Chosen Solution

My iMac is old, I won’t deny you that but it has always been in good shape. Recently, during the pandemic, it stopped starting up, taking a loong time to load and eventually turning itself off. I did the hard reset by pressing the button in its back for 10 seconds, turned it on again and then it took me to “OS-X Disk Utilities” where I chose “Disk Repair”. Following quick instructions I found on the internet, I was able to try to use the “First Aid” function with no success. I got the message “First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. “Click done to continue” Which makes me very sad since I have legal documents I depend on to defend myself against mexican authoritarian corruption. I wish to be able to take out the data with external drives, I hope it’s possible. SYSTEM Model number: A122524” / 2.93GHz / 4GB / 640GB / 256MB When I clicked on “info” from the faulty HDD this came up: Volume name —- Phoenix AriseVolume Type —- Physical VolumeBSD device name —- disk0s2File System —- OS X ExtendedConnection —- SATADevice tree path —- IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@B/PRT0@0/PMP@0Writable —- NoIs case-sensitive —- NoFile System UUID —- 69F55DE5…Volume Capacity —- 639,275,270,144Available Space —- 0Free Space —- 0Used Space —- 639,275,270,144Owners enabled —- NoIs encrypted —- NoCan be verified —- YesCan be repaired —- YesBootable —- NoJournaled —- NoDisk Number —- 0Partition Number —- 2Media name —- CustomerMedia type —- GenericEjectable —- NoSolid state —- NoParent disks —- disk0 And the First Aid states the following: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.Checking extents overflow file.Checking catalog file.The volume Phoenix Arise could not be verified completely.File system check exit code is 8.Updating boot support partitions for the volume asFile system verify or repair failed.Operation failed… I guess it goes along saying that I will be endlessly grateful for any sort of help that you could give, since I really fear to lose my legal documents. I know those types of things should always be backed up, and I do have some of it, but not all and it is very important. I got involved as a witness of a crime and the criminal was famous and had me jailed with no legal reason, in México it’s easy to buy judges for like 7 grand. So, when it rains, it pours, but I know I can rescue something from this. Thanks again for reading and considering. Saludos!

Be careful here! Any action on the HDD could damage it more! The first action is to remove it from your iMac and put in a new drive Even that has its own issues! Sadly, this is an older system which will require a drive which can run at SATA II (3.0 Gb/s). Many HDD/SSD’s today are fixed SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) drives which can’t run at the slower SATA II I/O. Review the drives spec sheet to make sure it states it supports SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) as an example here are two Seagate FireCuda 3.5” HDDSamsung 860 EVO 2.5” SSD (you’ll need an adapter frame) Here’s the guide to put it in: iMac Intel 24" EMC 2267 Hard Drive Replacement Do make sure you transfer the thermal sensor to the new drive! The highest OS release this series can support is El Capitan OS-X 10.11.6. Apple uses a certificate which can expire within the OS installer. Here’s a bit more on it: If you’ve got an old macOS install image, it will probably stop working today So any installer you have most likely won’t work to even prep your new drive for your system. We either need to back date the system so it thinks its within the certificates window or use a updated installer

Then you can use the older installer, or just download this updated version How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan Jump down to Step 4, click on the Blue URL link ‘Download OS X El Capitan’. Follow this guide to create the needed bootable OS installer USB thumb drive How to make a bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer drive. Now with a working iMac we can tackle recovering your files Here we need a powered external HDD case to hold your drive or an adapter cable like [linked product missing or disabled: IF107-108-1] and we need a good file recovery program like Prosoft - Data Rescue 5 unlike other tools this one will only read the drive and then save the recovered files to a second drive (here your new iMac’s drive) I don’t recommend using any cloning tools as that could kill your drive as they are very intense in their efforts. Your drive is in a delicate state as the BTree is corrupted which could be the start of a failing head or platter within the drive. You also don’t want to bounce the system (drive) around in this state! Be very gentle with it.

First replace the hard drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ktZ6PN… Install Mac OS and get an external USB SATA drive case for your “damaged” drive. Personally I would buy 2 extenal USB cases and 1 extra drive for the 2nd case. I would then do a complete clone copy of the damaged drive, in the first external case, to the 2nd drive in the 2nd external case. Oh, and don’t buy those “name-branded” USB external drives. Buy 2 separate cases and one separate hard (for backup of “damaged” drive) at a PC computer store - much better price. Otherwise you risk damaging all your important data. Remember the data is most likely to all be there. The directory (or what ever Apple calls it) is corrupted, this is for sure.