Data recovery on a Mac without a bootable hard drive.

Data Recovery on a Mac without a bootable hard drive

Over the last year, Apple has sped up the time interval between launching new operating systems. We saw Lion launch without a bootable DVD and now this summer Mountain Lion is scheduled to release and it will be a download from the App Store once again. In addition, last year’s Mac minis lost their optical drive and the new MacBook Pros are rumored to shed theirs as well.

With this in mind, we’d like to give some tips on how to perform data recovery on a Mac without already having a bootable hard drive at your disposal.

An efficient way to back your Mac up is to create a bootable clone backup. Clone backups offer a great way to easily restore your system, access files that may been deleted or boot from when a hard drive fails or is in some other way inoperable.

In a perfect world, having a clone backup when disaster strikes is ideal, but what happens when you don’t have a clone backup on a on a new Mac that supports Lion internet recovery ? This is where it gets tricky to a degree and most users don’t realize it until they have to deal with it. If your Mac fails to boot because of operating system errors , file system corruption, or minor mechanical failures you may be in for a eye opening, learning experience. To simplify this process we recommend using our Drive Genius 3 How-to guides to create a clone of your Mac now, before disaster strikes.

Prosoft recommends purchasing Drive Genius 3 and Data Rescue 3 to handle any hard drive maintenance or dataloss situation. Both of these apps can be very instrumental in the time of need and assist you in a pinch. Even if you don’t own either application, check out our How-to guides below and create a bootable clone of your drive. You will need an additional hard drive with adequate space to make a clone of your main boot drive

Drive Genius 3 How-to guides

Creating a bootable clone
Create a Lion Startup Disk

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Mike Fiato

Technical Support at Prosoft Engineering Inc.

I have been working for Prosoft Engineering for 4 years by supporting our Mac & PC users with hard drive utilities and data recovery applications. My focus is continually updating our award-wining products with new versions, by listening to our customers and researching market conditions. I am seasoned high tech professional with 10 plus years of experience in hardware and software as a Technical Support Manager, Field Application Engineer and Product Manager. Specializing in Mac & PC workstation hardware/software support, performance computing, benchmarking, technical marketing and product sales training. I have attended numerous trade shows, provided technical onsite training , supported Tier 1 & 2 OEM's and have submitted performance workstations to SPEC.org for benchmarking verification results. My hands on approach has kept my experience diverse and relevant to the markets I support directly over the years. In addition to my experience listed I genuinely have a special interest in technical trends, advances in mass storage, data recovery, graphics cards and mobile computing. When I have time and can schedule it, I like to go low tech and visit the outdoors, lakes, rivers and oceans to fish for variety of species. I also enjoy traveling, remodeling my house, wood working and online FPS games. Having multiple hobbies is great way to disconnect from work and the everyday schedule to unwind and relax.

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