Lost Data resulting from Split Fusion Drive

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Lost Data resulting from Split Fusion Drive

A few days after upgrading to Big Sur, my iMac (2016) suddenly hard crashed without warning for the first time in many years. It then showed a flashing folder sign on boot. I checked with Apple Support who, after running through a diagnosis through video sharing, told me that the Fusion Drive had split.

Although the drive labelled "Mac HD" shows up as a startup option on startup (when option is pressed), I'm sadly unable to boot from it due to the flashing folder sign.

I've also tried using target disk mode with a thunderbolt cable to my Mac laptop but that didn't work. I also understand that re-fusing the drive results in complete data loss.

The question is, is there somehow a way to recover lost information resulting from a Split Fusion Drive?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Jun 28, 2021 9:05 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

rkaufmann87

Level 10

143,850 points

Jun 28, 2021 9:42 PM in response to apple_user_kevin

Nope, you are about to learn a very painful lesson on why back up isn't something you should do, it's something you MUST DO. An analogy is, the barn just burned down and you are asking about how to save the livestock. This has happened to most experienced users at one point or another and those of us that have had backups fail, use a redundant backup plan.

You can hire a data recovery service to extract the HD and try to recover some data, however expect the bill to be very north of $10,000. That is no joke.

You can try to remove the HD and put it into an enclosure and if you are REALLY lucky some of your data may still be there.

Best of luck.

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