My 2018 Touch Bar MBP was working fine until yesterday -- when I noticed that a couple of the USB ports didn't seem to be working properly, so I ended up doing an SMC reset ... which fixed the problem. The machine was working fine for awhile after that, when without warning, it apparently shut down at some point and now won't turn on. (No chime, no fan, nothing.)

Other than swapping out power supplies and redoing the SMC reset, is there anything else I should try? And any way to get my data off there? (I do have a backup somewhere, but the backup is likely to be very out of date... of course, kicking myself about that now.)

Edit: it wasn't that long ago that I had sent in this machine to Apple because of a video problem and they'd replaced the video board and I think also the display, and maybe a couple of other components... it's still covered under AppleCare, so that's something, but I know if I send it in, they'll likely return it to me with the drive wiped. I wonder if their prior repair wasn't really done properly.

TiA

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 08:05AM by PeterB.

Target disk mode.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

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Speedy
Target disk mode.

Right, except it (seemingly) won't power on.

What strikes me about it now is how cold/cool it is with it off. Whenever I've had this machine on, it's always run very hot.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

without power your only option is open and remove and mount externally.

or ....

hopefully you have an Apple store nearby.
The Genius bar will take care of you and your data.

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proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

Quote
Fritz
without power your only option is open and remove and mount externally.

or ....

hopefully you have an Apple store nearby.
The Genius bar will take care of you and your data.

I could do the Apple Store, but less than inclined to do so, under current corona conditions.

I could maybe open it up and mount externally, if I knew where to look for the SSD?

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

me thinks that MBP era may be soldered in only.
so you choice narrows to Apple Store.
I'll assumed you're vacc'd and I'd bet Apple requires it.
So mask up and call the Genius.

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proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

Quote
Fritz
me thinks that MBP era may be soldered in only.
so you choice narrows to Apple Store.
I'll assumed you're vacc'd and I'd bet Apple requires it.
So mask up and call the Genius.

Pretty sure that 2016 was the first year of soldered SSDs.

You're stuck. Soldered on SSD, and no lifeboat connector Apple removed that in 2017. 2018 = have a live backup.

Apple store time - sorry!

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Good Luck!
Jamie Dresser
Other World Computing

Thanks guys, but I'm not going into an Apple Store for this, not under current circumstances.

Live and learn, like I said I have backups but they're likely quite old.

As an aside, soldered-in SSD = stupid; I'm sure that was done intentionally so that you can't swap it out easily?

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 09:45AM by PeterB.

I would agree that soldered in is not a good idea. High end connectors work very well. I use them daily. But it prolly saves Apple some pennies.
I have seen plenty of errors on wave soldered or otherwise produced production line PCBs.

I still would suggest calling your local Apple genius and see if they would give you curb side service. The one near us had been offering this.

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proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

Surely mail-in service still exists? I'd call in and plead my case. There is a pandemic on, you know.

Lifeboat connectors should be standard. People get their panties in a bunch about charging cables, but a dead SSD will really ruin your life.

I might try calling the local store, but from experience I know that they're one of the worst in terms of competence and service...

And yes, I've already arranged for mail-in service. If the SSD died, obviously I'm out of luck with the data, but I might request that they try to avoid wiping the drive during the repair, if that's at all possible.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 10:40AM by PeterB.

There are non-Dash Apple services that will recover the data for you, but they cost a good chunk of money.

Do you have any friends or family that you can pay to take it to the Apple Store for you?

It's summer, some kid would love to get some money to hang out at the mall.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 10:59AM by Ombligo.

The SSD is not just soldered, it is an integral part of the motherboard. There is no discrete module that can be removed. Form over function revisited.

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S. Pupp
The SSD is not just soldered, it is an integral part of the motherboard. There is no discrete module that can be removed. Form over function revisited.

So, basically, the MacBook Pro is one huge, expensive, incredibly complex and irreducible SSD drive.

Quote
Ombligo
Do you have any friends or family that you can pay to take it to the Apple Store for you?

It's summer, some kid would love to get some money to hang out at the mall.

Contacted the Apple Store, they aren't doing anything curbside and also without the machine being able to boot, said they wouldn't be able to get the data off the drive.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

This is the weirdest thing!

I just went to go look at the MBP, and now it's fully booted up.

Obviously, I'm going to try to make updated full clones of the drive, but now my questions are:

1) Should I do anything in terms of backups, other than full clones and Time Machine backups?

2) Should I continue to try to use it after these are done?

3) Any particular tests I should try to run on it?

4) Should I still send this in to the mothership?

The only possible explanations I can think of for this:

1) The adapter/charger wasn't working, and somehow the battery drained to the point that it would not even start up with a good adapter

2) It isn't really fixed, and the power board/USB board/MB is flaky

3) The MBP is possessed. Someone please call these guys: [www.youtube.com]

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 12:18PM by PeterB.

Only recourse at this point would be to try swapping your motherboard into a known good case to eliminate any other variables that might be preventing booting.

I'm not making light of your situation, PeterB, I swear, but if nothing else, let this serve as a warning to everyone reading this that they need to be sure they have regular (daily) backups and they check their integrity occasionally. Time Machine is easy & built in, but I will always go further and (always) recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.

Remember Despair.com? They made demotivational posters. This one came to mind; it was hanging in an engineering office I worked in during the 90s.

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Zoid, yep, I'm usually actually very good about making backups. I've just been otherwise occupied with medical type stuff, etc.

