A MacBook rarely announces its failure — it just refuses to charge, or wake, or get past the folder icon. If yours has removable storage — a 2.5-inch drive or one of Apple's blade SSDs — the data is very likely recoverable, spill or no spill, for customers all over Swansea and the Gower.
Free diagnostic on every apple macbook job. One fixed quote in writing before any work begins.
No fix, no fee all jobs except electronic and mechanical failures, chip level work, DVR and Forensic jobs. Full pricing is on the data recovery cost page.
Every apple macbook job starts by matching the symptoms to the fault — these fifteen cover almost everything that reaches the bench.
Liquid races corrosion across the logic board while the removable storage usually survives untouched.
Board-level death with the data safe on a removable drive or blade — extraction beats repair.
The internal drive or SSD failed or lost its system — image first, ask questions later.
A macOS update that died leaves the machine circling; the documents beneath are intact.
Pre-2012 machines carry ordinary hard drives with ordinary head failures — clean-bench work.
Apple's gumstick modules fail like any SSD and image through our native adapters.
A misclick wipes the volume; on removable storage it's recoverable while the freed space lasts.
Encrypted volumes recover normally when you hold the password or recovery key — have it ready.
APFS snapshots and trashed files return while their blocks last — stop using the Mac.
Screen failures strand data on a perfectly healthy drive — extraction is routine.
SSUBX / SSPOLARIS modules occasionally lose their mapping and vanish — service-mode work.
2009–2012 models fray their drive cables and fake a dead drive — the drive itself images fine.
A swelling battery bows the chassis and stresses the board; the storage unplugs and recovers.
Liquid entering by the trackpad shorts the board low down — again sparing the drive above.
Blades other labs returned as dead get a genuine re-run on fresh adapters — sometimes that's all it takes.
Storage decides everything. Up to 2012, MacBooks carry ordinary 2.5-inch SATA drives; from 2013 to 2017 they use Apple's gumstick-style blade SSDs — both unplug, both image on our adapters, both are recovered here routinely. From 2018 the T2 chip and then Apple Silicon arrived, soldering the SSD to the board and encrypting it in hardware: that data cannot be lifted off a failed board, and we walked away from board-level attempts two years ago because the odds were too poor to sell. Check your model year, or call and we'll identify it together.
More MacBooks reach us wet than broken any other way. Liquid heads straight for the logic board — but on removable-storage models it almost never reaches the data, and the drive or blade images cleanly once extracted and treated. What ruins spill cases is delay and optimism: charging it 'to check', waiting a week in rice. Power off, unplug, move fast, and the files nearly always make it.
MacBook work revolves around getting the removable drive or blade onto an imaging rig fast:
12+16-pin and gumstick formats connect natively for imaging — no donor MacBook required.
Mechanical 2.5-inch drives from pre-2012 machines get the classic hard-drive treatment.
Spill-damaged blades and connectors are treated and cleaned until the module reads.
Apple's file systems parsed natively — snapshots recovered, FileVault opened with the password you supply.
Erased volumes, missing snapshots and deleted files return by carving, so long as their freed blocks haven't been reused.
Drives another lab returned unrecovered get an honest second attempt on different hardware.
The dividing line is 2018: before it, drives and blades unplug and recover; after it, T2 and Apple Silicon weld the encrypted SSD to the board and no honest lab can promise otherwise. Spill survivors, frayed-cable impostors and vanished blades all resolve the same way — module out, module imaged, data home.
Most customers post or courier their media to us.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Please remove the internal hard drive or SSD and send us just the drive — we don't provide an internal drive-removal service. We don't recover storage soldered to a motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops) — only drives that can be removed and sent to us.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Mark the package for the attention of Bristol Data Recovery and we'll call you as soon as we diagnose your media.
Not sure what to send? Call 0800 689 0668 first or use the free online diagnostic.
Free diagnostic, fixed quote, no fix no fee — start now or call the freephone.