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Apple Seemingly Unable To Recover Data From 2018 MacBook Pro With Touch Bar When Logic Board Fails (macrumors.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2016, when Apple introduced the first MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models, the repair experts at iFixit discovered the notebooks have non-removable SSDs, soldered to the logic board, prompting concerns that data recovery would not be possible if the logic board failed. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Apple has a special tool for 2016 and 2017 models of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar that allows Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers to recover user data when the logic board fails, but the SSD is still intact. [...] But, unfortunately, it appears the tool will not work with the latest models.
Last week, iFixit completed a teardown of the 2018 MacBook Pro, discovering that Apple has removed the data recovery connector from the logic board on both 13-inch and 15-inch models with the Touch Bar, suggesting that the Customer Data Migration Tool can no longer be connected. MacRumors contacted multiple reliable sources at Apple Authorized Service Providers to learn more, and based on the information we obtained, it does appear that the tool is incompatible with 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models. Multiple sources claim that data cannot be recovered if the logic board has failed on a 2018 MacBook Pro. If the notebook is still functioning, data can be transferred to another Mac by booting the system in Target Disk Mode, and using Migration Assistant, which is the standard process that relies on Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Last week, iFixit completed a teardown of the 2018 MacBook Pro, discovering that Apple has removed the data recovery connector from the logic board on both 13-inch and 15-inch models with the Touch Bar, suggesting that the Customer Data Migration Tool can no longer be connected. MacRumors contacted multiple reliable sources at Apple Authorized Service Providers to learn more, and based on the information we obtained, it does appear that the tool is incompatible with 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models. Multiple sources claim that data cannot be recovered if the logic board has failed on a 2018 MacBook Pro. If the notebook is still functioning, data can be transferred to another Mac by booting the system in Target Disk Mode, and using Migration Assistant, which is the standard process that relies on Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Back up frequently, and always.
I store all my data in the Cloud where it is safe.
Bet that Apple's solution will be "make better backups, we'll sell you 1TB of iCloud for a low, low price." (push, push, nudge, nudge)
Ah well, one more reason not to buy "computers" with everything soldered in and no ports to speak of.
...or just buy a "computer" that works for you, and not to the manufactors agenda of complete and total vendor locking...
That's nice when you're traveling and don't want to carry an external storage device, and either choose not to trust the "cloud" with your data, or don't have the mobile bandwidth for it to work well. Why not give users a CHOICE of removing the internal storage device to recover their data?
Because Apple, that's why? Instead of a $100 SSD upgrade, they want to foist an entire new laptop on their users. Plus they can upsell iCloud space based on the risk of data loss.
Marketeers are arseholes, and Apple are the worst of the worst.
If the computer has a removable HDD and only the motherboard failed, one can take the computer to a third-party repair shop which will stick the drive in a "sled" and recover the data. (Even if encrypted, as long as the user knows the appropriate passphrases.)
The ideal is NOT to need a specially blessed authorized dealer to work on the damn things.
Between having only USB Type-C ports, not being able to interface with most displays (even after you purchase the expensive adapter), that user unfriendly "touch bar", a kludgy keyboard and what I consider to be a rather slow boot-up and shutdown process, this latest MacBook is the worst I've ever owned
.
Considering the price premium you pay for that Apple symbol on the cover, this computer should cook you breakfast in the morning, including brewing the espresso and bringing it to your bedside.
I was shocked by how badly this system missed the mark
(Even if encrypted, as long as the user knows the appropriate passphrases.)
Unless the passphrase is made more secure by having it only gain access to the key through a secure enclave chip (so that you can't brute force the password). That chip is on the touch bar in these models.
I agree that sacrificing repairability to make a computer slimmer is a terrible idea, but it's 2018. If you're not encrypting a portable device then you shouldn't leave the house with it.
Actually, the issue has nothing to do with the fact that you can't remove the drive. The article spells out the actual cause of the issue: hardware encryption.
The data recovery port was likely removed because 2018 MacBook Pro models feature Apple's custom T2 chip, which provides hardware encryption for the SSD storage, like the iMac Pro, our sources said.
I.e. They removed the port because the port was useless in light of their change to using hardware encrypted drives. Even if the drive wasn't soldered in, even if you could remove the drive and plug it in elsewhere, it wouldn't help. This falls into the category of "it's a feature, not a bug" sort of issues, since this was an intentional change on their part to increase the security of the devices—something it does rather well—but it comes at the cost of data recovery in situations where the hardware fails.
Hopefully, the pros buying these models are aware of the importance of regular, frequent backups and already have a backup plan in place and tested, especially since this sort of feature is becoming the norm across more and more Apple (and non-Apple) products these days (e.g. all iPhones and iPads have been hardware encrypted for years, two of the most popular Macs now have it enabled by default, numerous Android phones have it enabled out of the box, and the list goes on and on). There are, of course, stories about people losing access to their data after their devices get mangled, but for the most part, hardware encryption is widely hailed as being a good thing, particularly among the technically literate crowd, so it's a bit disappointing to see a /. summary focus on the downside without explaining the "why?" behind it.
TPM / secure enclave again ties your data to specific hardware, they also tie you to more hw that can fail.
I suspect that for the security conscious this is a feature, not a bug. Think about that.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You have obviously never owned an Apple laptop — or, for that matter, any laptop containing a standalone GPU soldered onto the logic board. Now that we don't have spinning rust for storage, logic boards are likely the most common non-power-related failure mode by a large margin.
No professional in his or her right might should seriously consider a laptop in which a logic board failure results in the loss of access to storage. Even if you just lose the storage since the last backup, that could be a considerable loss, and this assumes that Time Machine is actually backing things up correctly and that no files on your backup drive have exhibited bit rot. In the worst case, you might lose considerably more, like your entire photo library or some other "why the hell did Apple mark this as a bundle" folder.
No, if true, this qualifies as a showstopper-level flaw, sufficient to get upper management fired. I can't imagine that even the "thin über alles" folks at Apple would be THAT stupid. It seems far more likely that somebody changed a connector, and that they don't have the right tools at the various Apple stores yet, which while qualifying as seriously incompetent, is probably a failure of the Apple Store and/or AppleCare management chain, rather than engineering.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
especially since this sort of feature is becoming the norm across more and more Apple (and non-Apple) products these days
. No. Stop right there. This is not the norm in any laptop from any manufacturer. I challenge you to name me a single laptop vendor who is soldering the NVMe drive to the motherboard rather than using the industry-standard m.2 slot. You can't because there's aren't any
I have experienced multiple NVMe disk failures on laptops I manage, I have also experience board failures of systems using NVMe disks. In the first case, it is a negligible repair taking minutes, in the second case, equally easy to pop out the drive, mount it in a PCIe bridge card, and grab the data off.
Stop trying to normalize this latest instance of apple's short-sided thinking, which appears to be driven by only one "long term" goal, that is to say replacement of hardware with new garbage the second it dies even a minute out of warranty.
The fact that you try to reduce this down to a "huhr duhr poer users need backups" argument is preposterous.