Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.


You have to get a response from the hardware,
before any tools are going to work.

You can open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) and
see if a new entry is present there.

You can use USBTreeView to spot a change in USB
when the device is plugged in.

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

The SATA device has to have power delivered via the
SATA 15p plug, for it to work. You need to plug
in the AC adapter, and use the SATA power plug
from the adapter.

A new entry should show up. For example, you might
see an entry with a VID/PID, yet it forms no "endpoints".
If the USB won't set up a communications path (because the
USB chip is defective), then USBTreeView will
have an entry (with no "endpoints" listed),
but Device Manager (or Disk Management) won't have an entry.

I've had a case where the external adapter firmware
got erased (by the usage of SeaTools), and I had
to reload the firmware before it worked properly
as an enclosure again.

The drive must successfully spin up, before the
USB enclosure chip will tell anyone about it. If
the USB chip can get a "drive ID" from the thing,
that's where it should start to come alive.
If the drive is not responding to commands
from the USB chip, then you won't be able
to see the drive on the USB side either.

Paul

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-06-28 17:45, Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.


It looks like she'll have to connect the drive via USB. So you need a
SATA to USB adapter, or an external HDD case with USB. The latter would
be useful since it would make the old HDD an external drive, which is
always handy.

See this article (not done it myself, so can't advise you further):

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to...image-3369574/


Good luck,

But that's what Boris showed in a link.

This is the converter already tried.

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt.../dp/B002OV1VJW

Checking Disk Management or Device Manager might show
some evidence it's being seen.

If the drive didn't have power, that would exhibit
the same symptoms. The power cable might not be
plugged in.

Since those adapters sometimes fail (usually the wall
adapter), testing with an "expendable" Windows drive
to see if it still appears, would prove the hardware
works.

Paul

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Boris wrote:

My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.

Does her current computer have a spare SATA port on the mobo, or a
data-only drive attached that can be temporarily disconnected and used
with the Mac drive? Instead of using USB which requires Windows to be
loaded so afterward the USB devices can be detected and mounted, just
connect the SATA MAC drive to a SATA port on the Windows computer. Does
the current computer have an eSATA port?

When the computer boots, and BEFORE any operating system loads, the POST
screen should show what devices are detected, like the mass storage
devices (hard disks) on the SATA ports, optical drives, etc. At that
point in the POST, no OS is loaded yet so it doesn't matter how the
drive was partitioned or those partitions formatted. The idea is to see
if the bare drive regardless of what has been recorded on it can be
recognized by the computer. If detected, it should in the POST screen.
If not detected, the OS won't find it, either.

Check the computer can find the hardware interface to the migrated
drive. If the computer's BIOS/UEFI doesn't list the SATA hard disk in
its POST screen, the OS won't see it, too. The hardware has to be
working before the OS can find any logical structures recorded on the
drive.

Using USB means the drive cannot be found by the hardware until after
the OS loads and the USB driver(s) get loaded. That just compounds
determining if the migrated drive's basic hardware is even usable.

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

On 6/28/2018 5:45 PM, Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

It's possible that it was the hard drive itself that died, rather than
the motherboard. You can't expect a "Genius" to know that, obviously. ;-)

Yousuf Khan

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Paul wrote:
But that's what Boris showed in a link.

This is the converter already tried.

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt.../dp/B002OV1VJW

Checking Disk Management or Device Manager might show
some evidence it's being seen.

If the drive didn't have power, that would exhibit
the same symptoms. The power cable might not be
plugged in.

Since those adapters sometimes fail (usually the wall
adapter), testing with an "expendable" Windows drive
to see if it still appears, would prove the hardware
works.

Wow, that almost look like Vantec's I am using.
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Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

In message , VanguardLH
writes:
[]
When the computer boots, and BEFORE any operating system loads, the POST
screen should show what devices are detected, like the mass storage
devices (hard disks) on the SATA ports, optical drives, etc. At that
point in the POST, no OS is loaded yet so it doesn't matter how the
drive was partitioned or those partitions formatted. The idea is to see
if the bare drive regardless of what has been recorded on it can be
recognized by the computer. If detected, it should in the POST screen.
If not detected, the OS won't find it, either.
[]
Some mobos have a splash screen that obscures the POST
device-enumeration list. Often there's a message such as "Press ... to
bypass splash screen", and there's usually a BIOS setting to turn it off
altogether, but in my (limited) experience, mobos that can show such a
splash graphic screen usually have it _on_ by default.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Of course, this show - like every other cop show on earth - massively
overstates the prevalence of violent crime: last year, in the whole of the UK,
police fired their weapons just three times. And there were precisely zero
fatalities. - Vincent Graff in RT, 2014/11/8-14

