How to Recover Data from a Dead Apple Mac?

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edited April 2021 in Tutorials

How to Recover Data from a Dead Macintosh?
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A Mac internal hard drive can go "dead" when its own operating system no longer integrates with the OS X operating system running the computer. If you still can't get anything out of the computer, you'll have to use a professional data recovery service. This option that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Bearing in mind that no technology or device (like Mac) is fail-safe, having a solution at hand on how to recover deleted data from the flash drive and other files is a price worth paying, even more compared to the often non- that this can generate.

You may have read many articles and posts about the steps to carry out the process of hard drive recovery on a Mac. But do you really understand the useful ways to recover data from dead MacBook? A lot of people would answer No.

As one of the myriad of ordinary users, you may sometimes find it not so easy to recover data from MacBook pro hard drive on a computer which is functioning well.
And the things will become even more complex when you need to recover data off a hard drive that won't even boot.
Doesn't this sound reasonable? But now, in this article, I will overthrow your idea – recovering files from dead MacBook could be an easy job with the help of MiniTool Software.

Apple provides a special tool to assist the problem of transferring data from dead MacBook Pro to another MacBook Pro. It sounds easy, but the difficulty is that under most circumstances, common users only have 1 MacBook at hand.

In this case, how to recover data from MacBook Pro hard drive? I advise Mac users to give a shot to Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

You can use it to create a bootable disk to recover data from a dead MacBook pro successfully.

In the next section, I'll show you how to recover data from dead MacBook Air by using both Mac Data Recovery & the special tool provided by Apple. Please don't worry; the operations for a dead hard drive recovery won't be complex even for users who have no hard disk recovery experience.

Now, let's learn how to recover data from Mac hard drive to PC or another place.

To recover data from a broken computer running Windows or a Windows laptop, you should use MiniTool Power Data Recovery instead (Best Solutions To Laptop Data Recovery – 100% Quick & Safe tells exactly what you should do).

Recover Data from Dead MacBook
When your MacBook is working normally, you will not expect that it may become dead all of a sudden one day. But the truth is, accidents may happen at any time and give you a blow when you haven't backed up or fully backed up your important data inside.

In this case, the only choice seems to be getting data off hard drive quickly. Most people are willing to resort to Apple to take care of their Mac laptop hard drive recovery hard drive recovery.

Here, I will first show you the solution that I recommend; it is suitable for users who want to control the cost of recovery. Then, I'll introduce the solution provided by Apple.

How to Recover Data from Dead MacBook Air to External Disk
How to recover data from a dead hard drive on MacBook:

First step: please find another Mac computer and create a bootable drive for Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

Second step: then, remove the drive from current Mac properly.

Third step: use the bootable disk to get access to the internal hard drive in the dead MacBook.

Insert the bootable disk to your dead MacBook. Meanwhile, connect a removable disk to restore recovered data.
Restart the MacBook by pressing the Power button and pressing & holding the Option key immediately.
Release the key and select RecoveryDrive when you're in the startup manager screen.
Press Return and wait.
Fourth step: select StellarDataRecovery on the macOS Utilities screen and click Continue.

Fifth step: specify the file types you want to recover -> click Next -> choose the target drive -> click Scan -> browse the scan results -> check the file you need -> click Recover -> choose a storage path -> click Save and wait.

Sixth step: at last, you should remove the external disk from the dead MacBook after laptop repair was finished completely. Now, you can connect it to another computer to see whether all files you need are recovered.

That's how to recover data from a dead hard drive.

Recover Data from Mac Hard Drive to PC
MacBook has a built-in hard drive which makes it difficult for us to take out. Considering this, Apple provides a solution to help – connecting the logic board of dead MacBook to another MacBook through a USB-C adapter.

Well, in order to access data on a dead MacBook Pro, you must satisfy the following 2 requirements:

1) The one-year hardware warranty or AppleCare is still valid.
OR
2) You have another MacBook at hand or are able to buy a new one.

Obviously, this solution provided by Apple is not available for all MacBook users. What's more, some users who meet the conditions refuse to adopt this way to recover hard drive because some of them think that buying another MacBook is totally a waste of money.
Others have their own unique reasons.
I advise users who can't meet the requirements or don't want to finish data recovery from the hard drive by using the solution provided by Apple adopt MiniTool software since it is cost-effective.

