MacBooks fail quietly: no noise, no warning, just a machine that won't charge or wake. Whether it's a spill, a failing drive or a removable blade SSD, we can recover data from MacBook Air and Pro models with removable storage for clients across Sheffield.
Free diagnostic on every Apple MacBook job. One fixed quote in writing, provided to you before any work begins.
On most jobs, you only pay if we recover your data. For electronic, mechanical and chip-level work, we'll take half up front and the rest only if we're able to recover your data. Jobs involving BitLocker, ransomware, forensic or CCTV/DVR work are paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote. Complete pricing can be found on the data recovery cost page.
We start each MacBook recovery by matching the symptoms to the fault, and the ten faults listed below represent almost all of the problems we encounter on the bench.
Liquid damage is the biggest killer of MacBooks. Corrosion travels rapidly across the logic board, although the SSD data usually survives.
If there is a problem with either the board or the charging circuitry and the drive or blade SSD can be removed, we can image it directly. So even if the board is dead, the data is still recoverable.
The internal drive or SSD has failed or lost its system. In cases such as this, we perform data-first extraction, after which we make a decision regarding whether to attempt a repair.
Death during an update leaves your Mac stuck in a loop. Your documents are likely intact beneath the failed installation.
Older MacBooks came equipped with standard 2.5-inch drives. When they develop mechanical faults, we can carry out a head swap on our head-swap bench.
Apple uses proprietary SSD sticks which die like any other SSD. We use adapters and service-mode access to recover them.
When a wrong click in Disk Utility wipes the volume, you may think you have lost everything. But on a removable drive the data is recoverable while the freed space still exists, so all is not lost.
Your encrypted volumes should be recoverable with your password or recovery key, so please have it available when you contact us.
The data is still recoverable as long as the space it occupied survives, so stop using your Mac immediately.
Panel failures and flexgate failures can leave your data stranded behind a dark screen, but extracting data from a device with this type of damage is routine for us.
MacBooks made before 2012 have removable 2.5-inch drives and 2013 to 2017 models have proprietary Apple blade SSDs that also come out for imaging, and we recover both types. For models made from 2018 onward, the storage is soldered to the logic board and hardware-encrypted by the T2 chip or Apple Silicon: it can't be removed, and if the board or the storage fails, the data can't be lifted off. We don't offer recovery for soldered Mac storage. Two years ago we stopped attempting board-level recovery on these machines because the success rate was too low to promise it to anyone. If you're unsure which kind you have, ring us first; once you receive a quote, please send us the removable drive or blade SSD only, not the whole MacBook.
Tea, coffee and water travel quickly down into your MacBook and target the logic board. Fortunately, on a MacBook model with a removable drive or blade SSD, the data generally survives the spill and we can image it directly. Do not charge your MacBook and do not wait and see, as corrosion grows daily. Get a quote first by phone on 0800 689 0668 or with our free online diagnostic, then remove the drive or blade SSD and get it to us as soon as possible (if you're unsure what type of storage your MacBook has, ring us first), and you'll have a very strong chance of successful recovery.
Our approach to recovering data from damaged MacBooks focuses primarily on getting the removable drive or blade SSD onto our imaging rigs:
For 12+16-pin and gumstick blade formats we have native adapters for imaging them without needing a donor MacBook.
Pre-2012 MacBooks use 2.5-inch mechanical drives, which get the traditional hard drive treatment.
Any liquid-damaged removable blades and their associated connectors are cleaned and treated so that we can read them successfully.
Native file-system parsing allows us to recover APFS snapshots, and we handle FileVault volumes with your password.
Lost APFS snapshots, deleted files and wiped volumes are restored from the freed space, where it survives.
Any removable drives that another lab returned unrecovered are given a genuine second try on fresh hardware in our lab.
We recover MacBooks with removable drives or blade SSDs that can be imaged. We do not recover storage soldered to the logic board, which covers the T2 and Apple Silicon machines made from 2018 onward.
Our customers get a quote first before sending their media to us, either by telephone on 0800 689 0668 or by completing our free online diagnostic. Once a customer has their quote, they post their media to us, tracked and insured.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Please remove the hard drive or SSD from your machine and send us just the drive; we do not offer an internal drive-removal service. If you have a server or RAID system, please send us every disk, each clearly labelled with its bay. We cannot recover data from storage that is soldered directly onto the motherboard (for example Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops), so we need removable drives to be sent to us. If you are unsure which kind you have, ring us first.
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Mark your package for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery and we will contact you as soon as we have diagnosed your media.
Unsure about what to send? Call us first on 0800 689 0668 or complete our free online diagnostic.
Free diagnostic, fixed quote and, in most cases, you only pay if we recover your data. Start now or call the freephone.