Recovering data from an old 2009 Mac laptop using HDD methods
Recovering data from an old 2009 Mac laptop using HDD methods
Hey everyone, I’m reaching out for guidance and some advice. My elderly relative has asked me to retrieve all his data from old Apple devices. I’m not clear on the specific models, operating systems, or how many machines he owns. From what he’s shared, he’s upgraded his system roughly every 2 to 3 years since 2008, with his 2009 model being the most significant since it holds a lot of personal memories—like photos from his Vietnam service. I need to gather everything from these computers, many of which he says won’t even power on.
What’s the best approach for this? Should I extract everything from Windows, and could there be any issues? I’m new to Apple tech and don’t want to risk losing data. I’m considering taking the drives out, placing them in a dock, and opening them up on my PC. I’m worried about reformatting the drives and whether that would wipe everything. Also, if I connect to the internet during this process, are there any security concerns? Any suggestions from the community would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, you can remove the HDD and repurpose it in another setup. There are various tools available to read HFS+ files on Windows and transfer the data.
I presented a $500 proposal and he declined. He clearly doesn’t grasp the effort involved in managing five computers. It seems they intended to offer a discount, yet he remains insistent on the high price. Just remember he can be stubborn and traditional, and I’ll do my best.
Earlier remarks suggested I’d strongly advise bringing them to a real recovery expert. If that’s not possible, you could drop them in a dock and transfer the data manually. However, if one of the Macs becomes operational, it’s best to connect the dock to that specific machine since Windows file systems can be tricky.
Modern serial SCSI connections served as a successor to PATA devices. SAS technology became common in server storage during the early 2000s. Learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Att...troduction
It was a high-speed standard that outperformed the IDE drives available then, but it was eventually superseded by SATA.