Hard-drive not recognised and has been formatted - what do i do ?!?

[Emma1684]

Hi everyone,

My Macbook Pro (Late 2012) has recently started booting to the infamous flashing question mark folder.
I've been trailing forums and have
- Tried repairing/verifying the disk in disk utility - however the hard drive is not visible there ( instead there is one called Superdrive which is greyed out)
- Ran apple diagnostics - which found no problems
-tried fsck -fy, which reported all was well

Today i took my hard drive out of my Macbook and to a store to get them to run some tests to see if the Harddrive was actually dead our if it was the cable.

the answer was that the Harddrive appeared to be ok, but it had been formatted !!

So, is there any way to get my laptop back up and running without paying a few hundred dollars for repairs ??

N.B. I have recently returned from a year overseas and did not back up anything while i was over there (stupid i know) so are there any methods that do not delete all my photos/documents/files ??

Thanks

 

[honestone]

First, how did you generate the post above? From another Mac, your iPhone, etc.?

Secondly, what Mac OS are you using?

Third, how were you able to run Disk Utility for trying diagnostics? Similarly, what Apple diagnostics did you run, and how?

Even though the store told you that the hard drive appeared to be OK but was formatted, being formatted should not be a surprise, as apparently you were able to use your machine until recently.

If either you have another Mac, or have access to one, as long as it has either a Thunderbolt port or Firewire 800 port on it (your machine has a Thunderbolt port, I believe), there could be a way to try and repair your machine. In fact, it might be possible to first save your needed/required photos/documents/files to another external location.

 

[Emma1684]

Hi, thanks for replying

1) I'm using a desktop mac to compose this cry for help.
2) From memory i think it is Snow Lepoard - but i'm not 100% sure on this
3) I ran disk utility by performing a recovery reboot. Apple Diagnostics i ran by pressing option + D on start-up (https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202731)

My machine has both a thunderbolt and firewire 800, as does the mac i'm currently using, so i'll try that ! Thanks !!
Just a quick question as to how i could first save my files etc to an external location ??

Thanks again

 

[honestone]

Thanks for the definitive reply. I suspected you did a "recovery reboot" (by holding down the Command and R keys), but Snow Leopard does not have that feature. So, I suspect you have a more recent version of the Mac OS.

Now, given your other Mac has both Firewire 800 and Thunderbolt ports, after purchasing the appropriate cable/adapter, you'll be able to boot your problematic Mac in Target Disk Mode. These links explain what that is:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201462

http://osxdaily.com/2010/04/07/how-to-boot-a-mac-in-target-disk-mode/

So, you'll need to purchase either a Thunderbolt Cable, or purchase a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire 800 adapter ($29 US) and a Firewire 800 cable. There are many choices for the Thunderbolt Cable:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Thu...7.7900j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

Make sure both machines are off, and attach the cable or cable/adapter to each machine. Boot up the good machine first. Then, while holding down the T key, boot up your problematic Mac. Your problematic's internal disk will then appear on the good Mac's desktop. From there, you can first select the stuff you want to save somewhere externally, and then use whatever tools you have on the good Mac to diagnose the bad Mac's drive, and repair it.

 

[Brucelevoski]

What was the outcome to this issue? I have the same problem but no compatible cable to run target mode.

 

[Emma1684]

The cable was faulty, which caused something to go wrong with the harddrive as well ( it messed up it's formatting or something - easily fixed with a reinstall
I just bought an external hard-drive cable ( make sure it's compatible with the model of harddrive you have) and was able to access my hard drive that way.
There was some other stuff wrong with mine as well, so it became a bit complicated getting the data off it, but still mangeable. Goodluck !