Salvaging photos 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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Ultimately I was able to rescue all other photos!

The iMac’s innards are visible after removing the display

It doesn’t hurt to be nice to the damaged disk... “pleasssssse little disky... give me the photos!” - But don’t touch the chips!

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

Reading files from the salvaged disk - if you understand Dutch you’ll understand the personal nature of these photos (‘bevalling’ means birth)

Ohhhh no! Trouble! Read errors while copying photos!

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Articles (155)

2024-12-19 Data versus Feeling
2024-12-09 The Problem With Bitcoin
2024-11-11 Write your own words
2024-11-10 Go Viral on X
2024-10-20 Marathon
2024-09-10 I see dead people
2024-05-11 Developing a native iOS app
2024-03-24 Half Marathon
2024-03-05 No, I Won't Build That!
2024-02-16 Vision Pro
2024-01-16 Health and fitness data
2023-12-15 Backup Rotation Scheme
2023-11-10 Apple Watch as Phone
2023-11-01 And... there is light!
2023-10-14 Giving AI Training
2023-10-13 Hello, stranger
2023-08-23 The Same, Differently
2023-05-31 Impact of training
2023-05-08 Tablet as Tool
2023-05-03 Using AI to generate code
2023-05-01 Working Offline First
2023-04-20 Tips for Long-Distance Cycling
2023-04-05 Cutting Cloud Costs
2023-02-08 Back to the University
2022-12-22 Rolex DateJust 36
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2022-10-23 MUSE in Carré
2022-09-15 The Ultimate Freedom Bike
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2021-11-19 Escaping the flat tires
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2019-04-25 Search like a pro: Google search operators
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2018-11-16 Around town in an electric car
2018-11-02 Is the Apple Watch the modern tool watch?
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2018-08-21 Space travelling from El Teide
2018-08-20 Google Analytics vs AWStats
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2018-05-09 Lunch by plane
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2018-03-07 Tablet as main computer
2018-02-24 Creating the ultimate commuter bike
2018-02-21 Updating Snake '97
2018-01-21 Something the smartwatch will never have: patina
2018-01-08 Lessons from a takeaway plastic bag
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2017-07-31 The day I killed my LAN
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