My 1.5-year-old MacBook Pro with a T2 chip suddenly died with no power at all, and the service center couldn’t even turn on the logic board. They told me data recovery isn’t possible due to T2 encryption, even with Apple’s recovery tools. Is it really impossible to recover data in this situation, or are there still options?
Unfortunately, what the service center told you is mostly accurate. On T2-equipped Macs, the SSD is tied to the T2 chip, and all data is encrypted at the hardware level. If the logic board is completely dead and the T2 chip can’t power on, there’s no way to decrypt the data—even Apple can’t access it. The old data recovery port you mentioned only worked on some pre-T2 models. Unless the board can be revived enough to boot (even briefly), recovery chances are extremely low.
If the T2 chip isn’t functioning, the data is basically locked. Recovery services usually can’t help in this case either. Only hope is if the board can be repaired enough to power on again.
I’ve seen a few cases like this, and the key issue is whether the T2 chip is still working. If the Mac is completely dead, software-based recovery tools won’t be able to access the data directly because of encryption. That said, if you can get the machine to power on or enter recovery/DFU mode, tools like Download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac may help retrieve files from the internal drive. You can first download, install, and open it. Then click the device you need to scan. In the end, pick the one you need to recover after scanning. However, whether the file can be recovered really depends on whether the system can still initialize the storage at some level—if not, even professional recovery becomes extremely difficult.