Data Recovery Case File · Mac & Apple Ecosystem · Ask Before You Decide

Worth Asking Before You Let It Go

His enquiry was refreshingly unfussed. A laptop from the mid-2010s that "has recently gone dead — the screen suddenly went black while I was using it, with no sign of it starting up again. There is nothing particularly important stored on it, so I'm not sure it will be worth having done, but I'm just curious what it would cost." That is a reasonable way to approach it and the answer is more encouraging than he probably expects. For this particular generation, the storage lifts out — which makes it one of the least expensive recoveries there is, and worth knowing before the machine goes to a recycler with everything still on it.

The decode: why this generation is cheap, and what the symptom suggests

Why the cost answer is good: ultraportables of that era use a storage module on a proprietary connector — not a standard drive, but a card that unclips from the board and reads on an inexpensive matched adapter. That means the recovery does not depend on the machine working at all. There is no board repair, no chip removal, no encryption tied to a security element, and no need to make the laptop function. It is removal, imaging and delivery, which is about as straightforward as this work gets. Machines a few years newer are an entirely different proposition, because the storage is soldered and encrypted — so generation is the whole of the cost question here.

What the symptom suggests, and it is good news: a screen going black abruptly mid-use with nothing afterwards points at the board or the power path rather than at the storage. Storage failures usually announce themselves differently — freezes, errors, slow behaviour, a machine that starts and cannot find its system. An instantaneous whole-machine stop is more consistent with power. That matters because it means the storage is probably entirely healthy and simply stranded inside a machine that cannot switch on.

On "nothing particularly important", said without pressure: he may well be right, and if so this is a short conversation. It is worth noting only that people quite often discover afterwards that something did matter — a folder of photographs, a document, saved passwords, or files from a period they had forgotten about. The cheap version of caution is to have the contents listed before deciding: seeing what is actually on there costs far less than recovering it, and turns a guess into a decision.

The thing that matters regardless of what he decides: if the machine is sold, recycled or traded in, the storage should not go with it. A dead laptop is not a wiped laptop — the module is intact, readable by anyone with the adapter, and holds whatever was on it. Either keep the module or have it properly cleared. That advice applies whether or not he ever recovers a single file.

What not to bother doing: attempting to revive the machine, which is a repair question and not worth answering for a machine of that age.

On the bench

The storage module was removed and read on a generation-matched adapter, since this class of machine uses a proprietary connector rather than a standard drive and the recovery therefore does not depend on the laptop working at all. It was imaged write-blocked independently of the machine, and the filesystem mounted from the image. The contents were listed for the owner before any decision, so that the question of whether anything mattered could be answered from what was actually there rather than from memory.

The outcome

The module read independently of the dead machine and the contents listed before any commitment. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT; where a chip has to be removed, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront with the balance only on success — otherwise no recovery, no fee. The decode, for anyone unsure whether it is worth it: generation decides the cost, and for mid-2010s ultraportables the storage is a module that unclips and reads on a matched adapter, so the machine's condition is irrelevant and the job is inexpensive. A screen going black abruptly points at the board or power rather than storage, which means your files are probably fine. Have the contents listed before deciding — and don't let the machine go anywhere with the storage still in it.

Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.