I messed up my Mac Pro (2012, macOS Mojave) and now my SSD shows up in System Report but has no storage available. OWC support says I may need to reformat, but that would erase everything. Has anyone been in a similar situation—should I try DIY data recovery software first, or go straight to a professional service?
If the drive is still recognized in System Report, that’s usually a good sign—it means the hardware isn’t completely dead. In many cases, this is just file system corruption. DIY recovery software can work well here, especially before reformatting. Just make sure you don’t write anything new to the drive, and ideally connect it as a secondary disk to another Mac for scanning.
I’d try DIY recovery first. As long as the SSD shows up, software tools often have a decent chance. Professional recovery can be very expensive, so it’s worth trying on your own before going that route.
Since your SSD is detected but not accessible, a reliable data recovery tool is your best first step. You might want to try Download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac—it’s designed for cases like unmounted or corrupted drives and can scan the disk without formatting. It also supports macOS Mojave and older Mac models like the 2012 Mac Pro. Recover your important files first, then proceed with reformatting if needed.