mac data recovery Recover files from original Macbook Air

[Ice_Blue]

I have an original Macbook Air with Snow Leopard.

It takes about an hour to boot to the login screen.

 

After I enter the password, it shows the spinning gear, and stays there.

 

There are some files on the hard drive I would dearly like to recover.

 

My question: Is there a way to boot the system from a USB HD or flash drive?

 

I have next to no knowledge of Mac OS, and all the Googling I've done so far rest on the condition that I am able to boot into the system.

 

I have followed some of the suggestions on the Apple web site for booting from an external USB device, but I do not see the drive in the boot menu (when holding down the OPTION key).

 

Also, if the drive is corrupted (as I believe), how can I re-install the OS from scratch?

[protocol7]

Have you still got the USB stick that installs the OS? Plug that in and power up the MBA while holding down the ALT key. It will let you choose to boot from that instead of the internal disk.

 

Once you get to the installer don't go through with an install. Instead in the menubar pull up Disk Utility. Run it on the internal disk and see if it finds any problems. See what it says about the SMART status too. The disk might be failing.

 

If it's able to repair the disk and there's no SMART warning, try and boot from the internal disk again. It's a longshot but it might be fixed. Otherwise you can boot back into the USB stick and copy out your files to an attached usb stick/hard disk using the Terminal (assuming you're familiar with how to use that).

[Ice_Blue]

The boot disk I have is Windows 8, not OS X.

 

I will try what you suggested.

Even if Windows cannot read the Mac OS file system, at least I will know what to do next.