Hi, my 4-year-old MacBook Pro has died (Model A1260). The people at the Apple Store have confirmed that it's a dead logic board. I have some important files on the computer that were not backed up. How can I retrieve these files? Preferably, I'd like to be able to access these files on a PC, but if need be, I can borrow my friend's iMac to do the transfer. Thanks!
Unlike external devices, internal hard drives are sturdier and they don't run into problems as often as flash drives. But they don't last forever. Sometimes, they tend to get corrupted and you will suffer from data loss. It is not easy to recover files from hard drives on a Mac computer which is functioning well.
- On Old Mac: Go to ‘Migration Assistant’ Click ‘Continue’ Select ‘Transfer to another Mac’ from the options of how you want to transfer data.
- If you only want to transfer files from Android to macOS, you won't need to pay anything, but as soon as you want to move things the other way, you'll have to part with $19.99 a year.
- Connect the external hard drive to your mac using a USB cable and wait until the hard drive successfully connected to your computer. (Name of the drive should appear on your Mac screen). Step 2: Open “Finder”, then locate the files to move to external hard drive.
Dec 19, 2019 There are other ways to move files between Macs and PCs. Thumb drives will work on both machines, so you can manually transfer whatever files you want to use, for example. But Migration Assistant provides an elegant, convenient and absolutely free way of managing the transition to becoming a Mac user, as long as you have the time to use it. Tip: For fastest migration, connect your old computer to your iMac with a cable, such as a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable. If you used Time Machine to back up your files from another Mac to a storage device (such as an external disk), you can copy the files from the device to your iMac. See Back up and restore your Mac.
If you need to transfer files from a broken Mac to a new Mac, things would become more complex. In this article, we will talk about that. Usually, there are two accassions:
- 1. If you only have the unbootable Mac.
- 2. If you have two Macs.
Tutorial to transfer files from broken Mac to new Mac
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is free Mac hard drive data recovery software which has helped lots of users transfer documents, pictures, audios, videos, emails that files from broken Mac to new Mac, recover lost data from dead MacBook Pro/MacBook Air/iMac, recover lost data from unbootable Mac computer, recover lost data from failed internal Mac hard drive, etc.
There is no need to take out the broken Mac internal HD. You are allowed to create a bootable USB and recover lost data or run the software through iBoysoft Server.
Solution 1: If you have only one unbootable Mac computer
If you have only one computer at your hand, the best solution you can try is to run iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac through iBoysoft Server to recover lost data.
Note: To perform the steps below, please make sure you can boot your problematic Mac into Internet Recovery Mode. That's to say, you need to connect it to a network, such as a WIFI network.
Windows To Mac File Transfer
- 1. Restart your Mac and press Command +Option +R key combinations to boot into macOS Recovery mode.
- 2. Choose a network for your Mac. You need to make your Mac connected to the Internet all the time.
- 3. Click Utilities in the top menu and select Terminal from the drop-down menu.
- 4. Type in the command line below:
- and then press Enter. This will launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac through iBoysoft Server.
- 5. When iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is launched, select the Mac hard drive in the list and click on Next to scan for files on this drive.
- 6. Select the files you want to get back and preview them, and then click on 'Recover' to recover them.
Solution 2: If you have two Macs
Transferring Files For Old Mac Software
- 1. Download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on another Mac computer.
- 2. Install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on the healthy Mac computer.
- 3. Click iBoysoft Data Recovery on the menu bar and then select 'Create Boot Drive'.
- 4. Insert a USB drive into the healthy Mac computer.
- 5. Follow the wizard to create a bootable recovery drive on the USB drive.
- 6. When the creation process completes, you can insert the USB drive into the unbootable Mac computer, and then press the Power button and Option key (⌥) to start the Mac.
- 7. Select iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac from the boot options.
Note: If you're running macOS Mojave or earlier, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac will launch immevdiately when your Mac boots up. But, if your Mac is running macOS Catalina, you need two additional steps to launch this program.
Transfer Files Mac To Mac
- 8. Wait for your Mac to boot up, open 'Terminal' application from 'Utilities' drop-down menu.
- 9. Run the following command:
- 10. Follow the wizard to scan for the lost data on the corrupted internal hard drive, choose the files you want to get back, and then click Recover button.
How to fix a broken Mac computer?
After transferring files from broken Mac to new Mac, you can reformat the system disk and reinstall macOS to make it usable again.
Transferring Data From One Mac To Another
- 1. Boot your Mac to macOS Recovery mode: hold down Command + R keys immediately after pressing the power button to turn on your Mac, release the keys until you see the Apple logo.
- 2. Select Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities menu.
- 3. Select the broken system drive from the side bar.
- 4. Click on Erase from the top.
- 5. Setup the required information to reformat the disk and click Done when finished.
- 6. Go back to macOS Utilities screen and select Reinstall macOS.