Rescuing photos from a crashed iMac

Using advanced tools to read movies 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

Running macOS “First Aid” from Disk Utility

Removing the glass panel using suction caps

Some iMacs require a special cutting blade to cut through the adhesive tape holding the glass on to the Aluminium frame

Connecting the salvaged disk to another Mac

The display is fixed using Torx screws - it can be a little tricky to remove the screws as the magnets easily catch them!

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