trying to save the data from a computer that is dying

[Abbbby333]

I have 2 computers in play here.

The first is a 2015 15" MacBook pro. This is the one that isn't working properly. I can boot it on for about 5-10 min at a time before it crashes. We have a backup of this computer, but it was made in april. The computer won't stay on long enough to make a more recent backup. I've pulled the external hard drive out of this and have it in an external housing.

The second computer in play is a 2017 13" MacBook air. This computer is working and is the one I am trying to transfer the data from the other computer to. I have plugged the hard drive from the other computer into this and tried to set it up in migration assistant, but it isn't showing up, and I have booted into recovering mode and it still isn't showing up. I think this may spell doom for the old hard drive, but is there anything else I can try? I don't think its possible to just put the drive straight into the air?

Looking for any advice for what I can do to save the data. TIA

edit: I just noticed the housing with the drive from the pro is very hot

 

[organicCPU]

First, I suggest making a copy of the rescued drive, e.g. with Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. The copy can also be a (compressed) Disk Image (dmg) on a larger drive. If that fails, I recommend ddrescue.

After that, I´d migrate all needed data manually. I know that it´s a time consuming task, but it is the cleanest way to do a migration.

 

[DeltaMac]

If the SSD doesn't show up, it has likely failed. That's a tough part of life with SSDs. Failure can often be catastrophic, with no recovery possible. There were other options a few years ago with spinning hard drives, where there was a good possibilty to retrieve data after opening the disk case (in a clean room), transferring those disks to a good drive case, and you could often get the data back. Much less likely on an SSD, unfortunately. And, the failure can often be completely without warning.
The hot case, even though not writing much data to the drive, is likely because the drive is mostly dead, and just sits there heating up, likely making things worse because of the heat.
You could try wrapping the SSD, in its external enclosure, with an ice pack. It's possible that might keep the card cool enough to get your data. You could try that, but I wouldn't want to give you any false encouragement about that. It's an SSD, so no mechanical parts. Heat is your enemy. A failing SSD will not heal itself.

 

[organicCPU]

The external housing could be defective or incompatible, too.

Does the drive only fail to mount, but can be linked to the file system (type in Terminal: diskutil list and see if it´s there)?

If the flash drive doesn´t show up at all in the external housing, but is mounting in the defective MacBook Pro, even if it´s just for some minutes, you could try connecting the old MacBook Pro via Thunderbolt to the MacBook Air. Then boot the old MacBook Pro in Target Disk Mode (Press T during start). To retrieve the data through many booting times and crashes, use ddrescue with a logfile on the MacBook Air to rescue as many as possible segments of data.

Of course a professional recovery service might be the best choice for you.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I have 2 computers in play here.

The first is a 2015 15" MacBook pro. This is the one that isn't working properly. I can boot it on for about 5-10 min at a time before it crashes. We have a backup of this computer, but it was made in april. The computer won't stay on long enough to make a more recent backup. I've pulled the external hard drive out of this and have it in an external housing.

The second computer in play is a 2017 13" MacBook air. This computer is working and is the one I am trying to transfer the data from the other computer to. I have plugged the hard drive from the other computer into this and tried to set it up in migration assistant, but it isn't showing up, and I have booted into recovering mode and it still isn't showing up. I think this may spell doom for the old hard drive, but is there anything else I can try? I don't think its possible to just put the drive straight into the air?

Looking for any advice for what I can do to save the data. TIA

edit: I just noticed the housing with the drive from the pro is very hot

Does the drive from the 2015 MacBook Pro mount when connected to the 2017 MacBook Air? If not, that indicates a drive problem (or a logic board problem). If you remove the drive from the former machine and put it in one of those OWC enclosures and it still doesn't mount, the drive is probably toast. If it's not mounting in the 2015 MacBook Pro when connected via Target Disk Mode, but does when put into one of those OWC enclosures, then the drive is probably fine, but the 2015 MacBook Pro probably has a failing logic board (but, then again, if you remove the SSD from a 2015 MacBook Pro, the logic board is pretty much all you're left with in terms of actual computing parts).

 

[Fishrrman]

What kind of enclosure do you have the 2015's SSD in?

You realize that the Apple SSD has "proprietary" connections, and ordinary enclosures/docks won't work...???

As bubbleman says above, OWC makes a special enclosure that can accomodate Apple OEM drives, but it's not cheap (around $75). And using that may not guarantee success if there are hardware problems with the drive itself.

In the end, you may just have to use the "April backup", and let things go at that.

My suggestion for the future:
- Get either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper
- DO NOT rely on time machine
- Create a cloned backup on an external drive, and update it once-a-week.