# Using Ubuntu to recover from an OSX drive



## Atnevon (Mar 14, 2010)

Hello TPU,

So I have had little experience diving into Ubuntu. With not so great results, but did enjoy the ability to have control.

One of my friends has a hard drive that is not booting correctly in their iMac. I want to try and recover the data with my compy, but as we know, Windows will not be able to read the drive.

However, I was wondering if I could burn Ubuntu to a CD, and use the non-install method to read the drive, and copy the files like her photos and 3D files to my windows drive. This would save me an OS install on my emergency drive, and make her happy to have her old school work around.

Is this an easy task, or am I over my head?

Thanks to any help or direction you can offer. 
-At


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## Wile E (Mar 14, 2010)

Do you know why it's not booting? Did you boot from the OS X disc, and try to go into Disc Utility and do a volume repair?

If that doesn't work, you can install MacDrive in your Windows and copy the data that way. What model Mac does she have, btw?


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## jimmt (Mar 14, 2010)

Sure you can do mount -t hfsplus  /dev/<drive>  /path/to mount and mount the drive and copy data off of it. 

say you are booting from live CD and you want to backup the data to USB drive. You would do the following:

mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda1 /mnt *this will mount the first drive to the /mnt folder

Then cp -r data to /media/usb drive mount *assuming the USB drive is auto mounted from Ubuntu

Hope this helps.


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## Atnevon (Mar 15, 2010)

Wile E said:


> Do you know why it's not booting? Did you boot from the OS X disc, and try to go into Disc Utility and do a volume repair?
> 
> If that doesn't work, you can install MacDrive in your Windows and copy the data that way. What model Mac does she have, btw?



Never thought to try that. Is it like browsing another Windows drive, or is there some trick to the navigation that I may need?



			
				jimmt said:
			
		

> Sure you can do mount -t hfsplus /dev/<drive> /path/to mount and mount the drive and copy data off of it.
> 
> say you are booting from live CD and you want to backup the data to USB drive. You would do the following:
> 
> ...



I assume this is the terminal commands. Is using this method going to make a copy of the drive itself as hard drive image, a copy of the drive, or other? The instructions sound pretty straight forward, I'm just curious what to prep if I go this step.


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## jimmt (Mar 15, 2010)

Atnevon said:


> Never thought to try that. Is it like browsing another Windows drive, or is there some trick to the navigation that I may need?
> 
> 
> 
> I assume this is the terminal commands. Is using this method going to make a copy of the drive itself as hard drive image, a copy of the drive, or other? The instructions sound pretty straight forward, I'm just curious what to prep if I go this step.



Its just copying files from one drive to another and not an image. I can research how to take an image of  HFS+ file system as I never had done it. It is something I am curious about since I have a Mac as well.


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## Wile E (Mar 15, 2010)

Atnevon said:


> Never thought to try that. Is it like browsing another Windows drive, or is there some trick to the navigation that I may need?
> 
> 
> 
> I assume this is the terminal commands. Is using this method going to make a copy of the drive itself as hard drive image, a copy of the drive, or other? The instructions sound pretty straight forward, I'm just curious what to prep if I go this step.



MacDrive mounts it as a regular drive.

But first, boot from the OS X disc and do a repair with disc utility. It may just be a simple problem. There will be no need to save her data at all if we fix the issue.



jimmt said:


> Its just copying files from one drive to another and not an image. I can research how to take an image of  HFS+ file system as I never had done it. It is something I am curious about since I have a Mac as well.



Iirc, you can image your drive from the OS X disc by using disc utility. At least you used to be able to, haven't had to do it in years.


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## 933k (Mar 21, 2010)

linux can read HFS+

i have a hackint0sh install (OSX on PC) on one of my computers and i can look into the OSX system files from linux

only problem you might come across is if the user folder is encrypted in OSX


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## jimmt (Mar 22, 2010)

Wile E said:


> MacDrive mounts it as a regular drive.
> 
> But first, boot from the OS X disc and do a repair with disc utility. It may just be a simple problem. There will be no need to save her data at all if we fix the issue.
> 
> ...



You are correct. I had a brain dead moment. Though, I am curious if there are other forms of imaging you can do outside the Macintosh Drive utility.


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