recovery

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions on fixing a stuck locking mechanism for a MacBook lid, the inability to boot to or otherwise use the Recovery HD partition in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, and tackling nonspecific slowdowns in OS X. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Stuck locking mechanism for a MacBook lid MacFixIt reader Dominic asks:

How much do I love Cheapskate readers? So much that even when I'm a little under the weather (cough), I can't help serving up five sweet deals (sneeze) to carry you into the weekend (moan). That's love, people.

1. Storage to go Oh, flash drives, you so crazy. Crazy-cheap, that is. Today only, and while supplies last (not long, I'm guessing), Best Buy has the Kingston DataTraveler Special Edition 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive for $7.99 shipped, plus sales tax. This tiny drive includes Kingston's urDrive software, which helps manage, organize, and back … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about RAM upgrade options for new MacBook systems, using a Mac laptop as a desktop workstation, song progress options for the iTunes 11 mini player window, and updating external secondary recovery partitions. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: RAM upgrade options for new MacBooks MacFixIt reader David asks:

Sondle's File Recovery Assist can recover deleted and damaged files and other data from fixed and removable hard drives as well as USB drives and even floppies. It supports FAT 16, FAT 32, and NTSB, so it can handle most Windows operating systems still in operation as well as any disks still functioning. File Recovery Assist can find and recover data lost or damaged because of viruses, formatting, hard-drive crashes (but not total failure), and the ever-popular "no apparent reason." As long as the disk still functions and the data hasn't been deliberately overwritten with a … Read more

VirtualLab Data Recovery is a modular data and partition recovery tool from BinaryBiz. VirtualLab recovers lost, damaged, or deleted files and partitions, including Mac partitions, as well as deleted e-mail and photos. It can also recover CD and DVD data in many cases. This powerful suite even includes a RAID Recovery tool. It works on regular hard drives as well as removable and flash drives. While the program is free to try, it won't recover any data. The least expensive licensed version recovers up to 100MB of data. License upgrades are available, depending on how much data you need … Read more

A failing hard drive or loss of data can be really stressful. If your external backups are missing or giving out, it just adds insult to injury. File Recovery Assist promises to bring those files on your portable drives back if you cough up $29.95. Actually delivering on that promise is hit or miss for this program.

While the installation of File Recovery Assist went rather smooth, we were a bit disappointed with its interface. We feel that developers should have spent more time making it straightforward rather than goofy. Though the program scans external drives quickly, it tends … Read more

Being able to recover files from a failing hard drive is important to any computer user. Data Recovery Assist can bring your lost files back, but you have to fork over around $30 for this software. Even when you do, it sometimes fails to revive your stuff.

This program offers a rather simple interface we feel could be improved by the developers to make it more user-friendly, as it's not really straightforward. Even though Data Recovery Assist reads your external drives quickly, it crashes almost every time you scan a larger drive. We didn't have much luck scanning … Read more

EaseUS Disk Copy makes it utterly simple to create a bootable disk for your system on a CD or DVD, USB drive, or ISO image file, and use it to copy or clone disk partitions and recover data and partitions from backups, including sector-by-sector copying for total compatibility. With it, you can perform disk operations that usually require more than one drive (even more than one computer), such as recovering a backup of your main drive.

EaseUS Disk Copy is fully portable, so it runs as soon as you click its program file without having to be installed, even from … Read more

Apple's stock is up nearly 6 percent in midday trading today, marking a minor recovery for the stock, which has declined more than 20 percent since reaching an all-time high in September.

Shares of Apple were at $557.99, up $30.31, or 5.74 percent, in trading on Monday, coming close to where the stock sat 12 days ago, but far from the high of $705.10 two months ago. The stock hit a nine-month low on Friday, before closing up later in the day.

The recovery comes amid reports that Apple's seeing strong sales of its … Read more