Devices · Macs & MacBooks
Storage on a current Mac is encrypted before you switch it on, frequently soldered flat to the logic board, and on a Fusion machine spread over two separate disks. That is the point where high-street software gives up and a proper bench carries on. Send us the password and the rest is ours.
Run the problem past an engineer
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| What appears | What's behind it | First move |
|---|---|---|
| A question mark flashing on a folder icon | There is no system for the Mac to start from | Stop restarting it; check the disk |
| A circle with a line through it at start-up | macOS is there and will not launch | The disk or the container is damaged |
| First Aid found damage beyond its reach | APFS corruption past what Disk Utility handles | Always take an image first |
| com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868 | That APFS volume is refusing to come up | Recoverable from an image |
| Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files. | macOS is out of warnings | Believe it and switch off |
| Looping at boot since the macOS update | Firmware or container damage over data that's fine | Usually recoverable |
Every item gets its own case number on the day it lands here. An engineer traces the fault, gives you a plain assessment of what is realistically recoverable, and puts one fixed price in writing. The diagnosis is free, you are under no obligation, and chargeable work starts only when you say go.
FileVault, a T2 chip or Apple Silicon — whichever is doing the locking, the data underneath is encrypted. With the password in hand the case runs like any other, starting with an image careful enough to decrypt afterwards.
If the drive lifts out, it is imaged in the usual way. Soldered NAND, or a logic board that has died, takes the job down to component level — the storage can be read long after the Mac has stopped starting.
One file on a Fusion Mac can sit across both the SSD and the hard disk. Both get imaged, the CoreStorage or APFS map that ties them together is rebuilt, and what goes back to you is whole files, not halves.
You get the full list of recovered files first, and nothing is charged until you approve it. Data goes back on fresh media, return postage paid, and the job stays open on our side until you confirm every file opens at your end.
Honest about the figures: Apple publishes no reliability figures model by model, and no public failure study anywhere — Backblaze's included — covers soldered Mac storage. Where a site quotes you a hard 'MacBook failure rate', someone made it up. Nobody outside Apple holds that number.
In a Fusion Drive the spinning half was on its way out, dragging the whole volume with it. Both devices were imaged, the mapping between them rebuilt, and ten years of a design studio's work came home — from a Mac the Apple Store had given up on.
Yes. Where a T2 chip, Apple Silicon or FileVault is involved, we need the password itself or the recovery key. Lacking both, Apple's encryption does exactly what it was designed to do, and no lab anywhere can read the data.
Apple fixes hardware; recovery at board level is a different trade. When the Genius Bar says 'unrecoverable', it usually means a replacement board — and your files leave with the old one. Different job, different outcome.
What looks like a single volume is two devices: a small SSD bolted to a spinning disk. A file can sit across both, so lifting either one alone gives you fragments. We image the pair, then rejoin them in software.
Yes, though it's work at board level. Given the password and an unbroken encryption chain, soldered chips do give their data up; what won't work is lifting the chip off to read it on a bench.
Switch a failing device on again and you lose a little more. Open a case before you do — the diagnosis is free, whatever it finds.