Recovery Without Backup

[Pedro754246]

I had issues with backing up my Mac and never got it done before my hard-drive failed. After replacing the hard-drive, I took the failed drive to a recovery service & paid a fortune to have them do a head replacement. They were able to recover all of the files from the drive & gave them to me in a folder on my desktop. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to create some sort of system backup from the files in this folder? I'd like to be able to recover my system completely as it was before the drive failure from these files, if I can. Right now I am looking at just importing all of the user files (iTunes, Photos, Docs, etc.) and then trying to re-install all the software I had from scratch.

 

[honestone]

First, what specific Mac model do you have?

Secondly, what exact Mac OS are you using? And, is that the same OS that was/is on the failed hard drive/folder?

Given that they were able to recover all the files, that means the folder should contain everything that was on the drive before the failure. That should mean all the system-related/OS files, Applications (including third party), documents, and whatever else you had on the drive.

Can you boot your machine at all from that folder? If you can, then you can make a SuperDuper! backup/clone (bootable) to an external device. You would then boot from that bootable backup on the external device, from which you could Erase and Format your internal drive, do a clean installation of the OS, and then use Migration Assistant to "migrate"/copy all the non-system stuff from the backup to your internal drive.

 

[Pedro754246]

It's a 27" iMac ... late 2009 model. Was running el Capitan when the drive failed. Took it to be repaired & they installed a new (faster) drive & did fresh install of el Capitan. They told me data was unrecoverable and recommended I drill a hole in the drive & recycle. My wife has over 7000 photos from the last 11 years or so on that drive ... no WAY I was telling her that!

Went to recovery specialist (though I think he's fairly new to the business ... not super on the ball). He managed to make a complete copy of the failed drive on another drive of his own ... his report following recovery indicated only 20 bad sectors, so he says should be fully functional. When he dropped this drive into my Mac, though, he said it wouldn't boot. My guess is that system files relating to the drive I originally had (drivers ... settings ... whatever - not my strong point) don't match with the new drive. He put my new drive bought from the first repair guy back in & made a folder on the desktop called Recovery that now contains the entire file structure from the original drive.

In the midst of all this there was a first attempt I didn't take you through where the recovery guy attempted a partial recovery of only the user profiles and I screwed things up trying to shove stuff back where it didn't belong ... my new install is now having app-related issues ... also his partial recovery had all kinds of file corruption issues ... this is why I want to reformat & start fresh.

So now I'm thinking ...

1 - Transfer the recovery folder to an external drive.
2 - Reformat/reinstall Mac
3 - Wonder if migration assistant will be able to help me import what I need from that recovery folder to get my Mac back the way it was? Is it flexible enough to do that? Or can you give me an idea how I would try to boot from a folder? Not sure I see how I could attempt that.

 

[honestone]

This is a "sticky" situation, but I'll try to offer some answers.

First, I'm not even sure if one can boot from such a folder. But, if you could, it would show up in System Preferences, under Startup Disk.

Secondly, in order to do a fresh installation of OS 10.11.1 (I assume you have the latest version), and given that you do not have a backup, there should be a Recovery HD partition on your new drive that was created when the shop did the El Capitan installation. But, the first thing you should do is to make a backup of the "partially problematic" internal drive, as you can at least run your machine with that. Time Machine is OK for that, but a cloning program like either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner is MUCH, MUCH better, as either of them will make a bootable backup. Next, you would need to boot to the Recovery HD partition. This link explains what is on that partition, along with how you boot to it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

As you can see, you can then 1) use Disk Utility to Erase and Format the internal drive, and 2) install El Capitan (hopefully it OS 10.11.1). You should then be able to re-boot your machine from the internal drive.

I believe Migration Assistant could "migrate"/copy stuff from that folder, no matter where it is. And, you can pick and choose what it should "migrate", but I don't know how "detailed" you can get with that, as I have never done it.

Once you get to a successful state, I strongly suggest you start making a backup as often as necessary, so that you will not risk losing those 7000 photos (and any other valuable stuff)!

 

[Elias Sam]

In most of the case, it is not possible recover system entirely. Because of this IT professional has specially developed recovery software which restores data completely from Mac hard drive. Unless and until, data has not been overwritten by new files. You can have a look on this link http://www.savechazz.com/simple-way-to-restore-imac-data