Mac SSD locked!! Help!

[gjmohn]

My fiance's Mac Book Air 2016 had a RAM failure causing us not to be able to turn the computer on at all. We desperately need the files on the mac though. So I took the SSD out of the mac and bought an enclosure for the hard drive with a USB cable. When plugging it into another mac it displays that the hard drive is locked, nothing shows up in finder or anywhere as far as I can tell. When plugging it into my PC, the ding indicating I plugged something in sounds but nothing shows up anywhere in the files. 

Please help, if there is a way to unlock the hard drive without paying Apple more than the computer is worth to repair the the card and replace the RAM, nearly 500 dollars for a bottom of the line basically 5 year old mac book air. We need the files to apply to graduate school! 

[Electronics Wizardy]

What exact macbook air do you have, there never was a 2016 model.

 

Where do you hear the ram is the issue, you can't replace the ram on any macbook air, so your probably just getting a new board.

 

What do you mean by locked? Can you show a screenshot? 

[gjmohn]

Sorry bought it 2016 but it actually early 2015. We took it to apple and they said they would need to replace the board yes. Sorry I'm not super proficient in the computer world. I can't send a screen shot at the moment but will later tonight, but basically there is a popup that states "The disk Macintosh HD cannot be unlocked" 

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, gjmohn said:

Sorry bought it 2016 but it actually early 2015. We took it to apple and they said they would need to replace the board yes. Sorry I'm not super proficient in the computer world. I can't send a screen shot at the moment but will later tonight, but basically there is a popup that states "The disk Macintosh HD cannot be unlocked" 

 

 

did you have filevault enabled? 

 

What enclosure did you use to try to mount it on anouther system with usb?

 

It sounds like it might be encrypted, and if thats the case you basically need the password, otherwise that data is lost. If its not encrypted, there is probably issues with the filesystem.

 

Either way, id take it to a datarecovery service if the data is import. That won't be cheap though, easily in the hundreds or thousands depending on the issue. They will be much better than apple at getting the data back though. I wouldn't pay apple to fix it if your goal is getting the data.

 

[gjmohn]

I'm not sure if she had filevault enabled or not. It is an OWC enclosure, which seems to be working properly as both mac and pc registers that a device has been plugged in just can't access it. Thanks for the help, I will look into data recovery services.

 

[gjmohn]

Does anyone know if it would be potentially harmful to the working mac to install this ssd to it if the ssd is damaged in anyway?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, gjmohn said:

Does anyone know if it would be potentially harmful to the working mac to install this ssd to it if the ssd is damaged in anyway?

 

if the data is important, I wouldn't touch it and send it to data recovery, everything you do has the chance to make it worse.

 

Can you show disk utility on the other mac when it is plugged in via usb?

[gjmohn]

I will try, I don't have access to the other mac for a few hours, just talked to data recovery shop near me and they quoted me at $400-$2200 and not sure that is a viable option for us. I appreciate the help.

[gjmohn]

Okay update, I have access to the working mac now. I plugged it in and see the ssd under the disk utility, It says it is encrypted. Also, the pop up says "The disk "Macintosh HD" can't be unlocked. A problem was detected with the disk that prevents it from being unlocked." When I try to mount the SSD it just brings that pop-up up again.

[gjmohn]

I have the password to the mac that died but it won't let me enter it to unlock the hard drive. Does this most likely mean that the files are damaged?

 

[gjmohn]

update: 

having the ssd plugged into the working mac I worked from the terminal: 

 

first entering: diskutil apfs list (simply listing all apfs disks)

Once finding which disk is the one that you need to mount and and decrypt enter: diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/diskname
enter the password associated with that disk and will mount the disk. 

[NineEyeRon]

I have cloned a few mac HDDs to SSDs and had them work perfectly.

 

Have you tried a clone to a new drive then booted from the new drive? I would certainly clone ASAP so I didn’t do anything with the only drive I had, that needs to stay untouched as much as possible!!!

 

If you have not cloned please do soon!

[gjmohn]

How do I clone if I don't have access to it?

 

[NineEyeRon]

1 hour ago, gjmohn said:

How do I clone if I don't have access to it?

 

On a PC using Macrium Reflect

[gjmohn]

Thank you

 

[Flannelist]

I would agree on the clone front if possible. It sounds like the drive might also not be working properly, or there is an issue with the filevault encryption. (I have seen that before and it's not a fun time if you need the files). If you are wiling to risk it, I would see if you can use that drive as a startup disk for a known working mac. Either change in system preferences or press and hold the the option key at power on to select your startup disk, even plugged in as an external you should be able to do that.

[NineEyeRon]

In the future pay the $1 a month for 50GB of online storage, local storage of anything important is risky AF.

 

Also never use removable media like USB sticks for storage, cold backups are OK but never as the primary.

 

There is just 0 reasons these days to have local only storage of word, excel and presentation files.