- Clear system storage on Mac. System storage cleanup sounds like a serious undertaking.
- Step i) Restart MacBook Pro and press-hold Command + R keys until the Apple logo appears. Step ii) In the macOS Utilities windows, select Disk Utility, then click Continue to launch the app. Step iii) In the right-panel, select the Mac drive and click the First Aid tab to repair it.
By default, Mac starts from its built-in hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains bootable contents that compatible with your Mac. For example, if you install macOS or Microsoft Windows on a USB drive, your Mac can recognize that drive as a startup disk. This guide provides 2 ways to boot a Mac from a USB flash drive.
Step One: Boot From Recovery Mode, or an Installer. RELATED: 8 Mac System Features You Can Access in Recovery Mode Your Mac’s Recovery Mode is a treasure trove of useful tools, and it’s the easiest way to wipe your computer and start from scratch.
Requirement
Starting up your Mac from an external disk requires the following:
Download Macbook Pro Startup Disk
- Intel-based Mac.
- Bootable USB thumb drive formatted with a GUID partition type and containing an OS X installer or a usable operating system.
Let’s see how to boot a Mac from a bootable USB drive and what to do if your Mac doesn’t start up from it.
Way 1: Boot Mac from USB Drive using Startup Manager
Getting your Mac to load from a USB drive is fairly straightforward. Use the following steps, you can easily set Mac boot from an external drive in Startup Manager, so it’ll only boot from USB that one time.
Step 1: Insert the USB boot media into a USB slot.
Step 2: Turn on your Mac (or Restart your Mac if it’s already on).
Step 3: Press and hold the Option key immediately after you see the Apple logo. Holding that key gives you access to OS X’s Startup Manager. Once the Startup Manager screen appears, release the Option key. The utility will look for any available drives that include bootable content.
Step 4: Using either the pointer or arrow keys on the keyboard, select the USB drive you wish to boot from. Once selected, either hit the Return key or double-click your selection. The machine will start to boot from the USB drive.
Way 2: Set a Mac Boot from USB Drive using Startup Disk
When you use Startup Disk preferences to set Mac boot from an external drive, so it’ll boot from that disk until you choose a different one. Here is how:
Step 1: Go to Apple menu > System Preference, then click Startup Disk.
Step 2: Click the locked icon and then enter your administrator password.
Step 3: Select External drive as the startup disk, then restart your Mac.
What to do if your Mac does not boot from the selected drive
If you see a message prompts that your security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk, check the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility, and then allow your Mac to use an external startup disk.
Step 1: Open Startup Security Utility.
Turn on your Mac, then press and hold Command (⌘) + R immediately after you see the Apple logo. Your Mac starts up from macOS Recovery. When you see the macOS utility window, choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility from the menu bar. When you’re asked to authenticate, click Enter macOS Password, then choose an administrator account and enter its password.
Step 2: Select “Allow booting from external media“.
If you want to select an external startup disk before restarting your Mac, quit Startup Security Utility, then choose Apple menu > Startup Disk.
Note: If you’re using Boot Camp in a dual-boot Windows/OS X environment, you may be unable to boot negatively into supported versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 10 operating systems installed on external USB hard drive.
Make sure disk has been formatted with a GUID partition type
Intel-based Macs support starting from an external USB storage device’s volume that has been formatted with a GUID partition type. If you wish to boot from the drive, it’s important to format the partition as “GUID Partition Table” rather than either of the other two ahead of time when you use that drive as a bootable drive.
Make sure your disk is bootable
Volumes that aren’t bootable and don’t contain a copy of a valid operating system aren’t listed in Startup Disk or Startup Manager. Make sure the external drive you’re trying to start from contains a usable operating system.
When the MacBook Pro is dead or crashed, or it can not boot properly, the first thing is to recover data from the dead Mac hard drive. How to recover data from dead MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac with Bootable Media and several manual methods will help you to recover data from MacBook Pro hard drive and repair failed/unbootable Mac hard drive in the simplest way.
