M1 screen shatter -- need to access drive

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Level 1

4 points

M1 screen shatter -- need to access drive

I closed the lid on my 2021 macbook air, got up from the sofa, carried it to the counter and set it in place to follow a recipe. I had a day of cooking planned!

I opened the lid and the top left of the screen looked shattered. The computer was unusable. There was strange stuff in the top right corner (input source, and some gibberish). There is no damage to the glass to the touch and it was not dropped -- I literally went six feet across the room and it broke!

How can I access the hard drive without access through the screen to turn it on (I powered it down)? I have to back this up and access material before I can send it in for repairs and from what I can tell I may be able to access the data in Target disk mode.

I have an early 2015 MacBookPro that also has Big Sur and read that you have to use Thunderbolt if using Big Sur and to connect to the M1 MBA.

There is a Thunderbolt 2 port on the MBP but the T2 to T3 adapter sold through Apple only goes backward compatible to 2016 ports, plus it needs a T2-T2 cable which Apple also does not sell.

I need to be able to connect an early 2015 MBP to a 2021 M1 MBA to get the data off the MBA.

I hope someone can give me directions! I feel so frustrated and lost in this.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.5

Posted on Sep 22, 2021 4:01 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

133,231 points

Sep 26, 2021 9:42 AM in response to corinnak63

when an external display is properly connected, you should see either the desktop pattern (indicating Extended Desktop) or the Mirror of the main display, provided your computer starts up properly. Command-BrightnessDown should toggle between the two, but takes several seconds to register and re-draw.

If you get no picture at all, you have not yet connected the external display properly.

Recognizing an external display can be complex:

to get a Mac display to become active, you need the Mac to query the display, and the display to answer with its name and capabilities. Otherwise, the display will not be shown as present, and no data will be sent to the display. "No signal detected" is generated by the DISPLAY, not by the Mac.

This query is only sent at certain times:

• at startup

• at wake from sleep — so momentarily sleeping and waking your Mac may work

• at insertion of the Mac-end of the display-cable, provided everything on that cable is ready-to-go

• on invoking Option-(Detect Display) button in Displays preferences (from another display)

so try doing some of those things and see if the display comes alive.

Modern Displays with multiple ports are sometimes busy scanning the other ports, looking for an input, and miss the query from the Mac. They need to pay attention to the port you are actually using, or they will miss the query.

Some displays have On-Screen Display settings that can be used to tell the display a computer is attached on a certain port, or a certain port should be highest priority. Changing those may make your display more responsive.

Some displays include their own private "sleep" settings for the display alone. This can allow the display to enter its own sleep mode, on top of the Mac's not sending it data. A display that is sleeping on its own cannot respond to the Mac's query, and will stay dark.

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Answer 2

corinnak63 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2021 6:45 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi, thank you for the reply and link.

I cannot control the laptop.

Only the top inch can see a curser move then below it's dead. But, also what is on the menu bar on the right is not typical -- it appears to be a deeper corruption. It's best if I just show you with pics (and I am in Canada but you'll see from input source it shows another country).

Here's the whole screen:

I can move the cursor along the top inch, and I go over to the ABC and can click that menu item (only):

I can click on Input Sources, and here is the things that drop off that, but from there everything freezes.

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Answer 3

corinnak63 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 25, 2021 8:06 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant, thank you for hanging in there with me! I was able to log in but it was too soon for a happy dance... I got a message 'invalid format' instead of my laptop screen and no matter how much I toggle with command-F1 I eventually got a 'no signal' alert on my TV (LG OLED). I've tried different HDMI ports. I hope you have something else up your sleeve! I've decided to take up drinking to cope.

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Answer 4

Sep 22, 2021 4:23 PM in response to corinnak63

A possible solution would be to connect an External display or TV set and mirror the buit-in display onto it. Then you can enable File sharing or launch Time Machine or whatever you need to do.

Write this one down: Command-BrightnessDown toggles [_] Mirror displays.

OWC Thunderbolt 2 Cables - 20Gb/s - 2.0 Meter - US$50.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/OWC/Thunderbolt-Cables

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Answer 5

Sep 26, 2021 7:09 AM in response to corinnak63

Try it in Safe Mode -- hold shift at startup. This adds about five minutes to the startup time, because it does a disk check, and skips all third-party add-ons. Your userid and password will be required to log in, even if you normally auto-login.

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Answer 6

corinnak63 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 25, 2021 2:43 PM in response to corinnak63

This is what I get. I can see and move the cursor on the big black void of my TV screen, that's it -- no hard drive access. And the M1 processor does not do target disk mode.

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