One question settles nearly everything: does the storage physically come out? Up to roughly 2017 it does, and the condition of the rest of the machine barely matters — a Mac that will not power on is often a cheap and routine recovery. From 2018 the flash is soldered to the logic board and encrypted by the security chip on it, and if that board is dead the data is gone for good. Thirty seconds in About This Mac tells you which side of that line you are on.
$ cdr diagnose /dev/disk2 → Device: MacBook Pro (2015) · 512 GB SSD → Status: WILL NOT BOOT — question-mark folder → Client: confidential · Cambridge CB2 $ cdr engineer-working → Drive removed: imaged read-only → APFS container: rebuilt from image → FileVault: unlocked with your key $ cdr verify → ✓ documents — 31,200 files → ✓ photos — 18,400 files → ✓ Mac recovered — data back
Click the Apple menu, then About This Mac. The model year and chip on that screen determine whether this is routine work or genuinely impossible, and nothing else you do matters more.
Most laboratories bury this. Given how many Macs this city runs, we would rather lead with it.
On a T2 or Apple Silicon machine, the storage is soldered to the logic board and encrypted by a security chip on that same board. The key never exists anywhere else. It is not written down, not held by Apple, not recoverable from an iCloud account and not extractable from the chip.
So if that board will not power on, the data is unrecoverable. Not difficult, not expensive, not a matter of finding the right specialist — there is no method, and anybody telling you otherwise is either going to attempt a board-level repair and call it recovery, or is not being straight with you.
Where the board does still power up, a great deal is possible, and that is worth establishing before anything is written off. But the honest position is that a proportion of modern Mac enquiries end at the free diagnostic with nothing to sell.
Before you assume the worst. A Mac that will not start is not necessarily a Mac with a dead board. Screens, keyboards, batteries, chargers and ports all fail while the logic board stays perfectly healthy. Get it diagnosed rather than concluding.
The machine cannot find a bootable system. Frequently a corrupt APFS container rather than a dead drive, and the data underneath is often entirely intact.
The mechanical half of a Fusion pair has failed and the logical volume spanning both has broken. Both devices are needed to rebuild it — send the whole machine or both drives.
Full-disk encryption doing exactly its job. We need the password or the recovery key. Without one of them there is no route in, by design.
Corrosion spreading across the board over days or weeks. On removable-storage machines this rarely matters. On soldered machines it is a race against the board.
Design studios, research groups, architects, media firms and a large share of the science park run on Macs, so Apple hardware makes up a bigger proportion of what reaches this bench than it would in an industrial town. Most of it is recoverable and much of it is ordinary — drives out of older iMacs and MacBooks, Fusion pairs where the mechanical half has gone, external Time Machine disks that stopped mounting.
The exception is the soldered-storage problem above, and because of the local machine mix we run into it more than we would like. It is the reason that section sits high on this page rather than buried at the bottom.
Mac recovery is from £300 +VAT where the storage is removable, which covers every machine up to roughly 2017 and a good many after. Fusion Drive rebuilds are £550 +VAT flat, because they require both devices and the logical volume spanning them has to be reassembled.
Where there is no method — a dead-board T2 or Apple Silicon machine — there is no charge and no quotation, because there is nothing to sell. You hear that at the free diagnostic.
It depends entirely on the model year. Up to about 2017 the storage lifts out and the state of the machine barely matters. From 2018 the flash is soldered and encrypted by the board, and if that board is dead the data is not recoverable.
The Mac cannot find a bootable system. Often a corrupt APFS container rather than a failed drive, and the data underneath is frequently intact. Do not reinstall macOS — that is the action most likely to overwrite what you want back.
No. Apple's service process replaces components and explicitly does not recover data; a repair usually means your storage is replaced and the original discarded. If the data matters, come to a recovery lab first.
Send both devices, or the whole machine. A Fusion volume spans an SSD and a hard disk, and rebuilding it requires the metadata from both halves even though only one has usually failed.
Only if you do not have the password or recovery key. With either, FileVault is no obstacle. Without both, there is no way in — which is the point of it.
Regularly. Time Machine disks are ordinary external drives running a sparse bundle, and they fail like any other external. They are also frequently the copy people discover has been quietly failing for months.
£300 +VAT where the storage lifts out, £550 flat for a Fusion Drive. Soldered storage on a dead logic board is not something we take on, and you will hear that at the free diagnostic rather than after an invoice.