NEED HELP!...Ibook does not read HDD.

My dual-usb ibook is not recognizing the hard drive. The problem started after having to manually shut down and restart from the power button several times in a row due to the bad logic board causing the screen to freeze. Now when I turn the computer on I get the first gray screen, the little folder icon comes up with the question mark then switches between the ? and the finder icon and goes no further. I booted from the tiger DVD and tried disk utility, but it does not even "see" the hard drive, nor does system profiler or startup disk. I have had to crack open my laptop several times to replace or adjust the shim I installed just below the gpu on the magnetic shield (a temporary solution to my logic board issues). I'm going to get a new computer soon but I need the data off this HDD. Is there any way it can be retrieved? Thanks.

 

if the hard drive is indeed fine, and just mobo problems to read it, just yank it out and buy an notebook HD enclosure for it.

 

Unfortunately that sounds more like the hard drive is the issue. You can try what Radcom said, but it's far from guaranteed to work (I'd say it's unlikely, even) and you might need to hire professional help to recover data - which is quite expensive.

 

I suppose you could try to dis-assemble the drive and re-assemble the platters into a new working chassi, but it's neither recommended nor easy considering you need a perfectly dust free environment. People who have modified drives have two basic approaches..1) a bathroom with hot steamy shower on.. vapor captures the dust theoretically, 2) make a clean box which is like a clean room. this would look something like a sealed plastic box with dishwashing gloves integrated for component handling. If spending several hunder dollars on recovery isn't an option, than this is your only way. read a lot before attempting this and accidentally turning your data into shiny coasters

 

That's really not... not a good idea. The disassembling and reassembling of the hard drive I mean. I can't see that possibly turning out well. It could be a non-hardware problem though. For instance, I had a hard drive that wouldn't show up in Windows -- in fact, whichever IDE chain I plugged it into, the other drive on that chain wouldn't be recognized by the OS either.

I forget what I used on it... it was either a boot cd that rebuilt that initial partition or filesystem data (you know, that magical numbery stuff) hard drives have on them, or it was SpinRite. Either way, once it was done, it worked again. I'd try that sort of thing before you send it in to a data recovery shop, since they're expensive.

PS. A shim helped your logic board issues? Howso? just curious now, as I've found an irresistible attraction in that whole using-a-hammer-on-a-computer asthetic.

 

>> PS. A shim helped your logic board issues? Howso? just curious now, as I've found an irresistible attraction in that whole using-a-hammer-on-a-computer asthetic.

> http://www.joshoakhurst.com/?p=231 stick it to Apple hard!!!

 

...just shoving the gpu against its broken solder points. that's the best thing I've ever heard of.

 

Would a USB 2.0 enclosure suffice, or is a firewire case a better choice? I've heard USB cannot sustain speeds or something.

 

Either will be fine. Firewire is supposed to be better. For all I know, it is better. I use USB 2 exclusively at the moment though, and it's alright.