[OT] Recover Files From OS X User Account

[Brian Yennie]

You might want to give Knoppix a try:
http://luhman.org/blog/2009/07/13/knoppix-recovery-mac-mini-crash

I just recently used Knoppix to recover a Windows laptop and it was a  
real lifesaver. Hopefully you can just march right into those folders  
since Linux won't bother trying to respect your Mac user accounts.

> Hello List:
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has a suggestion for recovering files from  
> user
> accounts (non-admin) on a failing OS X drive (10.4.11).
>
> I don't know yet if the drive is going bad or if the system is simply
> corrupt, but I'm hoping to be able to rescue some files from a user  
> account.
> I've tried using DiskWarrior on the drive, and it's able to see  
> pretty much
> all of the disk, but when attempting look into folders that reside  
> under
> user accounts, they show up as inaccessible, just as one would  
> expect when
> normally browsing in the Finder.
>
> I get that user accounts are normally inaccessible unless one is  
> logged in
> as that user, but I'm hoping someone might know of a utility or  
> process to
> be able to extract files from these kind of accounts and "de- 
> protect" them
> based on the login information (or if this is even possible).
>
> BTW, I'm accessing the problem drive from an external disk/system -- I
> cannot boot up from the problem disk (freezes at the Apple logo).