MacBook Air Hard Drive Recovery

[Peter Russell]

I have the drive from my bad screen 2008 MacBook air that I would really like to recover files from. I have tried to find an external hard drive enclosure but am having no success. I did see one enclosure on line but it specified a 40 pin connection not 28 pin and it looks to me like net MB Air drive is 28 pin.

I tried connecting the MB Air to an external monitor to see if I could access the hard drive that way but the monitor was just exhibiting random solid colour screens the same as the MB Air screen was showing.

Short of trying find someone with a MB Air with a bad drive that I could replace with mine I'm out of ideas.
I'd really appreciate any suggestions that anyone might have .....thanks in advance if anything is forthcoming.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

-Is is a MacBook Air (Late 2008) - MacBookAir2,1 model?
-If so, that is a very specific 1.8" drive model, which has a PATA/ZIF connector.

It may be tough to find an enclosure for it.

C

 

[Peter Russell]

It is that very MB model Cory and yes, no luck with the enclosure.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

 

[George S Trott]

Do you still have the old MacBook? If so, you could back it up. I suspect you don't, but just a thought.

 

[Peter Aretin]

I don't quite understand why you didn't use an external monitor while backing up that computer.

 

[Peter Russell]

Do you still have the old MacBook? If so, you could back it up. I suspect you don't, but just a thought.

The screen is dead on the MacBook Air and so can't do anything on that machine.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello again,

Unfortunately, that model of MBA cannot use Target Disk Mode to copy data from, since it isn't supported over USB. There are only a few options:
-Install the flash storage in a working similar model
-Install the flash storage in an external enclosure - really hard to find
-Get it repaired

I will keep looking for an enclosure and let you know.

C

 

[Peter Russell]

I don't quite understand why you didn't use an external monitor while backing up that computer.

I did try connecting the MB Air to my desktop's monitor but as the MB Air screen cycled through coloured screens the monitor was light gray and then shut down. I hooked up my MB Pro to the same monitor, using the same connectors as I had for the MB Air, and the monitor worked perfectly for both mirroring and alternate screen. So conclusion is that it was something more than just a bad screen on the MB Air.

 

[Peter Russell]

Hello again,

Unfortunately, that model of MBA cannot use Target Disk Mode to copy data from, since it isn't supported over USB. There are only a few options:
-Install the flash storage in a working similar model
-Install the flash storage in an external enclosure - really hard to find
-Get it repaired

I will keep looking for an enclosure and let you know.

C

Cory thanks for your continued attempts for a solution but I think that I am out of the woods on this as I have just managed to access a Backup of the MB Air's storage, that I was having trouble with, and successfully recovered my Photos which were of the prime importance. Thanks again for your help!