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This tip is about the how to Recover Data From a Mac That Won’t Boot. So read this free guide, How to Recover Data From a Mac That Won’t Boot step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.
How to Recover Data From a Mac That Won’t Boot – Guide
Your Mac still won’t turn on shows a dark, blank, or dark screen. So, at that point, you cannot access documents stored on Mac hard drive. Experiencing the same thing, what worries you the most is that in case you manage to recover data from Mac that won’t turn on.
Remove the hard drive from a Mac that won’t turn on
When a Mac won’t turn on, the data recovery methods we’ll cover below won’t work. If you need to recover information from a device without power, consider removing the internal drive and placing it in an external case. External hard drive enclosures allow you to connect internal drives to another computer, usually via USB or similar type of connection.
Removing your Mac hard drive requires some tools and technical knowledge, so this solution is only suitable for those who know what they are doing. Alternatively, a good computer repair technician can provide data recovery services at a price. However, if your Mac turns on but does not start up up All the way, you can use one of the methods below to recover your data for free as long as you have a Mac or external drive available.
Using Apple’s Share Disk or Target Disk Mode for Intel Macs is the simplest method to recover data from a device that won’t boot. O feature lets you connect two Macs with one cable and treat one like an external hard drive that you can access and copy files from.
Use Share Disk, you will need two Macs and an appropriate cable. If the Mac that won’t boot is an Apple Silicon device, you’ll need to use Share Disk along with a USB, USB-C or Thunderbolt cable. And if your Mac is an Intel device, you’ll need to use Target Disk Mode and any of the cables mentioned earlier. However, if one of the devices is running macOS Big Sur or later, only a Thunderbolt connection will work with target disk mode.
Here it is how to enable Share Disk on a Mac that won’t boot:
You will need to boot the other Mac up normally and access the shared drive as a network volume from Finder. The network should appear in the Finder sidebar. Once you’ve located the other Mac, double-click it, select Connect As, choose Guest when prompted, and click Connect. If all goes well, you can copy all files from the shared drive.
Using Target Disk Mode for an Intel Mac
Here it is how to enable target disk mode on a Mac that won’t boot:
You can access the shared drive on the other Mac from the desktop or from the Finder sidebar, depending on how you set your Finder preferences. Drag and drop or copy and paste will work to transfer any important items to your working Mac.
Use Terminal to Copy Files
If you’re familiar with Terminal, you can use commands in macOS recovery mode to copy files to an external hard drive. All you need is a properly formatted external drive connected to your Mac. Here it is how to use Terminal to copy files from a Mac that won’t boot:
To view the contents of a folder at any time, you can use the ls command below. For example, a complete command line will look like this. Using Terminal isn’t the prettiest way to recover data, but it’s certainly effective once you familiarize yourself with the proper commands.
Install macOS on an external drive to copy files
If Terminal is a little daunting and you don’t have access to another Mac, you can install macOS on an external hard drive, boot it up, and copy the files. The process can be time consuming because you will need to wait for macOS to download and install, but it is an effective data recovery option. Here it is how to install macOS on an external hard drive from macOS Recovery:
Final note
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