recover SSD

Hi guys,


I have a failed MacBook Pro A1708 which has a PCI-e SSD Hard drive I am trying to recover data from. I am looking for some sort of an adapter to suit this drive so I can plug in externally to another machine. Everything so far is only SATA or M-Key which is no good. I've spent days trying to locate something. Does anyone know of anything suitable for this and if so where to buy them?


Thanks

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Dec 20, 2021 9:39 PM

Reply
1 reply

Dec 21, 2021 5:47 PM in response to Mario_Doogs

It appears you have a 2016/2017 MBPro non-touchbar model which uses yet another unique Apple proprietary SSD connector. Unfortunately I am not aware of any adapters or enclosures that will work with the SSD from this laptop. OWC sells a third party SSD compatible with this laptop, but OWC does not sell a compatible adapter/enclosure for the original Apple SSD. If OWC does not provide an adapter/enclosure, then I doubt you will find one anywhere else since OWC actually provides enclosures for the older style of Apple's proprietary SSDs (2013-2015).


What is the problem you are having with this laptop? If you are getting the folder with blinking question mark, then most likely the SSD has actually failed (even if it will sometimes boot).


Have you tried running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected?


Does the laptop power on (it does not have to actually boot or show anything on the screen)? If so, then you can try putting the laptop into Target Disk Mode to connect it to another Mac to see if you can access the data on the SSD. It can be a bit tricky depending on the version of macOS on the SSD and the version of macOS on the other Mac. These USB-C Apple laptops are known to have a lot of hardware issues including backlight issues where the Display is dark even though the laptop is booted. You can try using an external display although you may need to log into the Mac blindly before you can actually use the external display although you could try enabling Clamshell Mode where you connect the charger and a USB keyboard & mouse so you can close the lid of the Display to attempt to force video to the external display (this can sometimes be tricky to do).


Assuming the Logic Board of this laptop is bad and won't even work in Target Disk Mode, then you will either need to put the SSD into another non-touchbar 2016/2017 MBPro or you will need to contact a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers.


You should always have frequent and regular backups. While this has always been important, it is even more important these days when using SSDs and Apple USB-C Macs. It is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD after the Trash has been emptied plus an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs (even a brand new SSD). If the SSD fails, then it is very difficult to impossible to recover data from it. Most Apple USB-C Macs do not have a removable SSD so if anything happens to the Logic Board, then it is very difficult to impossible to recover any data. With a 2018+ Mac with a T2 security chip or an M1 Mac, then it is even more likely the data is permanently gone due to the hardware encryption of the data on the SSD.


Unless you have multiple Macs or plan to buy more Macs, I highly recommend having at least one backup of the data on external media that can be accessed from any computer or OS in addition to your main backup.

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recover SSD

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