. Is there an option to backup the files using this? Which desktop are you referring to?

skerry

Any other suggestions on this folks. It's looking like reformatting may be the only option and hoping I can backup some files before I take that step.

Tried repairing the disc and get errors saying that 'disk utility can't repair the disk' does this mean hardrive is knackered?

Tried internet recovery but it didn't do anything. Entered wifi password and just hang there for ages.

When I try to reinstall OSX from either recovery disk or bootable USB it says disk is locked. Is there a way to unlock the disk ?

Sad Professor

It's not necessarily knackered. If the drive is visible and mounted in Disk Utility and if the Recovery partition (which is located on the internal hd) works, then it's probably fine, just corrupt. An erase and reinstall is likely the only option, though.

If you want to try and save the data on the drive first, installing OS X onto an external hd as Tipsy suggested earlier and seeing if you can access and backup the internal hd is your best bet. (You might also be able to restore onto the external hd using Disk Utility.) You will need a external hd to do this. A bootable USB stick with the Mavericks installer on it is no good.

Alternatively if you have access to another Mac you can use Target Disk Mode to access the failed Mac's hard drive.

skerry

Sad Professor wrote: »

It's not necessarily knackered. If the drive is visible and mounted in Disk Utility and if the Recovery partition (which is located on the internal hd) works, then it's probably fine, just corrupt. An erase and reinstall is likely the only option, though.

If you want to try and save the data on the drive first, installing OS X onto an external hd as Tipsy suggested earlier and seeing if you can access and backup the internal hd is your best bet. (You might also be able to restore onto the external hd using Disk Utility.) You will need a external hd to do this. A bootable USB stick with the Mavericks installer on it is no good.

Alternatively if you have access to another Mac you can use Target Disk Mode to access the failed Mac's hard drive.

Thanks for your reply. No blank external hard drive unfortunately at the moment but could order one if necessary.

I do have access to a second Mac though. How do I go about Target Disk Mode? Is there a link or anything you can fire on with steps to follow, would be much appreciated.

Sad Professor

Instructions below, but you'll need a Firewire or Thunderbolt cable depending on the Macs in question.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT201462

skerry

Sad Professor wrote: »

Instructions below, but you'll need a Firewire or Thunderbolt cable depending on the Macs in question.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT201462

Cheers, I have a 2008 Macbook and the one that's acting up is a 12 month old Macbook Pro. Will check what ports are on them and order cable. Other options getting no results unfortunately.

bluezulu49

Sounds to me like the computer cannot see the hard disk.

I had a similar problem last year with a mid 2012 Macbook Pro.

I thought the hard disk was gone and so bought a new one and an external disk caddy.
When I installed the new hard disk into the computer I was unable to format it as it could not be seen by the computer.

It turned out that the original hard disk was ok but the hard disk cable had failed. I sourced a new one, installed it and was able to format the new disk.

I got the new cable from Ifixit in Germany, together with a new battery.

As failing hard disk cables seems to be a common enough problem with the Macbook Pro it might be worth your while buying a hard disc caddy, inserting the current hard disk and connecting it externally. If it works in the caddy outside the computer it is very likely that the disk cable is dead.

Sad Professor

skerry wrote: »

Cheers, I have a 2008 Macbook and the one that's acting up is a 12 month old Macbook Pro. Will check what ports are on them and order cable. Other options getting no results unfortunately.

Hmmm the old Macbook would have Firewire but the new one would have Thunderbolt. You'd probably need a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter. And a cable. I don't think TDM is worth the expense. An external hd would be cheaper.

Sad Professor

bluezulu49 wrote: »

Sounds to me like the computer cannot see the hard disk.

I had a similar problem last year with a mid 2012 Macbook Pro.

I thought the hard disk was gone and so bought a new one and an external disk caddy.
When I installed the new hard disk into the computer I was unable to format it as it could not be seen by the computer.

It turned out that the original hard disk was ok but the hard disk cable had failed. I sourced a new one, installed it and was able to format the new disk.

I got the new cable from Ifixit in Germany, together with a new battery.

