Devices · the Apple Mac range
Three key factors distinguish a Mac. Encryption was in place before you even turned it on for the first time. On the vast majority of Macs, the flash is soldered onto the logic board, and this type of storage is simply not something we take on. A Fusion iMac lays a single volume across two separate disks. Downloadable software fails at the first of those; here, the encryption and the Fusion pairing are normal processes. Get a quote first, then send the drive, or both Fusion disks, along with the password, and reckon on £300 + VAT once our free look has determined what went. If you're not sure which kind you have, ring us first.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
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| What you are seeing | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| A blinking question-mark folder on screen | No disk to boot from | Leave it switched off and have the hard drive tested |
| An X through the circle when attempting to start up | macOS is present but will not load | Check the drive first, then the container |
| First Aid reports errors, then gives up | Damage to APFS beyond what Disk Utility can fix | Take the image; decide afterwards |
| com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868 | The APFS container will not mount | Usually pulled back off a clone |
| File system verify or repair failed (-69845) in Disk Utility | macOS has run out of ideas | Switch it off and go no further |
| The boot loop started after a macOS update | Damage to firmware or the container, with the files below it untouched | Normally comes back |
A case number is assigned to your device when we receive it. An engineer then finds the real fault (free) before anything else occurs; you will be advised clearly of what will be returned and what will not, along with a single written price. Charges cannot begin until you have read this and accepted.
Every byte of data below the FileVault lock is ciphertext. Give us the password and this becomes a standard recovery. The image is captured so that it will still unlock afterwards.
If the drive comes out on screws, we'll image it like anything else. Soldered flash, or a board failure underneath the flash, requires work at component level, and that is not something we do. If you are unsure what type of drive you have, ring us first.
A Fusion iMac can store the first portion of your document on flash storage and the rest on a hard drive. So each is imaged separately, and the CoreStorage or APFS structure stitching them together is rebuilt afterwards. You get documents back, not the fragments they were stored in.
You look at the file list first and make a decision about what to do. We will never invoice anything until you have said yes, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. All of the information that we recover will be put on new media purchased by us specifically for this job, and our company pays the cost of postage back to you. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
About the figures: Apple publishes nothing model by model, and nobody releases reliability studies for soldered Mac flash; not even Backblaze. So no one can claim with integrity how often MacBooks fail. Only Apple holds those numbers, and it has chosen not to publish them.
The Apple Store had already written this iMac off. It had been built with a Fusion Drive, a flash storage module paired with a mechanical hard drive and shown as a single drive in macOS. The mechanical side was failing, so both halves were sent to the imager separately. The pairing was then rebuilt from the two images, and a design studio regained access to the past ten years of its data.
Yes, and there are just two ways to unlock the volume: your login password or your recovery key. The particular piece of silicon holding the lock matters less than you would think, whether it's FileVault on an older machine, a T2 chip in later Intel Macs, or the Secure Enclave in Apple silicon machines. If you don't hand over either one, the volume will remain locked, here and at every other lab.
Typically, no. You asked a data question at a repair counter and received a repair answer. A repairer's solution is a new logic board; the old one is removed but still contains all of your files. Getting those off takes another trade, on other equipment. Soldered flash memory is also a job that we do not perform, so if you're not sure which type you have, ring us first.
Because the single icon in the Finder represents two physical disks: a small flash module combined with a slower mechanical one, and any block of a file could be on either disk. Send one without the other and it will simply contain fragments of what was there. So we image both of them and then rebuild the map that relates them.
Not by us. Soldered flash requires board-level component work, and that is something we will not perform. If your drive comes out on screws, please remove it and send that part. If you are unsure whether your drive is removable or soldered, please call us before sending it.
There is no charge for the look. You then receive a list of the files that opened, those that did not, and a fixed amount to complete the job. Keep it switched off until you have received that in writing.