Data Recovery Case File · Electrical & Environmental Damage · Two Spills, Cumulative

A Dead Keyboard and a Working Mac

Her enquiry described a machine that was working and unusable at the same time. A 2022 MacBook Air after "salad dressing leaked all in my bag and completely destroyed my keyboard and trackpad. It still charged and powered on fine, but I couldn't even unlock my Mac." The store initially called it an easy fix — replace the two parts — then called back having found "extra damage of corrosion and rusting with the motherboard, which I think might be from previous water spills." Two things are worth separating here. There is a free thing she could have tried on day one, because the machine itself was running perfectly. And the second call explains the first: this was never one spill.

The decode: the free test, the dressing, and the cumulative damage

The thing worth trying first: her machine charged and powered on fine. That is not a damaged computer with a working light — it is a computer that boots, loads its operating system and sits at the login screen doing everything it should. What failed was the input, so she could not type her password. The obvious and free remedy is an external keyboard: a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, or a wired one through an adapter, will very often let a machine in this state be unlocked and its files copied off directly. It costs nothing beyond a borrowed keyboard, and it should be the first thing anybody tries when a machine runs but cannot be typed into.

Why salad dressing is worse than water: as with tea and coffee, what matters is what was dissolved. Dressing carries salt, acid and oil — salt is highly conductive and aggressively corrosive; vinegar is acidic and attacks metal directly; and oil spreads, creeps along surfaces and traps the other two against components where they keep working. The residue does not dry out and does not stop. So a spill of this kind causes damage at the moment of contact and then continues indefinitely.

Why the store's story changed: and this is the part that explains everything. The first assessment saw destroyed input hardware and an otherwise working machine — an easy fix. The second found corrosion and rust on the board that predated this incident. Liquid damage is cumulative: earlier spills that seemed to cause no problem leave residue that quietly corrodes for months or years, and a machine can run perfectly on a board that is deteriorating underneath. The dressing did not create that corrosion; it arrived on top of it. That is why "replace two parts" became something else.

What the machine's generation means: storage is soldered to the board and encrypted with keys held in a security chip on it, so there is no drive to remove and no route around the machine. If the board can be brought to a state where it runs and unlocks against her own password, the data is straightforward. Where corrosion has reached the storage packages or the security chip, that is the honest end of the road.

What not to allow: a board replacement. On a machine of this class, swapping the logic board discards the security chip holding the keys — and with it, permanently, the data.

On the bench

The free route was established first, because a machine that boots and cannot be typed into is often solved with a borrowed keyboard rather than a bench. Where input alone was the barrier, an external keyboard allowed the machine to be unlocked with her own credential and the contents copied directly. Where the board required work, it was assessed with the residue and corrosion mapped — including the historic damage, which governs what is realistically repairable — and cleaned and repaired at micro level rather than dried. Imaging began on unlock, and no board replacement was performed or advised.

The outcome

The external input route tried first at no cost, the board assessed including its historic corrosion, and the data imaged on unlock with the owner's own credential. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT; where a chip has to be removed, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront with the balance only on success — otherwise no recovery, no fee. The decode, for anyone whose machine runs but cannot be used: if it powers and boots, try an external keyboard before anything else, because what has failed may be only the input and a borrowed keyboard costs nothing; oily, salty and acidic spills are considerably worse than water, because the residue is conductive, corrosive and does not dry; a diagnosis that changes from easy to serious usually means earlier spills left corrosion the new one arrived on top of; and never allow a logic board replacement, because it discards the keys and the data with them.

Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.