Mac disk not showing files only system folder

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Meezy5

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Hi, im trying to recover data for customer from his older macbook. I have booted macos from usb stick and when i go to finder i can see the internal hdd but it shows only system folder with bunch of useless stuff and subfolders no data folder like desktop, documents, videos, photos etc. Is there any solution on how to acces the files? Could it be that the customer has a password he forgot on that mac and the files are encrypted?
 
Cory Cooper

Cory Cooper

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Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

There could be a few reasons:
  • The drive is failing
  • Different versions of OS X/macOS store user data in different modes
  • The drive is encrypted with FileVault (this could be bad if any part of the drive has failed, as there wouldn't be any way to unlock the encryption)
A few questions:
  • What exact model MacBook
  • Which version of OS X/macOS?
C
 

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