Chosen Solution
I have an MBP (Macbook Pro 13" Retina, A1502 EMC 2835, from 2015) which suddenly died (no longer turns on even though the battery was full) and the charger does not light up. I have some data that has not been backed up on the password-encrypted 256GB 12+16pin Samsung s4ln058a01-8030 SSUBX SSD which I want to recover. So what is the safest way to recover the data on my SSD?
Details I do not remember my software setup, I guess it is: encryption via Filevault 2 (I have a regular password and a backup key -----* with each * being a digit or a capital letter)Mac OS El Capitan. I do plan to fix/replace (some parts of) my MBP, but first I want to recover all data with the lowest risk of data loss. After some research, I think of the following approach: buy an SSD USB-enclosure specifically for MBP and put my SSD inread data from SSD via dd (disk dump) and try to decrypt the image on a mac with my password or backup key. Or is the SSD combining my password with an internal ID, rendering 2) impossible?If 2) does not work, mount SSD on a different OSX and backup the data that OSX decrypts on the fly after I provided my password or backup keyIf 2) and 3) do not work, buy another MBP A1502 EMC2835 and plug in my SSD there, and then start and backup data on that MBP (I heard FileVault does not lock encryption to any other system component). Are these 4 steps the best approach? Which of these steps changes the SSD’s state (write access, change in operation mode, decryption on SSD, …)? Alternatively, I am also willing to pay for a professional (but not 1000€) to recover my data. However, I have heard bad stories about GRAVIS stores (and also our local Apple-partnered repair shop ImplementIT). Would you recover the data yourself or rather go to a professional? To whom?
Well, you’ve got Step 1 correct! But you’ll need a different path from then on. You would need a Mac system running the same macOS release which is also using your same user account. Then when you connect the drive to your system it will first ask you to access the drive using your user account and then you will need to supply the FileVault backup key done! The next step is to copy-off what you need. References: Intro to FileVaultUse FileVault to encrypt the startup disk on your MacApple’s FileVault 2 encryption program: A cheat sheet