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

VanguardLH WROTE:

When the computer boots, and BEFORE any operating system loads, the
POST screen should show what devices are detected, like the mass
storage devices (hard disks) on the SATA ports, optical drives, etc.
At that point in the POST, no OS is loaded yet so it doesn't matter
how the drive was partitioned or those partitions formatted. The
idea is to see if the bare drive regardless of what has been
recorded on it can be recognized by the computer. If detected, it
should in the POST screen. If not detected, the OS won't find it,
either.

Some mobos have a splash screen that obscures the POST
device-enumeration list. Often there's a message such as "Press ... to
bypass splash screen", and there's usually a BIOS setting to turn it off
altogether, but in my (limited) experience, mobos that can show such a
splash graphic screen usually have it _on_ by default.

But, at least, even with the adware banner or screen, if you can read it
then the video card and monitor are working using their basic config.
If either the POST or adware screen is readable, I'd then boot into
Windows' safe mode and make sure the video card wasn't set to use some
resolution outside the ability of the monitor. Changing resolution is
something you do inside of Windows.

I'm assuming the OP has an LCD/LED monitor. If he has an old CRT
monitor, it is possible that using the resizing controls either on the
monitor or in Windows can push the frequency past what the monitor can
handle.

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Ant wrote:
Paul wrote:
But that's what Boris showed in a link.

This is the converter already tried.

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt.../dp/B002OV1VJW

Checking Disk Management or Device Manager might show
some evidence it's being seen.

If the drive didn't have power, that would exhibit
the same symptoms. The power cable might not be
plugged in.

Since those adapters sometimes fail (usually the wall
adapter), testing with an "expendable" Windows drive
to see if it still appears, would prove the hardware
works.

Wow, that almost look like Vantec's I am using.

Years ago, there was an "epidemic" of cheap USB
to three-drive-flavor adapters, where the power
adapter was just plain bad. The responsible companies
eventually figured out this was bad for business
(blowing up customer drives and such).

I've not seen a bad 12V adapter here (yet).

There was a time, probably close to 20 years ago,
when drive enclosures used a four pin power connector
(circular DIN). Somebody decided it was more fun to
do a 12V only adapter (barrel connector), then have
the controller board in the enclosure convert the
12V to 5V. I don't know which scheme is more dangerous.
Fortunately, in 2018, the controller board in the
enclosure uses a switcher rather than a linear regulator
(7805 etc) for the 5V output. It could be a "buck"
converter (as a buck doesn't do isolation, and
isolation isn't needed for DC to DC cases
like this one).

Paul

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Paul wrote:

Years ago, there was an "epidemic" of cheap USB
to three-drive-flavor adapters, where the power
adapter was just plain bad. The responsible companies
eventually figured out this was bad for business
(blowing up customer drives and such).

I've not seen a bad 12V adapter here (yet).

There was a time, probably close to 20 years ago,
when drive enclosures used a four pin power connector
(circular DIN). Somebody decided it was more fun to
do a 12V only adapter (barrel connector), then have
the controller board in the enclosure convert the
12V to 5V. I don't know which scheme is more dangerous.
Fortunately, in 2018, the controller board in the
enclosure uses a switcher rather than a linear regulator
(7805 etc) for the 5V output. It could be a "buck"
converter (as a buck doesn't do isolation, and
isolation isn't needed for DC to DC cases
like this one).

How does one know which brands are good and bad? The reviews and ratings
like on Amazon?

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Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Ant wrote:
Paul wrote:

Years ago, there was an "epidemic" of cheap USB
to three-drive-flavor adapters, where the power
adapter was just plain bad. The responsible companies
eventually figured out this was bad for business
(blowing up customer drives and such).

I've not seen a bad 12V adapter here (yet).

There was a time, probably close to 20 years ago,
when drive enclosures used a four pin power connector
(circular DIN). Somebody decided it was more fun to
do a 12V only adapter (barrel connector), then have
the controller board in the enclosure convert the
12V to 5V. I don't know which scheme is more dangerous.
Fortunately, in 2018, the controller board in the
enclosure uses a switcher rather than a linear regulator
(7805 etc) for the 5V output. It could be a "buck"
converter (as a buck doesn't do isolation, and
isolation isn't needed for DC to DC cases
like this one).

