tylerpoker wrote:
I have a 2017 MacBook Pro w Touch Bar. The screen no longer works—it's not physically damaged, it just doesn't turn on.
After powering on the laptop, wait for it to get to the login screen. Then close the lid. Then very slowly & gently open the lid just a slight bit to see whether the display comes on...if so, you may be able to open it to around a 45 degree angle which may allow you to login easily where you could then configure mirroring the display if necessary.
I tried to reboot the Pro in target disk mode while connected to the new Air with a thunderbolt 3 cable, but this didn't work. In system information, under the Thunderbolt/USB4 port info, the new Air registers that it's connected to a MacBook Pro. But I can't get any data because the drive doesn't register in network like it should in• target disk mode.
Yeah, I don't think Target Disk Mode is supported any more with Ventura. I was not able to do it yesterday during my nightmarish migration experience...Apple sure does not test things anymore.
• I tried to connect the Pro to an external monitor. It had worked fine with the monitor before, and had automatically connected in the past, but no longer does so. The Apple technician mentioned some combination of keys including F keys to force the Pro to display to external monitor (cmd-F7 maybe), but because the Touch Bar only displays esc key, I cannot use F keys.
macOS now requires you to be logged into a user account before those function key methods will work which is an absolute pain in these situations. You can try logging into your user account blindly though. If you have the login configured with user icons, then type the first character of the account name followed by pressing the "Return" key. Then type the password, followed by pressing the "Return" key to submit the password. Just hope you entered the password correctly and you were able to bring the user login into focus. And hope there were no macOS updates which may take over the screen focus and not allow you to do anything until you get by them. If you can manage to log into the account, then the command to mirror the displays is Command + F1 (or pressing & holding FN, followed by Command + F1 while still holding the Fn key). You can use an external keyboard for this as well (even a Windows keyboard....the "Windows" key works as the Command key).
• I have a Time Machine of the computer backup from 2 years prior. I connected it to the hard drive (the hard drive light flashes to indicate it's connected) hoping it would automatically back up to the time machine, but no such luck.
If a 2 year old backup is your only backup, then you don't value the data very highly. There are a lot of new ways to lose access to your data these days due to all the hardware, software, and security changes....many times with no way for recovering the data without a backup. With hard drives it was usually possible to recover data under many conditions, but SSDs and newer Macs have changed all that.
Users should always have frequent and regular backups of their computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data.
Did I do any other these methods wrong.
Probably not. I just went through a nightmare migration myself yesterday...took me over four hours to figure things out just to get the new Mac mostly transferred ....the actual data transfer was quick, but getting the data to transfer took hours, then even more hours to get my AppleID working on the new Mac (still not exactly correct).
Or are there any other ways to try and access my old data?
Make sure you are putting the broken laptop into Clamshell Mode. This requires the charger is connected as well as a wired USB keyboard & mouse. Power on the laptop and close the lid to hopefully enable Clamshell Mode. Theoretically closing the lid can be done at any time, but I try to close it soon after hearing the startup chime so I can see video on the external screen during the early phase of the boot process, otherwise you may need to wait until reaching the login screen and hoping Clamshell mode is activated when closing the lid.
The tech could disconnect the internal display cable and wrap the connector in Kapton Tape to insulate it so it does not short out & damage the system. With the internal display disconnected, you can easily get video on the external as it will be the only working display. Macs get confused if the internal display is sort of working. I've done this in order to test the laptop to verify if everything else is functional and to make it easier to transfer data if necessary.
An AASP has the ability to connect an Apple proprietary device to a special connector on the Logic Board of the MBPro 2016 & 2017 models (a "Lifeboat" connector) in order to access the SSD directly. However, many AASPs may not opt to pay for this special proprietary device which will only work with these two models.
