So.. You can't boot into recovery and wipe the partition? Like I have done multiple times on my macbook?

Tbf, who cares. They're just macs.

Can’t you give it back to apple ? They have some recycling program I think

They're probably broken and wants to sell them as parts machines. Because he can't boot he can't wipe them. And since the flash is soldered he also can't wipe them from a different machine

Too bad, most of them even have useful things like regular USB ports.

@shoop indeed, the one I got from work have 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt and I have no clue why I need so many.

I sense its some form of legal issue, with that many mac books it's probably some form of professional environment as it probably fine for individuals

This is likely a post about right to repair. Guy probably has an apple certified repair shop license, and apple is notorious for their draconian, profit-oriented repair policies.

@lxmcf Former Apple tech here. We used to have special Apple data transfer boards for the 2016+ models. Since they made the inside one whole integrated piece it was a huge pain but they function. If you’re working for an AASP you should have all this equipment. If you’re at a third party shop or a business and the machine won’t boot (power issue etc) you’re SOL without an AASP.

@JosiasAurel "What's a computer?" -- Apple

Wiping the partition doesnt delete your data tho...

@ebrithil isn't the data partition encrypted anyway. It's 2020 after all.

"That is correct. I also happen to be a professional scrap analyzer, and I'm willing to offer my removal services free of charge to help you out cause I'm a charitable guy! So sorry you had to deal with this tragedy. I'll be there in about 5 minutes ago to make the proper pickup."

Never had a MacBook (not willing to spend the money but if someone wants to gift me one, be my very welcomed guest) but worked in Apple Support about 15 years ago… can't these MacBooks be booted in target mode anymore? That would allow you to overwrite/reformat the disk as you see fit…

@SomeNone I believe you still can, haven't tested myself but do believe it is still there

I mean... could be some contract with Apple to prevent them from doing that?

@ebrithil wiping the thing that holds your data... won't wipe the data??? If you zero out a drive, it's gonna wipe your data...

@Parzi only that most tools dont overwrite your whole drive with zeroes, depending on size that would take hours...
It just wipes the partition table

@ebrithil in a place where they're looking to recycle machines (or any that aren't doing it wrong as hell,) they either replace the drive and destroy the old one or wipe the old one entirely, possible multi-pass. And the time is rather low on SSDs with secure erase, which, by the thickness of those laptops, seems to be what they'd have. And some tools don't, no, but you have plenty of options that *do!*

@12bitfloat just noticed your comment: some of them may have M.2 and some of them can probably be revived with a reload, which could be done with boot media unless those are deliberately disallowed...

@Parzi All newer macs have soldered flash that's also encryped and fingerprinted by the T2 security chip so you couldn't change it anyways

@12bitfloat "newer Macs" the 2017 Macbook Pro had removable SSDs and i can't tell any apple laptop after like 2014 apart as they're all the fucking same so those may be what's used here.
Also, if memory serves, all of that is disableable.

@Parzi The new mac mini has a T2 and an M.2 ssd and I know that you definitely cannot swap the ssd

@12bitfloat according to the Internet, it seems wiped SSDs can be recovered from with the Internet Recovery, even if the T2 is set to the most secure settings. Should allow for new SSDs to bs used, too: just use the Internet Recovery thing to boot into macOS, turn off T2 (or don't,) re-evaluate life choices that led you to buying an Apple product.