Time Machine issue - can't recover

AlanD

Hi,

I've got a white MacBook, Core2Duo, running latest OS X. Last week, for some reason the whole thing froze on my. Had to turn it off, seemed it wouldn't then boot, went in to Lion recovery and tried repairing the disk, no joy, had to go for a fresh install. No problem I thought, I have the latest time machine backup.

But no. That too has an issue.

For the past few weeks, my western digital my book premium has been ejecting itself randomly. So sometimes it wouldn't complete a backup. In this case, it did. But my issue now is, when I want to use setup assistant or migration assistant to restore my MacBook following a new install, the disk ejects itself before the finish.

I've done a lot of searching online and it seems many folks have issues with ejecting hdd's. Now in case the drive is the problem, I borrowed an IOMega drive with a view to cloning it using super duper and use that then with migration assistant. But, Super Duper won't finish either because source drive is ejecting itself.

How can I get around this? My life's photo's are on this time machine backup and I really really need them back.

Sad Professor

You could try taking the drive out and putting it in a new enclosure. If it keeps happening the drive is probably fecked.

In the meantime, copy the important files from the TM backup across manually. Do it bit by bit before the drive ejects again.

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

You could try taking the drive out and putting it in a new enclosure. If it keeps happening the drive is probably fecked.

In the meantime, copy the important files from the TM backup across manually. Do it bit by bit before the drive ejects again.

Good idea. I'll bring in the likes of iPhoto library and backup online

Liameter

Sad Professor wrote: »

You could try taking the drive out and putting it in a new enclosure.

I had to do that with mine. Same symptoms. Started by ejecting itself until, eventually, it wouldn't mount. Enclosure hardware fault.

AlanD

Liameter wrote: »

Sad Professor wrote: »

You could try taking the drive out and putting it in a new enclosure.

I had to do that with mine. Same symptoms. Started by ejecting itself until, eventually, it wouldn't mount. Enclosure hardware fault.

I called apple and they suggested trying it with another mac. Which I did and it ejected there too. It was one eject too far. Because it created an unrepairable error for itself. Panic. Disk utility won't fix it.

So I pulled out the drive and have been using a Sata to USB connector with it to try an figure out how to repair the disk.

I really really need the data on this disk and so how do I repair it?

So I need the likes of disk warrior?

And when you moved the disk did it stay working for you?

Sad Professor

I once had a WD Mybook die on me. I took the drive out and put it in another enclosure and it worked fine. Well, until it roasted itself to death a few months later anyway.

Did you try copying the important files over manually?

AlanD

Sad Professor wrote: »

I once had a WD Mybook die on me. I took the drive out and put it in another enclosure and it worked fine. Well, until it roasted itself to death a few months later anyway.

Did you try copying the important files over manually?

I did indeed. I found my 45GB iPhoto library and went to copy it. Only got 2GB in before it ejected. Now I need to repair it.

Frustrating.

AlanD

I managed to rocover the whole lot. What a task.

Got it sorted yesterday and recovered all the data from the time machine drive.  I had to first stop it from ejecting so I bought an app from the app store called disk drill media recovery for 4 euro.  That app isolated bad blocks preventing the os from ejecting it.  Then I used data recovery 3 to clone the drive as it was to a new drive.  Old drive was in fact starting to fail, so needed to move data.  Time machine uses funky structures and links so needed to clone it.  Took about 24 hours to do.  Then used Disk Warrior to repair the directory structure and finally restored using migration assistant.  Hey presto.  Cost me 4 euro, but would have cost hundreds if I sent it to a data recovery guy. 

Sad Professor

Well done! Glad you got it sorted.

RGDATA!

AlanD wrote: »

I managed to rocover the whole lot. What a task.
 

nice one, i was reading the thread thinking "sorry, you're ****ed", love a happy ending!