# Macbook system/file recovery [Help!!]



## Mussels (Apr 11, 2016)

To put a long story short, Friend B has decided to try and upgrade/update the OS on Friend A's macbook.

It has gone poorly, and now the macbook boots into a 'system utilities' screen
This mac has no internal battery as it tried to explode, and was removed but never replaced. Could be relevant.

Some very unhelpful errors appear in the installer log:







any tips for reinstalling the OS without losing her personal files, or how to find those files (inclusing 'sticky notes' from her desktop) and back them up from the recovery mode/windows PC?


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## RCoon (Apr 11, 2016)

Mussels said:


> To put a long story short, Friend B has decided to try and upgrade/update the OS on Friend A's macbook.
> 
> It has gone poorly, and now the macbook boots into a 'system utilities' screen
> This mac has no internal battery as it tried to explode, and was removed but never replaced. Could be relevant.
> ...



Tear out the drive and then run PhotoRec from a PartedMagic Live CD. PhotoRec recovers anything and everything that has bits and keeps it as it is. Format the drive after recovery, reinstall the OSX and dump the files back on.


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## 95Viper (Apr 11, 2016)

Maybe this will help, if you have OSX Lion or later...

OS X: About OS X Recovery

How to reinstall OS X on your Mac


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## Mussels (Apr 11, 2016)

turns out the drive has corrupted, and the partition been deleted. trying photorec/testdisk (same guy) now, but with problems. going to download a linux live CD and try it that way.


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## Mussels (Apr 11, 2016)

testdisk works a lot better in a linux liveCD than in windows, its chugging away doing its thing. job interview in the morning, so i'll update this in 12+ hours or so.


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