I accidentally got water in my Mac's charging port, and now it won't charge. It's over 10 years old, and the local Apple stores said they can't help me, especially with disassembling it to recover data. I've heard stories that damaged Macs can sometimes be repaired or that data can be extracted, but I don't know if that's true. Is it worth trying to find someone who can help, or should I just give up on it?
3 Answers
Even with damage to the charging port or motherboard, your hard drive is likely fine. Many shops can take apart your Mac and extract the hard drive. You could even do it yourself by following a YouTube tutorial for your model. After removing the drive, use a USB-to-SATA adapter, and you should be able to connect it to another Mac to retrieve your data.
It's unlikely that your Mac will just start working again after a water spill, especially if it got powered on afterward. If the hard drive is still operational, you can take it out and try to recover the data yourself. If it turns out the hard drive is dead, recovery could cost quite a bit if you need professional help, possibly up to a thousand bucks. Given the age of your Mac, it really depends on how much you need the data versus the cost of recovery.
If you have to repair a water-damaged hard drive, it might require swapping parts with an identical drive - which can be tricky and expensive. If it’s encrypted, recovery becomes even tougher. Just prepare for potential high costs.
Yes, it's possible to recover data from your Mac even if it's water-damaged. You might want to remove the hard drive and use recovery tools on another computer. Just be careful not to format it accidentally! It's a pretty straightforward process if you're comfortable with it.
Back in the day, Macs were no harder to work on than regular laptops. They might have started soldering components directly, which could complicate things. Hopefully, yours doesn’t have that issue!