As failing hard disk cables seems to be a common enough problem with the Macbook Pro it might be worth your while buying a hard disc caddy, inserting the current hard disk and connecting it externally. If it works in the caddy outside the computer it is very likely that the disk cable is dead.

The Recovery partition is visible in Disk Utility, so I think a failed cable is unlikely. And based on what the OP has said, the main partition is visible and mounted as well, it just can't be repaired.

skerry

Sad Professor wrote: »

The Recovery partition is visible in Disk Utility, so I think a failed cable is unlikely. And based on what the OP has said, the main partition is visible and mounted as well, it just can't be repaired.

Main disk appears in disk utility but Macintosh HD is greyed out. Recovery HD is the only destination drive coming up when I go to install OSX but that's coming up as locked.

skerry

Sad Professor wrote: »

Hmmm the old Macbook would have Firewire but the new one would have Thunderbolt. You'd probably need a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter. And a cable. I don't think TDM is worth the expense. An external hd would be cheaper.

Cheers, don't suppose you have a link for the process to follow for external HD option? She needs to get one for when I hopefully salvage her data so she can do time machine backups and save me this pain in the future so it won't be a wasted purchase.

ozmo

skerry wrote: »

hard drive hard failed? Hope not....

If the data on the drive is really important it might be worth bringing it to someone who has done this before - ideally the drive should not be written to at all until you get the important data off it in case its corrupting data (especially anything like reinstalling the os). If the drive is now faulty - I would treat the next time you power it up as possibly being the last time you can access it.

After reformat and reinstallation - I wouldnt trust the drive again without a lot of testing as it could be faulty and go corrupt again - so if its being used for anything more than a browser - a new drive would be recommended (get an SSD and get a speed boost while you are at it!)

skerry

So, the missus after all this time finally got around to getting a hard drive so I can try recover her files. So far it's been a complete disaster.

First I downloaded OS X on my Macbook and selected the external hard drive to install this on. For some reason it went and installed the new OS X on my Macbook HD despite selecting the external HD and I'm now in the process of recovering my own Macbook from a Time Machine backup. Not sure how that happened, when I went to boot my Macbook with external hard drive disconnected I kept getting the 'Install OSX' screen and when I tried to boot to another HD my Macintosh HD was not appearing.

Anyway, I now have OS X installed on the external HD and can boot my girlfriends Macbook from that. When I go into Disk Utility the Macintosh HD along with the External HD are visible but I can't figure out how to check the content of the Macintosh HD or try to recover files.

Any of ye guys know what I need to do next to try recover the files from the HD now that I'm booted from the external drive, I'm at a complete loss here?

skerry

So just a quick update on this incase anyone has a similar problem and comes across this thread.

I managed to get a copy of DiskWarrior and installed it on the missus' laptop which I have booted from an external HD. Ran the programme and it repaired the HD enough so that I could mount it on the desktop. I've since managed to recover most if not all of her pics from the recovered items folder DiskWarrior created when repairing the hard drive.

Now just need to reinstall OSX and copy over the pics which I have now saved on another HD.

skerry

Hi folks, back again on this in need of help. I reinstalled OSX from the recovery screen and now I have the Macbook restored with Mavericks.

I figured the first thing I should do is update to OSX Sierra but after I downloaded it and tried to install I get to a screen saying something about 'OSX needs your permission to install a helper tool' and it asks for administrator name and password. The problem is it never accepts the password when I enter it even though it's the very same one I just successfully logged in with.

Does anyone know how I can solve this. I've tried change password through terminal but it doesn't accept the new password either.

Also there are a few apps such as Photo that have a weird icon in the dock and give an error code when I try to open them, see picture attached for icons.

Am I better off to go to disk utility and reformat the HD before reinstalling OSX from the recovery partition altogether?

Doodah7

I'm hazy on the specific details but my understanding is that OSX (MacOS) assigns a number to each admin account on a computer. If something happens to the computer and a partial reinstall takes place it assigns a new number to the admin. This can have an effect on permissions etc. Try googling this issue.

My advice would be to get what you can from the MBP, wipe it and start again.