[nategubin]

I took a 40gig drive out of a dead ibook and put it in a usb enclosure. When i plug it into a mac mini it freezes the system, even freezes diskwarrior.

When I start up in safe mode and plug in the drive i get this message:

localhost:/ root# extension com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass in not loadable
Can't determine dependencies for com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass
extension com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass is not loadable
Couldn't alloc class IOUSBMassStorageClass

I realize the disk is probably toast, does anybody have an idea on how I might lift some data off it. The Disk Warrior Tech guys recomended plugging it into a computer running OS 9. I'm working on putting that together.

Any advice would be appreciated, even a recomendation on a data rescue service in London, UK

[Randman]

Try a FireWire enclosure, if you can, and boot in FireWire mode (or try the Migration Assistant).

[nategubin]

Actualy I tried a firewire enclosure before usb enclosure, same problem. The external disk freezes Migration Assistant as well as everything else within seconds of plugging it in???

[nategubin]

SUCCESS! Quick update. I booted my "new to me" ibook g3 in OS 9.2 and then plugged the HD into it via USB. Disk Warrior recognized it but couldn't fix it. Disk Utility recognized it but couldn't fix it. Was it Admiral Nelson who said the boldest move is the best? I re-initialized the disk. Pretty scary when you get to the "all data on the disk will be erased" screen. Did I mention the only copy of all our wedding pictures were on the disk? So the disk is now empty, but it works. I re-boot in OS 10.4, connect the disk and run Data Rescue. It finds everything, I copy all those golden files to a new drive and then back them all up to DVD. Post Script: I took that old drive and put it in a cheap fire wire enclosure, it works great, tested fine. Finally, I would recomend pulling an HD out of an Ibook with a dead logic board, worked for me.