Troubleshoot after an upgrade

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Level 1

4 points

Troubleshoot after an upgrade

I fix computers for a living, recently the Mac repair center in my town went away and I'm working on more Macs these days and searching online a lot.

A client told me he tried to upgrade to the latest OS (not sure what he had or what he was upgrading too). it is a 27" iMac, not sure of year but can likely get it if needed. When he came back to the computer after a restart it only gives the folder with the question mark.

So I went into recovery mode > Disk Utility and I can see a 121GB SSD and a 2TB HD showing as internal but not mounted and the mount button is gray. I run first aid on the SSD and it returns 'problems found that may prevent startup' ... obviously, but no repair option and i run it repeatedly with the same result. THe 2 TB returns no errors but still won't mount.

I need to backup these drives before I wipe before I try to reinstall. I can connect and format an external drive but the restore option is not available.

What is the next step?

thanks for any help

Posted on Dec 29, 2021 12:02 PM

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Answer 1

den.thed

Level 10

90,814 points

Dec 29, 2021 12:18 PM in response to wsc81

Ask the client if they have a Time Machine or Clone backup.

If not, then warn them that you will not be able to recover any data from their busted Fusion drive.

see > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207584

Also that depending on what drive or part of the Fusion Drive that has failed. It may be possible to remove the HDD and send it out to an expensive data recovery service, but that there are no guarantees with that proposition either.

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Answer 2

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,440 points

Dec 29, 2021 12:23 PM in response to wsc81

You also may want to look into Apple's Apple Authorized Service Provider program.

This will take an investment on your part however it will open doors to tools you do not have available to you now. No one can say if this makes sense for you but it is worth investigating.

Apple Authorized Service Provider Program - Official Apple Support

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Answer 3

wsc81 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2021 12:23 PM in response to den.thed

Sorry I did not include that .... he sways the TM is at least a year old and that emails were being stored locally ... ooops!!

so really nothing i can do with the machine intact? no magical terminal commnads?

I have disk drill on my persanl macbook, but its in use on another clients whose 3TB drive is failing ... you can imagine how long its taking.

thanks for the fast replies

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Answer 4

wsc81 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2021 12:31 PM in response to rkaufmann87

yup, living high up in the Rockies ..... thanks for the advice to this lonely level 1 poster :)

I spoke with the owner, he will take it to Denver ... data on the drive must be important.

I use and work on mostly PC's, but if I ever moved to Macs full time, the first thing I would do is the time machine setup, it is awesome!!

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Answer 5

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,440 points

Dec 29, 2021 12:56 PM in response to wsc81

Without a current backup he is going to lose a lot of data. His only other option is to locate a data recovery service however as you likely know that is EXTREMELY expensive! I think he's going to learn a painful lesson about backing up every day.

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