You can follow this page to either repair a failed hard drive on Mac or recover data from a dead Mac hard drive.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Fix 1. MacBook Data Recovery | Method 1. Restore Mac data from dead MacBook...Full steps Method 2. Recover dead Mac hard drive data to another computer...Full steps |
Fix 2. Repair Failed Mac Hard Drive | Method 1. Run First Aid to Repair Failed Mac Hard Drive using Disk Utility...Full steps Method 2. Fix Won't Turn on MacBook Pro or Mac Computers...Full steps |
How Do I Recover Data from My Dead MacBook Pro?
'My MacBook Pro died and stopped working last week. It won't turn on from then on and gets stuck in the process of trying to boot up. Is there any way I can recover data from the dead MacBook Pro?'
As one of the most popular desktop devices, MacbookPro elevates the notebook to a whole new level of performance and portability. Although Macbook Pro works normally in most cases, however, something wrong may occasionally happen, such as it may suddenly crash or die due to various reasons.
Here is a list of major reasons that may cause you Mac computer died or fail to boot:
- Computer wear and tear, or aging
- System crash
- Hard drive failure
- Virus attack
- Too many bad sectors
When the problem occurs, you can neither boot the MacBook Pro nor can you access the data on the hard drive. At this time, the first thing you can do is to get data off the dead MacBook Pro is using a professional Mac data recovery software. Then you can use the built-in Disk Utility or other methods to repair the corrupted hard drive on MacBook Pro with ease.
The provided solutions on this page also work to recover data from dead Mac hard drive on MacBook, MacBook Air, etc., computers. Read on and see the detailed how-to guide.
MacBook Data Recovery: Recover Data from Dead MacBook Pro
If you have a Time Machine backup on MacBook Pro, you can follow methods in the next part to repair failed hard drive, make MacBook pro bootable again, and restore Mac data from Time Machine backup.
If you don't have a backup, don't worry. You can try the following two methods to restore data from dead MacBook Pro to an external hard drive to another computer.
Method 1. Recover Data from Dead MacBook Pro to an External Hard Drive
Professional Mac hard drive data recovery program - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac with bootable media can effectively recover lost photos, audio, music, documents, emails from failed/crashed/dead MacBook Pro.
EaseUS Mac data recovery software also supports recovering deleted files from the emptied Trash, external hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, SD cards, etc. on Mac OS X 10.9 to macOS Catalina 10.15.
Now, you can follow the tutorial below to create a bootable recovery drive and recover data from the dead MacBook Pro hard drive with a few steps:
How to Create a USB Bootable Media
Step 1. Install and run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac on another Mac computer, select 'File' > 'Create Bootable USB'. Then, choose a USB drive to create the bootable disc.
- Warning
- The creator will prompt to erase the drive to reallocate the space; then it can write the bootable files to this drive. Please back up all USB files before processing 'Eraser'.
Step 2. The program starts to create a 2GB space and save the boot files. The rest space on the USB can be still used for storage.
Step 3. Once it completes, please follow the guide to boot the corrupted Mac from the bootable disc and start the recovery. We suggest you restore the data to an external hard drive.
How to Recover Data from Mac Hard Disk
Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the 'Scan' button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click the 'Recover Now' button to have them back.
Note: Remember to save the recovered Mac data to another secure external hard drive and then follow methods in the next part to repair the problematic Mac hard drive.
Method 2. Recover Mac Hard Drive Data to Another PC/Mac
Note: As the following tips will break your computer warranty and you are on a warranty, don't try the provided tips. Also, if you are not experienced in removing or inserting hard drive on Mac computers, revert back to Method 1 for help.
If you have two computers at home, you can also try the following steps to restore Mac hard drive data to another computer:
First. Remove Mac hard drive and connect it to another computer
Required tools: a screwdriver, an external hard drive enclosure, and a USB connection cable.
Step 1. Open your Mac computer case, remove the hard drive with your screwdriver.
Step 2. Put your Mac hard drive into the external hard drive enclosure, and connect it to your computer.
Next. Access and check the data
On Windows Computer: Open the Windows File Explorer, double-click to check the hard drive data.
On Mac: Double-click the disk icon on the desktop and check if you can access the hard drive and its data.
If you can access the data, congratulations. You've successfully got your data out of the dead MacBook Pro. If not data shows up, refers to the next step.
Last. Restore Mac Hard Drive to Another Computer
On Windows computer, you can download the Windows version of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to scan and recover data from Mac hard drive to PC with ease.
