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Recently I got a hard drive adapter that would finally let me open my old Macbook Hard Drive. I want to copy every single file on the hard drive (basically the whole thing). But there is a problem, the old macbook's HDD is dying, (probably from being in storage too long) and there a lots of corrupted files. This prevents me from just copying and pasting the entire thing, so this brings me to my question.

Is there a way to copy all the file on the Macbook's HDD to an External HDD without stopping for errors? I do understand that it would require using using Terminal to do it, but what would I need to type in?
(Hint* im not too tech savy so, I wouldnt know what to do in this case....)

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  • What specific problems arise when you attempt to copy files and you encounter a failure? No one can guarantee you won't run into errors or problems if the drive is "dying". If the drive is becoming corrupt, you should work with the Disk Utility to diagnose and (attempt to) resolve errors. Otherwise, you may have more luck by copying files in small batches.
    – root
    Commented Feb 12, 2016 at 18:39

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Before you go further, ask yourself how much you value the data. If you want to have the maximum amount rescued, send the whole Macbook to a professional data recovery shop. My experience is that a camera store that caters to professional photographers can point you in the right direction.

If losing all data is acceptable, but keeping some would be nice and learning something in the process a plus, here are some tips:

  • don't try to start the OS from the internal disk
  • start the OS from a larger external disk, then mount the internal one and copy stuff to the external one
  • use target disk mode and connect it to another computer. Then mount the filesystem and copy stuff.
  • if the filesystem has problems, try using ddrescue to get the raw disk contents
  • restore that on a another disk, and poke at it with hfsdebug
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  • The picture on the drive are priceless, but anything else is "ok" to loose. Although I would like to keep as much as possible from it because then I could open the outdated files on Imac g4.
    – Thunder_Ruler
    Commented Feb 12, 2016 at 19:49
  • Then I suggest you put a dollar value to "priceless" and go see your nearest data recovery professional. Don't try yourself first, that might make matters worse. Or decide it's a learning experience and fiddle with...
    – Florenz Kley
    Commented Feb 12, 2016 at 19:59

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