The MacBook fails silently. It will stop accepting the charger. It simply falls asleep and does not wake. As you sit in a crowded café with many people around you, a question mark folder suddenly appears on the screen. If it has the removable style of storage (a SATA drive in older models, or Apple's slide-out blade from 2013 to 2017), it's very likely that your files have survived all of it, spilled coffee included.
Apple MacBooks are all diagnosed at no cost. When you get the fixed figure in writing, then we can start working with our tools.
In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The exceptions are electronic/mechanical failures, chip level work, DVR and forensic jobs. All pricing information can be found on the data recovery cost page.
The first step with any Apple MacBook is determining which hardware or software fault the symptoms you see match. Over the past twenty-odd years we've seen just about everything, and these twenty-five cover virtually all of them.
Whatever went in flows across the logic board, but everything else, like the drive, sits on top of the logic board and remains dry. At this point the board and the drive split off and go separate ways. Only one path will be ours.
Your motherboard failed and all your data still exists. All of this information exists on some type of removable disk or a blade that just needs to be extracted. There is no comparison to the time and confidence of extraction as compared to repairing your board. Extraction also doesn't rely upon your repair being successful.
Either the internal storage completely failed or lost its OS, and either way that icon can't tell the two apart. Make images first. Hypothesise second. That's our house rule, not just what we prefer.
You were in the middle of installing something and now it loops forever. Your files are watching this show from their own little place on the module, and they won't even be disturbed while you wait.
All those machines carry disk drives and will suffer from their heads failing as other equipment that has platters does. It is bench work with endings we understand thoroughly, and the age of the enclosure (chassis) makes no difference at all to how this process finishes.
Flash has a history of abrupt failures and gumsticks in the 2013 to 2017 machines fail this way. A native adapter will create images of the gumstick. There will never be a donor Mac in the room during the course of the job.
Disk Utility performed exactly as instructed, right away. Carving can retrieve the volume while those freed blocks remain idle; therefore, keep the lid closed on the system until the module is in a jiffy bag.
Providing either the password or recovery key will result in the standard recovery of an encrypted volume. Make sure you find one before calling us. This changes the overall shape of the job.
Snapshots and deleted items alike continue to exist until something else uses up their space. If you retire your machine today, then much of its contents should still exist tomorrow. However, if you use it (and continue) that will cease being true.
Display failures of that era show perfectly good files to be locked by a black screen. The objective of getting those files out is the whole of a very short brief with a foregone conclusion.
Every now and then an SSUBX or SSPOLARIS loses track of its mapping and departs the bus silently. Service-mode ground at this end, and thoroughly well explored.
Systems made between 2009 and 2012 can erode the internal SATA cable and convince the owner that their drive has failed. However, once freed from the casing, the drives image perfectly. A cheap surprise, as surprises go.
A swollen battery will bow the casing and load the boards, but the storage will come right out unscathed. Stop charging your unit today (not over a weekend), and remove the module while that still seems easy.
A blade written off on another bench will receive a proper second run using different adapters here. Every so often this one step (the second run) is what completes the recovery, which comes down to the quality of the adapter used as opposed to an individual's ability.
The signs shown above indicate the flash memory is failing but doing so gradually, instead of all at once. Image it prior to this gradual failure running its course, because the end would likely happen without much warning.
The unit was wiped ready for sale, with a backup nobody ever checked. All of the files left over from the wipe that the erase process missed (and therefore were not overwritten) are returned to the user via carving, which is typically far greater than what the customer believes is left.
Prior to 2012, computers had their physical disks still rotating while the computer was asleep. In the event of an accidental drop (a backpack dropped to the ground), the heads will be damaged. After a donor part has been installed, things can be restored.
The low-cost counterfeit product claiming a strong opinion regarding voltage will destroy a motherboard within hours. Rarely will storage notice; removed, sent to the imaging rig and done.
Holding down the power button often enough, APFS container metadata will become damaged. Repairing this data occurs using an entire image of the module, never via repair methods on the actual device.
That famous dedicated-GPU failure takes away the picture and your boot process. It never even makes it to the disk. Get a quote first, then post just the disk itself, and it will image like every other of the same age.
A firmware lock does nothing but politely stop the computer from functioning. On pre-T2 machines, the storage device simply doesn't care that there's a lock: take it out, make an image of it, recover data from it, and the lock won't even show up.
Some T2 boards have an integrated port Apple built for data recovery, so we can understand your curiosity. However, using this will require a functional board as well as access to Apple's proprietary tools. Therefore, if the board is what failed, then there is no benefit to be derived from using it. As such, we do not accept these machines, and it's better for us to inform you of that before you spend money posting it. If you are not sure which kind you have, please call us first.
