[layard]

Hello, i have a mac mini with Mac OS Tiger 10.4, i don't know why... but the OS suddenly stopped to work, i tried using diskwarrior to fix it, but i didn't get any results. I want to reinstall the Tiger but i want to make a backup to an external hard disk, but i dont know any too to do it... (i know the data is there because i could see it with diskwarrior, but cannot copy it). Please can someone tell me how to copy it to an external hard drive using some booting tool.

I will really appreciate your help!! THanks !

[Simon]

What do you mean when you say 'the OS suddenly stopped to work'?

Have you tried rebooting in Safe Mode (boot and hold shift)?
Have you tried booting from the install DVD and running Disk Utility's 'verify disk'?

[ibook_steve]

Have you tried target disk mode? Hold T at boot and connect a Firewire cable between the mini and another computer. It will mount as an external drive so you can copy over your stuff before formatting.

Steve

[layard]

When i say that it stopped to work i mean that the OS doesn't boot. I did verify the disk too, but the macOS doesn't boot.

ibook_steve, i will try target disk mode, i must find a firewire cable !! THANKS, any other solution??

[Simon]

Originally Posted by layard 

When i say that it stopped to work i mean that the OS doesn't boot.

Not even in safe mode?

[Big Mac]

It sounds like a major drive problem, especially if Disk Warrior couldn't finish. There would be no way for an OS to boot on a drive in that state.

[seanc]

Could be bad sectors, your best bet is to grab another Mac, a firewire cable and start sucking the data off.

OS X/Finder struggles with bad sectors, just gave me a beach ball whenever I hit it.

[layard]

Thank you guys!! i will try tonight with the firewire cable, and after that i will try to reinstall the mac OS!! i'll let you know !

[layard]

hello, i tried with disk target mode, but it doesnt mount any drive in the desktop i tried usind the disk manager but i dont see any mounted disk , im really desperate !!! im sure that it's in the target disk mode, but it doesnt mount the disk in the host computer !! another suggestion??

[CharlesS]

First, I'd try Data Rescue. It might be able to get your files off your drive. Make sure to try it in trial mode first to make sure it will work before buying it.

If that doesn't work, and if your other Mac has a hard drive larger than the one in your Mac mini, you can do a recovery this way. Note that this will *only* work if the other computer's hard drive has at least as much free space as the *entire capacity* of your Mac mini's drive - not just the amount of space taken up by files.

1. Connect your Mac mini to the other Mac via FireWire Target Mode.

2. Open Disk Utility.

3. Click on your drive on the left-hand pane and click the "Info" toolbar button.

4. Look to where it says "Disk Identifier". It should look like diskN, where N is some integer. Examples: disk1, disk2, disk3, etc. Make note of the disk identifier.

5. Open the Terminal and type this:

sudo dd if=/dev/rdiskN of=/recovery.dmg conv=noerror,sync

Replace "diskN" with the appropriate disk identifier. Make sure to put the lower-case "r" in front of it. For example, if the identifier is disk1, you'd type:

sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk1 of=/recovery.dmg conv=noerror,sync

This operation will likely take a really long time - maybe even a few days if the drive is hosed enough. But when it finishes, you should have a file called "recovery.dmg" at the root of your hard drive, that will be the size of your Mac mini's hard drive.

6. Double-click the "recovery.dmg" file at the root of the drive. If it mounts on the Desktop, you're done, and you can start copying the files off the disk image to somewhere safe. However, if it fails to mount, do this:

6a. Open Disk Utility and eject your Mac mini. Disconnect the FireWire cable.

6b. Open the Terminal again and type this:

hdiutil attach -nomount /recovery.dmg

6c. Fire up DiskWarrior and hopefully it will detect a volume to fix. Let it have a shot at fixing it. Things should go much faster than when running DW on your Mac mini directly, since it will be working with healthy hardware this time.

6d. Mount the disk image, and hope for the best.