I have a Retina 12 inch early 2015 macbook that has kernel panic before it can boot up. However, I have managed to get it to target disk mode. I understand that I can’t transfer data from retina to silicon, so I will be using a 2020 intel macbook air instead. It turns out I can’t use thunderbolt on 2015 retina, nor can I use usbc due to the fact that 2020 macbook air has newer software than big sur. Am I out of options? Thanks.
MacBook, macOS 11.7
You should be able to still access that laptop even with newer Apple Silicon Macs.....the old laptop should just appear as an external drive assuming you are using the appropriate USB-C Thunderbolt2 Adapter and Thunderbolt2 style cable.....probably hard to find now and will be expensive regardless.
I don't know if the Thunderbolt requirement for Target Disk Mode is due to firmware on the host Mac or just macOS in general. If it is a macOS issue on the host Mac, then you can install macOS 11.x Big Sur on that 2020 MBAir to see if you can utilize a USB connection for Target Disk Mode. It won't be easy because you will either need 100GB+ of Free storage space on the MBAir, or install Big Sur to an external SSD which will take up a USB-C port (will need one port to share power & data depending how long it takes to perform the transfer).
Try booting the 2015 MacBook into Safe Mode to see if that will allow the "broken" laptop to boot to the internal SSD. If you can boot into Recovery Mode, then see if First Aid reports any file system issues.....run First Aid on the hidden Container. Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll through the report to see if any errors or warnings are shown. If there are, then run First Aid again until the errors are gone. If after several scans the errors/warnings remain, then they cannot be repaired. See the following Apple article for instructions on running First Aid on the hidden Container while keeping in mind my extra instructions:
How to repair a Mac storage device with Disk Utility - Apple Support
You can also try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. If it detects hardware issues, then those issues may be causing the kernel panics. A passing result is meaningless here.
Another option if Safe Mode & First Aid does not allow it to boot would be to attempt to install macOS to an external USB3 drive to try & boot from that external drive.....then see if you can boot from the external drive. If you can, then it would be easy to transfer the data assuming the internal SSD & file system are not the cause of the Kernel Panics.
Assuming the internal SSD is not the problem......OWC does sell an external USB enclosure for that proprietary Apple SSD so you could connect it to another Mac to attempt to access the contents. This is an expensive option, but may be less than a Thunderbolt 2 cable & adapter assuming you can find those.
FYI, it is not always straight forward getting access to the data stored in the home user folder of another bootable drive. One issue you may encounter is not seeing the "Data" volume containing the actual home user folder....depending on the version of macOS on the host Mac, it may or may not properly combine the system volume with the data volume.....it is possible to access the Data volume anyway, but it may require a bit of sleuthing to locate it. And you may encounter permissions issues depending on how both Macs were configured (probably will need to set "Ignore Ownership" of the "external" volume).
I just hope the SSD is not the part which is causing the Kernel Panics.
In the future make sure to always have frequent & regular backups. There are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all of the hardware, software, and security changes. Without a backup, there is usually no data recovery.
You should be able to still access that laptop even with newer Apple Silicon Macs.....the old laptop should just appear as an external drive assuming you are using the appropriate USB-C Thunderbolt2 Adapter and Thunderbolt2 style cable.....probably hard to find now and will be expensive regardless.
I don't know if the Thunderbolt requirement for Target Disk Mode is due to firmware on the host Mac or just macOS in general. If it is a macOS issue on the host Mac, then you can install macOS 11.x Big Sur on that 2020 MBAir to see if you can utilize a USB connection for Target Disk Mode. It won't be easy because you will either need 100GB+ of Free storage space on the MBAir, or install Big Sur to an external SSD which will take up a USB-C port (will need one port to share power & data depending how long it takes to perform the transfer).
Try booting the 2015 MacBook into Safe Mode to see if that will allow the "broken" laptop to boot to the internal SSD. If you can boot into Recovery Mode, then see if First Aid reports any file system issues.....run First Aid on the hidden Container. Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll through the report to see if any errors or warnings are shown. If there are, then run First Aid again until the errors are gone. If after several scans the errors/warnings remain, then they cannot be repaired. See the following Apple article for instructions on running First Aid on the hidden Container while keeping in mind my extra instructions:
How to repair a Mac storage device with Disk Utility - Apple Support
You can also try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. If it detects hardware issues, then those issues may be causing the kernel panics. A passing result is meaningless here.
Another option if Safe Mode & First Aid does not allow it to boot would be to attempt to install macOS to an external USB3 drive to try & boot from that external drive.....then see if you can boot from the external drive. If you can, then it would be easy to transfer the data assuming the internal SSD & file system are not the cause of the Kernel Panics.
Assuming the internal SSD is not the problem......OWC does sell an external USB enclosure for that proprietary Apple SSD so you could connect it to another Mac to attempt to access the contents. This is an expensive option, but may be less than a Thunderbolt 2 cable & adapter assuming you can find those.
FYI, it is not always straight forward getting access to the data stored in the home user folder of another bootable drive. One issue you may encounter is not seeing the "Data" volume containing the actual home user folder....depending on the version of macOS on the host Mac, it may or may not properly combine the system volume with the data volume.....it is possible to access the Data volume anyway, but it may require a bit of sleuthing to locate it. And you may encounter permissions issues depending on how both Macs were configured (probably will need to set "Ignore Ownership" of the "external" volume).
I just hope the SSD is not the part which is causing the Kernel Panics.
In the future make sure to always have frequent & regular backups. There are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all of the hardware, software, and security changes. Without a backup, there is usually no data recovery.
You may not be able to use Target Disk Mode.
Apple added a restriction that the connection must be a Thunderbolt one if either computer is running Big Sur or later. That rules out using your 12" Retina MacBook as a Target Disk for any Apple Silicon Mac (none of which can run anything earlier than Big Sur). That MacBook has a single USB-C port which supports USB 2/3, DisplayPort, and charging – but not Thunderbolt.
It also means that the only way to use that 12" Retina MacBook as a Target Disk for your 2020 Intel MacBook Air is to boot that MacBook Air into Catalina. That MacBook Air originally shipped with macOS 10.15.3 (Catalina), so can run 10.15.3 or any release of Catalina that is later than that.
P.S. - If you do install Catalina on your 2020 Intel-based MacBook Air, I would suggest installing it on a spare external drive, so you don't have to mess up your existing macOS installation.
Target Disk Difficulty on 2015 Retina Macbook