On Mac computer, you can follow the three steps below to directly scan and bring the Mac hard drive data back:
Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the 'Scan' button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click the 'Recover Now' button to have them back.
After this, you've successfully restore data from your dead MacBook Pro.
How to Repair a Failed Hard Drive or Dead MacBook Pro
When you meet these issues on MacBook Pro, such as MacBook Pro is dead, Mac won't start up, multiple apps quit unexpectedly, a file is corrupted, and an external device doesn't work properly, you are highly possible having a problematic Mac hard drive.
Usually, when your Mac computer dead or failed to boot up, it's highly possible that the problem exists on your Mac hard drive or the macOS. As the causes are different, the fixes may also differ.
Method 1. Run First Aid to Repair Failed Mac Hard Drive using Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a built-in Mac disk management tool that can also fix some disk problems, like Mac hard drive won't boot.
Create Macbook Pro Startup Disk
After restoring the Mac hard drive data to a safe place, you can use the Disk Utility to check for errors and repair problematic hard drive and volumes with the following steps:
Step 1. Restart your Mac computer, press and hold Command + R keys simultaneously.
Step 2. Click 'Disk Utility' and then 'Continue'.
Step 3. Go to 'View' > 'Show All Devices'.
Choose the Mac hard drive to be repaired.
Step 4. Click 'First Aid' and then 'Run'. Click 'Done' when the process completes.
If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you've finished.
If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, you can't repair it, got back to Method 1 with the provided Mac data recovery tool to export all the data from dead Mac immediately. Then you can either choose to replace the old Mac hard drive with a new one or directly switch to everything - your data to a new Mac computer.
Method 2. Fix Won't Turn on MacBook Pro or Mac Computers
When the Mac computer is installed with a piratic macOS or the macOS crashes, the MacBook Pro or other Mac computers may also fail to boot. And some even don't react at all, showing like a dead computer.
So how to fix this issue? Here are 5 ways that you can try to fix Mac computer won't turn on issue:
- Fix 1. Fix PRAM/NVRAM
- Fix 2. Reset SMC
- Fix 3. Boot in Safe Mode
- Fix 4. Run Disk Utility
- Fix 5. Reinstall macOS
For a step-by-step guide, please refer to Mac won't boot for help.
Conclusion & MacBook Data Recovery FAQs
On this page, we covered the reasons that cause MacBook Pro and hard drive dead. To recover the lost Mac hard drive data immediately, turn to EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
It will quickly scan and restore your lost Mac hard drive data with a created data recovery bootable disk. You can also try to switch the old Mac hard drive to a new computer, and check if you can access the data.
As for repairing the problematic Mac hard drive, you can run Disk Utility with its First Aid feature to see if the disk can be fixed. If nothing works, you can consider changing a Mac computer or try the recommend 5 methods to fix the Mac computer that won't turn on.
If you still have some questions about MacBook data recovery, check the quick answers below to help yourself out:
1. How do I recover data from my Mac?
When you lost data on Mac computer, here are three ways that you can try to recover data from Mac:
Method 1. Restore Deleted Files from Mac Trash Bin
Method 2. Recover Data from Time Machine Backup
Method 3. Recover Data using Mac Data Recovery Software, such as EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
2. Does Apple offer data recovery?
According to Apple's hard drive data recovery and warranty implications: 'Hard drives that have become non-functional through normal use, and have had data recovery performed on them by third-party companies specializing in data recovery services can be returned to Apple for warranty service...'.
Macbook Pro Os Disk
3. How do I recover data from my MacBook after factory reset?
The possibility to recover data after factory resetting MacBook is not very high. But, as long as you didn't save any new files on the Mac hard drive after the factory reset, you can still try to run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac and check if it can find something for you.
If you need a complete guide to factory reset a Mac computer, refer to Factory Reset MacBook without Losing Data for help.
4. How do I recover data from my Macbook SSD?
As you know that SSD has a Trim mode, and if you turned on the Trim mode, everything you deleted cannot be restored.
Therefore, if you need to restore data from SSD, you need first check the SSD Trim status; Then if the Trim is disabled, run EaseUS Mac data recovery software to scan and restore data from your Mac SSD.