I recently had a hard drive failure on my primary HD in my mac pro (desktop, the old shape). The machine wouldn't boot into the OS at all.
I bought a new HD and ran the recovery tool which gave me an option to clone from another drive. I figured I might as well give it a try even though the old HD seemed completely dead.
After a couple of hours the machine rebooted using the new HD. The amazing part is not only were are my files perfectly intact, but the exact same applications I had open when the old HD died opened up automatically on the new HD.
I bought a new HD and ran the recovery tool which gave me an option to clone from another drive. I figured I might as well give it a try even though the old HD seemed completely dead.
After a couple of hours the machine rebooted using the new HD. The amazing part is not only were are my files perfectly intact, but the exact same applications I had open when the old HD died opened up automatically on the new HD.