Mac Boot Disc?

I was given a MacBook Pro that will not boot up. I've never played around with a Mac so I'm not sure what all I can do. I've tried all the boot options, safe mode etc. to no avail. It seems that the hard drive is failing and the owner wanted to know if I could get/retrieve some files out of it.

What I was thinking about was an external boot disc! I have a external hard drive I can connect to it but the drive is new and without any system files. Is there a way I can make a boot disc? Also, I have a Linux (ubuntu) computer available, will it mount and read the Macs hard drive?

Just looking for some options!

 

Not showing you away but you'll certainly find the right advice if you visit MacRumors Forums.

http://forums.macrumors.com/

 

Thanks!

 

What is the make/model of the macbook? Some have builtin recovery partions, some have internet based ones.

 

Hey Eldon...went to the recommended forum and posted 10 days ago with no response, still waiting for that!

Colemanguy, I'm not too sure about what I'm dealing with here. I know it says MacBook Pro on the front, not much of anything else printed on the machine. I was able to get it to boot up in Single-User mode and found some commands that gave me additional information such as OS version...ProductName: Mac OS X, ProductVersion: 10.9.1. Other than that, I'm at a loss as to what I can actually do with it, I haven't ever worked on a Mac before so I'm just trying to see how the OS works!

There is a recovery partition on this machine but it will not load up. I was able to run a system checker and it returns the OS is working fine, so I'm assuming I have a hard drive (hardware) issue...but I'm not sure. I've also tried the boot commands for internet repair but it does not load as well.

 

What system checker? And saddly the only way to make recovery discs or installers is with another mac these days. Most newer mac hard drives are formated in hfs and linux should be able to handle that with the right additional software.

 

This is absolutely incorrect. We just are not staffed with many GNU/Linux or OS X helpers. Please do not chase away people like that; give someone a chance to attempt assistance.

http://mac.majorgeeks.com/

The Mac specific subforum was combined with this one because there wasn't enough activity for it.

 

How old is the MBP? Can the HDD be removed? you can get filesystem drivers to read it from another machine and retrieve data first.

I'd be most concerned about that because its fairly straightforward forward to clean install over the net with more recent macs.

 

Good advice.
If you can do what Adrynalyne suggested, have a look at the following.

http://www.paragon-drivers.com/ntfs-hfs-converter/

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-convert-hfs-drive-to-ntfs-without-data-loss/

 

The owner of this MBP gave me a large extended hard drive. How hard would it be to boot into Single-User mode and just copy all files to the extended hard drive? Then give it back to the user and let them sort out which files they want to keep!