Devices · Macs & MacBooks
Apple builds storage into the machine: encrypted from the outset, often fixed to the logic board, and on Fusion models spread over two drives. Off-the-shelf software gives up there; a bench does not. Supply the password and the rest is ours.
Speak to an engineer about it
0800 6890668
| The wording | What that tells you | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Folder icon flashing with a question mark | No bootable system disk can be located | Quit restarting; check the disk |
| Crossed-out circle on screen at boot | The installed system will not start | Disk or container damage |
| First Aid found corruption that it can't repair | APFS damage that Disk Utility cannot mend | Take an image first of all |
| com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868 | The APFS volume will not mount | Retrievable from a copy |
| Your disk could not be repaired — back up as many files as possible | macOS giving final notice | Believe it, and then shut down |
| Restart loop that follows a macOS update | Corrupt firmware or container over sound data | Good chances of recovery |
As soon as it lands with us, your device gets its own case number. An engineer works out the fault, says what can genuinely be pulled off, then puts one fixed price in writing — no charge for diagnosis, no obligation, and no chargeable work until you approve it.
FileVault, the T2 chip and Apple Silicon all keep data encrypted at rest. Give us the password and the case runs as any other; step one is a steady image of the storage that will decrypt.
Where the drive lifts out, imaging is routine. Where the NAND is soldered or the board has died, work moves to component level, so the storage reads even if the Mac never starts again.
One file on a Fusion Mac may sit partly on the SSD and partly on the hard disk. Both get imaged, the CoreStorage or APFS mapping that ties them is rebuilt, and you get whole files back, not pieces.
You sign off a complete list of the recovered files first; only then does the recovery fee fall due. Everything returns on fresh media, postage paid, and the job stays open until you confirm the files open at your end.
Worth saying out loud: Apple releases no reliability figures model by model, and soldered Mac storage appears in none of the open failure datasets — Backblaze's included. A page quoting a confident 'MacBook failure rate' has made it up. We would sooner be straight: outside Apple, nobody knows.
The spinning half of the pair was failing and dragging the volume down with it. Both drives were imaged, the Fusion mapping rebuilt across them, and a design studio got ten years of client work back in full — after the Apple Store had written the machine off.
With FileVault, T2 or Apple Silicon, yes — the password or else the recovery key. Lacking either, the encryption behaves precisely as Apple intended, and no lab anywhere can get at the data.
Apple fixes hardware; component-level data recovery isn't their trade. 'Unrecoverable' from the Genius Bar tends to mean 'the board gets swapped, your data doesn't come with it'. Different trade, different answer.
Behind the single volume sit two devices — a small SSD alongside a spinning disk. A file may live across both, so pulling one on its own leaves you with fragments. Each has to be imaged, then the pair rejoined logically.
Yes — the work happens at board level. Given an unbroken encryption chain and the password, soldered storage does recover; you simply can't lift the chip out and drop it into a reader.
Powering a damaged device up again costs you data. Start a case first; diagnosis is free whatever you decide.