Extracting data from a broken hard disk

Using advanced tools to read photos from a faulty disk

Oct. 15, 2020 - Willem L. Middelkoop

This week I received a message from someone with a iMac that crashed. It contained more than 50.000 photos, covering two decades of personal history. As there was no backup, it was up to me to attempt to safe as much as I could. Could I possibly recover the personal photos?

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The hard disk inside the iMac - containing the personal photos

Connecting the disk to a SATA-to-USB convertor

Crashed iMac on my desk - ready to be opened

Running macOS “First Aid” from Disk Utility

Ultimately I was able to rescue all other photos!

This chip is was originally part of a external USB disk drive - you might have one around that you can use for this

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Articles (159)

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2025-01-18 Master of Change
2024-12-19 Data versus Feeling
2024-12-09 The Problem With Bitcoin
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