iMac stuck on the flashing folder, MacBook that met a mug of tea, Mac mini that won't wake — if the drive can be removed, the data can usually be recovered. Removable Apple storage is bread-and-butter work here; soldered T2 and Apple Silicon boards are the one honest no.
Every Mac job is diagnosed free. One fixed written figure before any work — a single drive or blade SSD recovery is £300 + VAT, no fix no fee on logical cases.
Macs fail like any other computer — they're just better at hiding it until the morning it matters. These are the cases York's Apple owners send in.
The flashing folder means the Mac can't find a bootable system — very often a failing hard drive or blade SSD underneath. The files normally sit intact and are lifted from the drive on the bench.
Pre-2020 iMacs carry ordinary 3.5-inch hard drives that click, stall and drop off the desktop with age. Mechanical faults get donor parts at the clean bench, same as any drive.
Fusion pairs a hard drive with a small SSD and stripes data across both — when either half fails the volume collapses. Both members are imaged and the pair logically rejoined.
Tea through the keyboard heads for the board, and the storage generally comes through provided the corrosion is halted early. Off, unplugged, and in the post beats waiting to see if it dries.
An update that dies partway leaves a Mac that won't start and files that were never touched. The drive is imaged, APFS or HFS+ rebuilt, and the data walked out.
Files gone from the Trash aren't gone from the media until something overwrites them. Stop using the Mac and a clean recovery is usually on the cards.
Apple Mac data recovery here works on drives that can leave the machine: the SATA hard drives and Fusion pairs in iMacs and Mac minis up to around 2020, the 2.5-inch drives in older MacBooks, and the removable blade SSDs Apple fitted roughly between 2010 and 2017. If the drive comes out, we can almost certainly work on it.
From the T2 chip onwards — and on every Apple Silicon Mac — the storage is soldered straight to the logic board and encrypted in hardware, with the key locked inside the machine. We stopped taking soldered-storage Macs on a couple of years ago: the honest position is that board-level Mac work now belongs with a specialist who does nothing else. If your Mac is 2018 or newer, ring us on 0800 689 0668 before sending anything and we'll tell you straight whether it's one we can help with.
Post the bare drive rather than the whole computer — drive removal isn't a service we offer, but any local computer shop will have an iMac open or a MacBook base plate off for a modest charge. The drive then travels to our Leeds location by tracked, insured post, gets its free diagnostic within 2 working days, and comes home the moment you approve the written figure. The device pages for iMac recovery and MacBook recovery carry the model-by-model detail, and the numbers are on the data recovery cost page.
Free diagnosis, a fixed written figure, no fix no fee on logical work — start online or ring the freephone.
Nearly every job on our bench arrived by tracked, insured post — it's the quickest, safest route in. There's no collection service, so the parcel is yours to send or hand in.
Is the drive still inside a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Take the hard drive or SSD out first and post the bare drive on its own — removing drives from machines isn't a service we offer. Storage that's soldered to a motherboard (Apple Silicon Macs, certain slim laptops) is the one thing we can't work on: if it doesn't come out, it can't come in.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Address the parcel for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery — about 40 minutes from York via the A64 and A1(M), or next working day by tracked post. You'll hear from us the moment it's booked onto the bench.
Not certain what to pack? Ring 0800 689 0668 first, or run the free online diagnostic.