Theory: I Can Fix a Broken Computer.
I can usually repair a computer. There are a few exceptions. Like the times that I:
Erased all of the secretarys's files from a network drive share thinking I was putting them into the recycling bin (1999). Turns out there _is_ no recycle bin when deleting from a network share. Who knew? If said secretary is ever to read this: I apologize again for making you cry!
Inadvertently let loose computer hackers on the company network while learning how to access servers remotely (also 1999, can you believe they allowed me to continue working there??). Ah, telnet, you fickle friend.
Stared at a broken computer program for 3 days and couldn't fix it (1996). An expert lab teaching assistant finally pointed out the problem: a missing '&' character. I almost quit the Computer Science curriculum that day.
Installed Linux on my wife's computer telling her that it would work just as well as Windows (2002). Spell check was not available on OpenOffice in those days and she was working on a Master's degree in English. Once again I must say it: you were right, dear!
Converted my PC power supply into a Lithium Polymer battery charger (2013). At least there was not a fire.
Other than that, I'm usually fairly good at getting a computer to do what I want. How valuable this is is open for debate: I once had a conversation with a very good friend who does cultural studies for a living. We concluded if there is ever a cataclysm and we are required to live in a post-apocalyptic world then we will be among the first casualties.
Recovering Files From A Dying Macbook Air
I hate Apples. Image credit: unsplash
Full Disclosure: I am not fond of Macs. They are seriously overpriced. The following could happen to any computer, but I am proud that I did this fix on a Mac because I am not familiar with them. Ironically, I own an iPhone because I do like how Apple approaches privacy.
I got an interesting call from a friend one Friday. He wanted a USB cable that can connect one computer to another. I thought this was a very odd request as I had never heard of such a cable... though I have since learned that they do exist. Still, the applications for such a cable are rare, and this friend has way more of a life than me and is not that into computers, so my curiosity was aroused. Since I can't help sticking my nose in where a computer is concerned I pressed him for details. I think he was a bit embarrassed about the situation since it took quite a bit of prodding to get him to tell me why he needed such a cable: he had lost some data and hadn't made any backups.
Apple “Genius”
Turns out he believed his hard drive to be damaged after a visit to an Apple Genius whose recommendation was (after doing some apparently rather trivial diagnostics) to return the computer and Apple would send him a replacement since his machine was under warranty. What about the data for which he was pining? Not to worry, said the Genius, they'll do data recovery for the low low price of around a thousand bucks. Now I was really interested. What the heck had he done to that machine? Usually data recovery attempts that cost that much involve taking the computer into a clean room and doing awesome stuff. After speaking with him a bit more, though, it turned out the case was a bit more run-of-the-mill. He believed that it was possible to plug his computer into another and copy his data, so clearly his machine was very likely in one piece (hence the desire for the cable). Less interesting, but it did mean I actually might be able to help!
It also meant the aforementioned Apple Genius needs a bit more experience. I convinced my friend that his USB plan was likely doomed to failure (with his operating system out of commission that method was a non-starter) and I weaseled my way into a visit to his house. I took a Knoppix LiveCD on a USB stick with me. I had recovered data from drives via Knoppix before and was supremely confident that if there was minimal damage this would be a quick job. I swooped in to save the day!
There was minimal damage! I don't even think that the hard drive was damaged at all. Since Apple was already going to replace the machine I didn't do much in the way of attempting to diagnose the actual problem. But I failed to take one thing into account on that visit: EFI. Being the Windows- and Linux-centric minded fellow I am I forgot that Apple doesn't use the more standard UEFI implementations. My Knoppix LiveCD was destined for failure because it didn't know how to talk to the silly BIOS. Even though I successfully was able to boot from the USB stick Knoppix failed to load. How annoying. Now I was embarrassed. I told my friend I would look into other options for him the next day.
At that point I already knew Ubuntu has support for booting into Macs pretty well built in. The next morning I downloaded Ubuntu 14.04. Not wanting to make a fool of myself again, I did a little research to make sure there weren't any nuances I was missing since I wasn't installing from CD. My research paid off: it did take a little more work to get the USB stick prepared: once again related to how EFI works.
Fully armed with my new USB stick I convinced my friend to let me try again. This time we booted right into Ubuntu. I attempted to mount the hard drive with a bit of trepidation -- it was possible it was damaged. It mounted no problem and I could browse files! I thought we'd just copy the data off at that point.
Yay! I had blasted my way in! Unfortunately, it's the little things that get you sometimes...
What a lot of mischief a little / can cause
Apple allows the / character to exist in file names, unlike any other OS. My friend was using slashes in a lot of his file names because he was storing data that had dates associated with it, e.g., "Note_for_9/13/2003." Ubuntu was smart enough to translate those characters into a ":" character, but they were giving the OS fits when attempting to copy them off the hard drive to an external medium. This was confusing to me at the time, but I have since figured out that it was because the external drive was formatted as FAT32 and : is a disallowed character for that file system!
Gaaaahhhh! What a convoluted mess over a tiny character.
I ended up writing a custom Python script that replaced colons with the _ character. My poor friend had to sit and watch me build this program after unsuccessfully attempting some bash solutions suggested online (I am far more proficient with Python than bash). It took way more time than it should have, but I did it!