Also, I have to say that it's not the most convenient thing in the world to have to have two external HD's connected to the MBP at all times (one for a daily full backup, the other a TM backup). The whole point of a laptop is portability/convenience. And I wasn't aware (until now) that the SSD on this machine is soldered in place and nonremoveable, which is frankly terrible.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

re/UPDATE: get a clone going, and also do a file copy if you have extra drives/space.

Afterwards, if you're feeling brave, boot into Internet Recovery mode (Opt-Cmd-R) and run Disk Utility and see what it tells you.

It could very well have been an issue with the power cable -- had that happen on an older MacBook once. Turned out that cleaning both the connector and the receptacle gently with a (new) toothbrush & a wee tiny bit of isopropyl alcohol did the trick to get the connection solid again.

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PeterB
Zoid, yep, I'm usually actually very good about making backups. I've just been otherwise occupied with medical type stuff, etc.

Also, I have to say that it's not the most convenient thing in the world to have to have two external HD's connected to the MBP at all times (one for a daily full backup, the other a TM backup). The whole point of a laptop is portability/convenience. And I wasn't aware (until now) that the SSD on this machine is soldered in place and nonremoveable, which is frankly terrible.

There's a handful of setups you can do where, when you plug your MacBook in to charge (say, overnight) you could have the backup drives hooked up to a dock or hub. Carbon Copy Cloner has settings whereby you can tell it to run a backup routine whenever the drives are reconnected; you can even set it to shut down or sleep your Mac when it's finished. (And as far as just going with Time Machine; my daughter had her machine set up like that and it'd just run the next time she docked it at her desk)

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Ruskies!

maybe want to get on backblaze that was rec'd to me here by mattkime.
24/7 and I don't think about it.

My CCC is monthly coz my boot drive seldom has anything important in my d2d use.
Another remote online Tresorit for just financial stuff, even though most of it is b-up'd on-line by the respective institutions for 7 years.
And another local 8G that travels with me for all the important stuff.

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!#$@@$#!

proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

Re: BackBlaze,
I just bought in for 2yrs of service. Seems good so far, once I got past it choking on huge files (60+ GB). I can hook you up with a free month, actually anyone with an account can.

You can get a router with USB that will let you plug the drive into for automated time machine backups. I use an Airport Express, but the Engenius ESR530 will work and is $55 at Amazon.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

Quote
PeterB

Quote
Ombligo
Do you have any friends or family that you can pay to take it to the Apple Store for you?

It's summer, some kid would love to get some money to hang out at the mall.

Contacted the Apple Store, they aren't doing anything curbside and also without the machine being able to boot, said they wouldn't be able to get the data off the drive.

I may be wrong about the year, but I think any MBP up to the 2018 model does have a mode were they can hook up the seemingly dead MBP to a "black box" via Thunderbolt and potentially pull the data off to another Mac, also via Thunderbolt.

...But I'm pretty sure the box doesn't work with a T2 2020.

Get your data off while you can.

Contact Apple about an AppleCare mail-in repair.

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The lifeboat connector which I mentioned, was removed in 2018 with the T2 chip change unfortunately.

Good article outlining it for a 2016-2017 here. Been there, done that, and have the tools to do so.

How to recover data from a dead A1707

Quote
Sarcany

Quote
PeterB

Quote
Ombligo
Do you have any friends or family that you can pay to take it to the Apple Store for you?

It's summer, some kid would love to get some money to hang out at the mall.

Contacted the Apple Store, they aren't doing anything curbside and also without the machine being able to boot, said they wouldn't be able to get the data off the drive.

I may be wrong about the year, but I think any MBP up to the 2018 model does have a mode were they can hook up the seemingly dead MBP to a "black box" via Thunderbolt and potentially pull the data off to another Mac, also via Thunderbolt.

...But I'm pretty sure the box doesn't work with a T2 2020.

Get your data off while you can.

Contact Apple about an AppleCare mail-in repair.

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Good Luck!
Jamie Dresser
Other World Computing



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2021 04:04PM by OWC Jamie.

Quote
OWC Jamie
The lifeboat connector which I mentioned, was removed in 2018 with the T2 chip change unfortunately...

Sorry. I don't think I've ever heard of it called a "lifeboat connector" before. But I see it from your link: "...here is a port named lifeboat on the logic board of this 2016-2017 MacBook touch bar model. "

Good to know! Thanks!

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I guess this means that any current MBP/MBA have no way of DIY data rescue without power for Target mode short of sending back to the muthuh ship?
MacMini too?

aka right to repair

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!#$@@$#!

proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

PeterB - I have a 2018 laptop, just back from Apple Store where they basically replaced the entire set of internal boards. All data was lost (and not even the same Mac OS installed, so watch out if they DO replace the SSD).

Right now, we as consumers need to rethink Apple Macs. These are now data clients. Keeping two external copies is my plan. One is in the cloud, and another is local (Time Machine). I will use CCC for any desktop machines for auto daily or weekly backups, but not for laptops. Just not going to happen for anyone besides me in my house with physical drives. Might consider some sort of network drives etc, but prefer Time Machine plus cloud as the cloud files are at a different physical location.

I'm waiting for the Fall 2021 MBPs. Planning to buy one, stick a big honking SD card into the slot, and scheduled SuperDuper to do a back-up every single night.

And I've stuck a 5TB drive onto my Synology Rt-2600AC router, and am going to figure out to run time machine onto that. And then, back that drive up to BackBlaze.

Right now I'm just doing SD backups onto and external HD from my 2015 MBA. And I manually pull across crucial stuff onto the small-is SD Card.

....didn't Data die twice [ or was it only once ]........???

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!