A Conversation for "The Orchard" - the h2g2 Mac Users' Group!

Dead start-up drive

Post 1

MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A., is now in a relationship.

My eMac start-up drive died last sunday, and I now have a new iMac.

Does anyone know how I can use the new iMac to jumpstart my old eMac so I can download my photos off the old eMac before I do a hard restore?

They are both USB and/or Firewire connections.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

smiley - ok

smiley - musicalnote


Dead start-up drive

Post 2

Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista)

Is the dead drive IDE/ATAPI? If so you can remove it and put it into an IDE-USB box and plug it into the iMac's USB. From there, depending on what's "dead", you ought to be able to mount the drive and read everything off it.

If you can't "borrow" an enclosire, Dabs do one for £16 plus carriage.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3V64


Dead start-up drive

Post 3

MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A., is now in a relationship.

Thanks for that. I will have to check as I am no computer smiley - geek and not sure how to remove a hard-drive. but will check tomorrow.

smiley - cheers

smiley - musicalnote


Dead start-up drive

Post 4

Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista)

Generally, you take out four screws (or in Apple's case, sometimes it's two clips) and undo two plugs. You plug the equivalent two plugs in from the USB case. In the case ( smiley - silly ) of the Dabs case, you don't need screws to hold it together; it all just clips into place. smiley - geek


Dead start-up drive

Post 5

MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A., is now in a relationship.

smiley - ta

Looks like I'll be busy next weekend smiley - laugh

smiley - ok

smiley - musicalnote


Dead start-up drive

Post 6

dElaphant (and Zeppo his dog (and Gummo, Zeppos dog)) - Left my apostrophes at the BBC

You can try Firewire Target Disk Mode first - it's quick and easy so if it works it'll save you a lot of time over extracting the hard drive. All you need is a firewire cable.

Here's the Apple article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583 but put simply if you hold down the "T" key when you turn on the eMac, it won't try to boot up - it'll just act like a very expensive external hard drive. You can then plug it into the iMac with a firewire cable and (maybe) access your files. But like Peet said, it depends on what actually failed.
smiley - dog


Dead start-up drive

Post 7

dElaphant (and Zeppo his dog (and Gummo, Zeppos dog)) - Left my apostrophes at the BBC

There are also illustrated guides to disassembling the eMac on the web, here's one http://www.wilko.com/emac/ though it seems to focus on the CD/DVD drive.

You can see why you might want to try the firewire target first. And watch out for stored *high voltage* electricity in that cathode ray tube!
smiley - dog


Dead start-up drive

Post 8

MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A., is now in a relationship.

Now that sounds a great deal easier, and is probably what the guy at Apple was referring to.

It seems it is just the start-up section of the Hard-drive that has crashed, and can be restored, but I've 3,000 photos on there which I don't really want to lose if I can help it. Shall have to see how it goes.

Thanks for the assistance, folks.

smiley - ok

smiley - musicalnote


Dead start-up drive

Post 9

The_Apple_Woman...being conscientious & objective

...and mind Peet doesn't mix them up with his anti-biotics smiley - erm


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