If an iMac gets stuck on a folder that continues to flash, if a MacBook gets knocked into a cup of tea, or if a Mac mini does not come out of sleep mode, and a disk can be pulled from it, then the data should usually be recoverable. This is standard work for all removable storage made by Apple; however, soldered T2 and Apple Silicon boards are a "no go" area for us.
Diagnosis is always free for every Mac case. We will give you a fixed written price for our work, prior to doing anything, and for a single recovery of a single drive or blade SSD, the price is £300 + VAT. In fact, on logical cases, you only pay if we recover your data.
Just like any PC, Macs also fail, but they do a much better job of hiding the symptoms until the day it really counts. Here are some of the cases York's Apple owners send in.
When you see the flashing folder on your Mac, it usually means that the Mac cannot find its operating system, and more than likely the problem lies with either the internal hard drive or blade SSD. Normally the files remain untouched on the drive and we simply extract them from the drive on our workbench.
Many pre-2020 iMac models have a traditional 3.5 inch hard disk drive (HDD), which clicks, stalls and loses functionality as they grow old. When an HDD develops mechanical failures, it gets donor parts at our head-swap bench, just like any other drive.
A Fusion Drive contains a smaller SSD and a regular HDD. It spreads your data across both of these drives, so when one of them fails your entire volume will collapse. We image each of the two components separately and then join the images together again.
If tea has travelled through the keyboard into the motherboard, the storage usually comes through, provided the corrosion is stopped early. Switch it off and unplug it straight away, then get a quote on 0800 689 0668 and post us the drive: that beats waiting to see if it dries.
When an OS update stops working during installation, it will leave you with a non-functional Mac and files that were never touched. Once the drive has been imaged and APFS or HFS+ rebuilt, the data can be retrieved.
Deleted files from the Trash remain recoverable until new files overwrite the spaces where they were located. Therefore, if you stop using the Mac soon after deleting your files, you should be able to recover your lost data.
Apple Mac data recovery is possible if you have a disk that will come out of your Mac; this includes all the SATA type drives (and Fusion Drives) inside an iMac or Mac mini up until approximately 2020; the 2.5-inch drives in older MacBooks; and the removable blade SSDs which were installed by Apple 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), all internal storage is mounted directly to the logic board as well as being fully hardware encrypted; the encryption key is also stored inside the machine and cannot be removed by an external party. We stopped accepting Macs with soldered-in storage a couple of years ago. The most honest position is that board-level Mac work is best handled by a specialist who does only this type of repair. If your Mac was manufactured in 2018 or after, please contact us on 0800 689 0668 prior to sending anything and we will give you a definitive answer as to whether we can assist you.
Once you have your quote, post just the bare drive rather than the whole computer. We don't offer drive removal, but any local computer shop will open an iMac or take a MacBook's base plate off for a modest charge. The drive then travels to our Leeds lab by tracked, insured post, gets its free diagnostic within 2 working days, and work starts the moment you approve the written figure. The device pages for iMac recovery and MacBook recovery have the model-by-model detail, and the prices are on the data recovery cost page.
A free diagnosis, a fixed written quote, and on logical work you only pay if we recover your data. Start now online or ring our freephone number to begin the process.
Get a quote first, by calling us on 0800 689 0668 or using our free online diagnostic tool. After receiving your quote, tracked and insured post is how nearly every job reaches us: it is the fastest and safest way to get your drive to our lab in Leeds. There's no collection service, so the parcel is yours to send, or you can hand it in at the Leeds lab's reception.
Is the hard drive or SSD still inside a machine, such as a laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV/DVR system or server? Please remove the hard drive or SSD from the machine first and then post just the bare drive by itself; we do not provide a service for removing drives from devices. For a server or RAID, send every disk, each clearly marked with its bay. For a NAS, send its disks labelled by bay if you can remove them, otherwise send the NAS itself. We cannot work on storage soldered to the motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs, T2 Macs and certain slim laptops): if it doesn't come out, it can't come in. If you are unsure whether your storage is removable, call us before sending.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Once you have your quote, send your package addressed to Leeds Data Recovery (about a 40 minute drive from York on the A64 & A1(M) or next working day if you want to send it using trackable post). We will contact you as soon as we have taken delivery of your package and put it in line to be worked upon.
Can't figure out what to pack? Ring 0800 689 0668 first, or try our free online diagnostic tool.