I totally forgot that you can't boot PPC's from USB, so last night I ran out and got a Ministack v2 (I was actually planning to get one anyway). So, I had a blank HD in the Ministack and a bare DVD-RW on my USB-to-IDE (both connected to my iBook G4) and was all ready to install OS X to the drive, when I realized that none of the OS X install discs I had would run on the iBook. Finally, I ended up using Carbon Copy Cloner to just clone the iBook's drive to the external.
So then, finally, I got the Mini booted up with the external drive. And then came the bad news...my suspicions were confirmed, it was more than just the hard drive. Neither System Profile, Disk Utility, Data Rescue II or any app I could find could even *recognize* the hard drive or the optical drive. Its as if the entire ATA bus was gone! And, of course, I can't eject the disk stuck in there...but that's the least of my problems.
So at this point my only options as far as recovering the data are to tear down the Mini and put the hard drive in a 2.5" enclosure and try to recover it, which will screw me out AppleCare (which, given this is more than just the hard drive being bad, is not a good option), or take it to the local data recovery shop, which will probably cost at least $400...then back to Apple to have them do what they can to fix it or possibly replace it.
So yeah...not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm of the mind to just forgoe the data and give it to Apple, but my wife really wants to recover it...she's got a lot of financial info, contacts and work stuff on it that will probably take months to try to put back together.
[xx(] ]'>
So then, finally, I got the Mini booted up with the external drive. And then came the bad news...my suspicions were confirmed, it was more than just the hard drive. Neither System Profile, Disk Utility, Data Rescue II or any app I could find could even *recognize* the hard drive or the optical drive. Its as if the entire ATA bus was gone! And, of course, I can't eject the disk stuck in there...but that's the least of my problems.
So at this point my only options as far as recovering the data are to tear down the Mini and put the hard drive in a 2.5" enclosure and try to recover it, which will screw me out AppleCare (which, given this is more than just the hard drive being bad, is not a good option), or take it to the local data recovery shop, which will probably cost at least $400...then back to Apple to have them do what they can to fix it or possibly replace it.
So yeah...not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm of the mind to just forgoe the data and give it to Apple, but my wife really wants to recover it...she's got a lot of financial info, contacts and work stuff on it that will probably take months to try to put back together.
[xx(] ]'>