Reading a bad drive with SATA-USB

[cckens]

Sitch:
Got a friend who lost a Macbook drive. Mac store says the drive is gone, so they contacted Apple and got a new drive(and got to keep the old one). Currently they are loading the OS on the new drive per Apple's instructions...

Query:
I'm a PC IT guy, but I work somewhat with Macs (enough to get by). Now since the hardware is pretty much the same as PCs, will the new system allow the old drive to be read if I hook it up via SATA-USB connection? I mean, my friends say they didn't find any of the symptoms of total drive failure that I posited, so it is a possibiltiy that the drives may still be readable... They have some irreplaceable pictures of their son that they want to recover and I offered to help. I'm not sure if the partition/slices can be mounted or if they were encrypted or what...

cckens

"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me

 

[jmgalvin]

Theoretically, if the drive is not toast, you should be able to mount it in a usb drive enclosure and it will show up on the mac desktop upon boot. If it does not show, you can go to Applications/Utilities/disk utility and see if it can be read and/or mounted.

Unless the user had turned on File Vault (disk encryption) the drive will not be encrypted.

Using OSX 10.3.9 & 10.4.11 on a G4, G5 & Intel Macbook

 

[twiSSt]

This may have some useful information:

http://tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1477157&page=1

Twist

===========================================
Everything will be OK in the end.
If it's not OK, then it's not the end

 

[cckens]

Thnx twist, I'll give it a read.

JM, God only knows if they've File Vaulted this. I'm tempted to say "no," but he's in the Navy and may be a bit more security-minded. Then again, he could just be an average user. I mean, he didn't back his files up either...

One way or another I'll report back...
Thanks guys!

cckens

"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me