Other Solutions to Activate Dead MacBook
If you're not satisfied with either solution mentioned above, I still have other choices for you. However, you need to keep in mind that you should always put data security in the first place.

(You can forget about how to recover data from hard drive if you have a full backup of data in dead MacBook or the data in it are not so important to you.)

Now, let's learn how to fix when MacBook won't turn on.

Way 1: Clear Parameters & Files
Step 1: reset PMU (Power Management Unit).

Shutdown MacBook.
Press shift + control + option + Power at the same time.
Hold for a few seconds and then release.
Restart MacBook to check out.
Step 2: reset PRAM (Parameter Random Access Memory).

Shutdown MacBook.
Press command + option + P + R + Power before the gray screen shows.
Hold them until MacBook reboots again.
Step 3: delete Kernel Extension Caches.

Press shift key while MacBook is restarting to enter safe mode.
Open the terminal.
Delete two files (which are mainly used by the driver and some expansion modules) with root privileges by using two commands: su rm /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache and su rm /System/Library/Extensions.mkext.
Shutdown MacBook immediately.
Step 4: restart computer and wait patiently since the restarting process will become really slow after cache was deleted.

Please be advised that this method is provided only for users who need to use MacBook urgently; it will not solve the problem fundamentally, so I still advise them to recover data from dead MacBook first and then send it to repair.

Way 2: Make Use of Disk Utility
Reset PRAM & PMU by using the way mentioned above.
Restart MacBook to adjust screen resolution and then turn it off.
Use installation disc to boot MacBook (hold C).
Enter Disk Utility and execute Verify Disk Permissions/Repair Disk Permissions.
If this still couldn't help, please resort to the next method.

Way 3: Restore System
Backup all important files if you can access MacBook hard drive after trying above methods. (Or transfer data from dead MacBook Pro with the help of MiniTool Power Data Recovery Bootable Edition.)
Boot into the dead MacBook with the installation disc and then reinstall OS X.
Update the OS X (don’t update it to 10.4.9).
Install the applications you need (iStatPro, iStatnano, Temperature Monitor, Core Temp and other apps that need to read Core Duo CPU state are not included).
If MacBook can’t be opened, use the installation disc to boot and enter Disk Utility to execute Repair Permission/Repair Disk.
If Boot Camp is needed, you should adjust the installation process to this step. (After you finished installing, you should repeat step 5.)
Conclusion
Considering that MacBook could fall victim to sudden failures, just like Windows laptop, it's very necessary to talk about the useful solutions to recovering from a dead MacBook. Reading here, I hope you have the basic mastery of what I’m talking about – recover data from dead MacBook & solve the dead problem.

Now, please allow me to summarize the things you should do after finding your MacBook dead:

First, you need to recall whether you have saved important data to local drive (in most cases, the answer will be affirmative) and whether you have a full backup of them. After all, data is always the most important thing and users often care the most about data security when accidents really happen.

Second, decide whether the data saved in dead MacBook are important to you.

If you have important data here and have the latest backup of them (or you don't care any data saved in dead MacBook), you can try to fix the dead MacBook by using any possible methods.

If you do have important data here, but have no backup, please adopt Power Data Recovery to recover data to external disk or make use of another MacBook to transfer data from dead MacBook.
Third, follow the methods I’ve introduced in the last part to try to fix the MacBook dead problem and make computer work normally again.

Source: https://www.whatech.com/computer-support/blog/691062-how-to-recover-data-from-a-dead-mac-in-2021

  • By Michael Luo

Keywords:
laptop
Recovery
Data Loss
Mac
freeware
dead computer

Comments

  • TeddyBTeddyB Link Clerk

    This is a very detailed look into how to recover data from a dead Mac. If I ever find myself in such a dilemma I'd simply pay some professionals to do the job for me.

  • ShantelShantel Link Clerk

    Recovering data from a dead MacBook is such a hustle. Unless the data is very valuable you're better off just buying a new Mac.

  • I had no idea that recovering data from a dead Mac can be done by an ordinary user like myself. I wish I read this much earlier before I ditched my Mac

  • StormStorm Link Clerk

    From the looks of it it appears it's much easier to recover data from a PC than a Mac. I wonder why that is.

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