How does one know which brands are good and bad? The reviews and ratings
like on Amazon?


The reviews on both Amazon and Newegg are degraded by
mixing up reviews from different things.

Some care is required, to collect review data
for a particular item.

I don't think there's a problem in 2018, but
there was wide-spread dissatisfaction years
ago, due to the wall adapters being poorly made.
It might have been the "bad cap" era, but I
think there was more to it than that. Too
many corners were being cut.

Nobody with the bad adapters was sawing them
open for a look. So we have no data.

Paul

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

On 6/28/2018 5:45 PM, Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.

It's been ages since I did this. Live Linux boot with HD attached.
Copy files.
I remember it only grabbed common types of files ie. doc, jpg, pdf, etc.
I'll look into my archived notes...

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

On 6/29/2018 11:05 PM, fnot wrote:
On 6/28/2018 5:45 PM, Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard.Â* Well, it was running, but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing.Â* It was like it was
not plugged in.Â* She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013.Â* It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive.Â* It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA.Â* She connected it to my adapter/converter cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop.Â* The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen.Â* According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer.Â* She is going to wait until I
can help (tomorrow).Â* But, if we are able to access the Apple hard drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.

It's been ages since I did this. Live Linux boot with HD attached.
Copy files.
I remember it only grabbed common types of files ie. doc, jpg, pdf, etc.
I'll look into my archived notes...

Looks like you're on the right track.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways...drive-windows/

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Mike S wrote:
On 6/29/2018 11:05 PM, fnot wrote:
On 6/28/2018 5:45 PM, Boris wrote:
My daughter called me about this yesterday.

She has a 2009-2010 iMac running Snow Leopard. Well, it was running,
but
about five years ago, the thing would not fire up, nothing, no sound
of a
spinning hard drive, no video on monitor, nothing. It was like it was
not plugged in. She took it to the Apple geniuses, who told her her the
motherboard must be dead, so she put it on the shelf circa 2013. It was
out of warranty.

She now wants to get some files, mostly pics/videos, from the hard
drive.

With the help of google, she managed to remove the hard drive. It's a
2.5" 500GB Seagate SATA. She connected it to my adapter/converter
cable,
similar to this one

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapt...erter-Optical-
External/dp/B002OV1VJW

and to her Win10 HP laptop. The drive spun up, but nothing popped up on
her screen. According to this article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how...ed-drive-on-a-
windows-pc/

she was expecting to get something like do you want to format this
drive?

She also tried connecting to a Win7 machine, but no luck there, either.

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer. She is going to wait
until I
can help (tomorrow). But, if we are able to access the Apple hard
drive,
can we move files to a Windows PC, and also open them?

Thanks.

It's been ages since I did this. Live Linux boot with HD attached.
Copy files.
I remember it only grabbed common types of files ie. doc, jpg, pdf, etc.
I'll look into my archived notes...

Looks like you're on the right track.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways...drive-windows/

The first step, is deciding whether it's HFS+ or APFS.

The file system layout of APFS has a couple text strings.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile...ication_detail

NXSB

APSB

I'd start with a hex editor such as HxD and
check it out. HxD has a "raw disk" menu item
for jobs like this (when it is run as Administrator).
HxD can search for text strings at 600MB/sec
(if the disk can keep up).

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Or "disktype" is a good utility, but a nuisance
to get ahold of. (The one I use is a Cygwin version,
an EXE and two DLLs.)

On the older disks, the nineth partition is
typically "Macintosh HD". And "disktype" can tell
you that. Before "disktype" came along, I had
to try them one at a time until I found it.

Paul

Reading Apple Files with a Windows Machine?
 

Boris wrote:
[...]

[N.B. Others have already commented on the need for the Windows system
to 'see' the disk at all, i.e. as a disk, not (yet) the filesystem(s) on
the disk, so I'll skip that.]

She has not yet installed HFS+/HFSExplorer.

In a similar situation - also a daughter :-) - I (successfully) used
'Paragon HFS+ for Windows':

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/#

'Paragon HFS+ for Windows' is payware, but has a free 10-day trial,
which should be enough.

Paragon has also a product for APFS filesystems (see Paul's responses).

According to my notes, I had more luck with 'Paragon HFS+ for Windows'
than with 'HFSExplorer' (http://www.catacombae.org/hfsexplorer).

'HFSExplorer' is more limited/basic than 'Paragon HFS+ for Windows',
but it might be enough for your situation.

Good luck with your recovery efforts.