An upgrade to macOS has rewritten the partition map, and as such all of the Windows side, including everything that resides on it, has vanished. Nothing has been lost. It is simply the map that is gone and it can be easily rebuilt using an image; however, doing it on a live disk (i.e., the system in use) is a different matter.
The machine travels every day along the coastal route, or into the harbour, so it picks up corrosion at the connectors and board edges well before any liquid is spilled on it. First intermittent failures occur. Then failure of the machine occurs. Cleaned, decontaminated and imaged, most hand everything back.
Encrypting turns on in macOS and it works through the disk in the background. With bad sectors already spreading, this causes thousands of new read/write operations on what is likely to be a failing volume. And then it will stop encryption when the volume is half way there. Images restore each area/region regardless of whether the volume was decrypted or partially encrypted.
The storage determines the work, not the date printed on your receipt. Any model up to 2012 comes equipped with an ordinary 2.5-inch SATA disk drive. That is as plain as it gets when it comes to jobs for Macs. Between 2013 and 2017 you get a proprietary blade SSD from Apple. Not a whole lot more complicated than that with the right adapter in hand, and this generation still represents a significant number of active Airs and Pros out there. Both types can be unplugged, imaged and sent home. But by 2018 the T2 chip arrived and was followed shortly after by Apple Silicon. At this point the SSD was part of the motherboard and wrapped in hardware encryption. Nobody being honest about their ability will be able to recover data off boards such as these if they die, not us and not anybody else. We stopped accepting them about two years ago because too few were successful to justify charging for the attempt. On the other hand, MacBook data recovery on earlier models is something we do here on a weekly basis. The model identifier is printed in small type on the underside if you are unsure what you are holding; if you're still not sure which kind you have, ring us first.
Liquid hits the logic board first. The board will absorb almost all of what would have otherwise reached your storage. Take a removable drive (disk) or blade out of one of these machines and it will generally image normally after being cleaned and treated. Most jobs which end up in disaster were lost due to optimism rather than the chemical properties involved. Plugging in a charger to check it's working. Two weeks in a bag of rice. An evening propped against a radiator. Off, unplugged, move quickly. If you can manage these three, the battle is almost over before there is even a parcel.
The art of working with a MacBook is brief. Put the module on to a bench quickly, connect the module natively, and have no adventures along the way:
Gumsticks of all shapes, including twelve-plus-sixteen pin versions, are connected natively for image capture. A cannibalised MacBook will never be used as a host computer at any time in any project or job.
Pre-2012 hard disk drives (spinning) receive classic treatment, and when a head has genuinely died, donor heads are fitted to the unit.
Components such as blades and connectors which were damaged due to a liquid spill will be cleaned, neutralised and allowed to dry out until readings become consistent rather than intermittent. The unit will then be ready to start imaging.
Both file systems get native parsing, and snapshots will be processed from the recovered data. If FileVault was active prior to recovery, FileVault will also be opened using whatever credentials may be available.
Carving allows for recovery of volumes, snapshots and files so long as those freed blocks remain unclaimed. This window remains open for days, not months.
Modules deemed a write-off elsewhere will receive a fresh run on different hardware. Occasionally this alone will result in closure of the case, and finding out costs you nothing.
Draw the line at 2018. Before this date, disks and blades come out of the machine and are recovered in this workshop as routine work. Anything after this point has encrypted storage integrated into the logic board by T2 and Apple Silicon. Due to that no honest promise can be made about those machines, so they will not be accepted. If you're not sure which kind you have, call us first. Spill survivors, worn cables imitating a dead disk, blades that have forgotten their own names; they all finish identically. Module out, module imaged, files home. Diagnosis is free and takes two working days once the module arrives on the bench.
Get a quote first by telephone or use our free online diagnostic. Most of what you see on this bench will then be delivered via tracked, insured post. This is one of the safest ways to move a failing drive and packages handed in at a North-East post office are normally delivered here the next working day.
Still attached to a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV/DVR unit? Remove the hard drive or SSD first. The bare drive travels on its own; when removing disks from a server remove all the disks and label each disk by its bay. This lab does not take machines apart. Any storage that has been soldered onto a motherboard (as in T2 and Apple Silicon Macs and a couple of thin laptops) will not be worked on: if it will not unbolt, we cannot work on it. If you're not sure what type of machine you have, ring us first. Phones and tablets are also not taken on.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Your parcel should be addressed to Edinburgh Data Recovery, approximately two and a half hours (and 130 miles) from Aberdeen via the A90; alternatively it can reach us the next working day by tracked post if this journey time / distance is prohibitive to travel. As soon as your drive has been scheduled in we will contact you.
Still unsure about what should be placed inside of the packaging? Please call us first on 0800 689 0668, or use our free online diagnostic tool to assist you in deciding which items belong inside of the packaging before sealing.
Free diagnosis, one fixed price quoted in writing, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Start online or phone it in.