Need to retrieve my music off mac retina

My retina lcd lightb has stopped working .how can I retrieve my music file of ,when the hard drive can't be remove.? Retina 12

MacBook, macOS 11.7

Posted on Sep 11, 2025 4:30 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 11, 2025 3:36 PM

The 12" Retina MacBooks do not have internal hard drives. To the best of my knowledge, they have soldered-in SSDs.


Although these notebooks have USB-C ports, they do not support Thunderbolt. Apple has placed restrictions on Target Disk Mode such that if either computer is running Big Sur or later, you must use a Thunderbolt connection (not a USB one). This means that if your other, working Mac is a recent model, you will not be able to use Target Disk Mode to try to pull files off that 12" Retina MacBook.


Your best bet is to retrieve your music files from your backups. You WERE keeping backups – right? There is also the option of going back to the source, e.g.,

  • If you have music that was purchased from the iTunes Store, you could re-download it on another machine.
  • If you have music from your own CDs, you could extract it from CD again on another machine


You could also connect a monitor to the MacBook. You might then be able to get the Mac to mirror its display to the external monitor by pressing Command-F1. Note that since the 12" Retina MacBook only has one USB-C port, you might want to use a powered hub/dock (instead of a USB-C to (whatever) adapter) so that there would be a place to plug in an external drive at the same time that you were plugging in the monitor.

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 11, 2025 3:36 PM in response to spanish50

The 12" Retina MacBooks do not have internal hard drives. To the best of my knowledge, they have soldered-in SSDs.


Although these notebooks have USB-C ports, they do not support Thunderbolt. Apple has placed restrictions on Target Disk Mode such that if either computer is running Big Sur or later, you must use a Thunderbolt connection (not a USB one). This means that if your other, working Mac is a recent model, you will not be able to use Target Disk Mode to try to pull files off that 12" Retina MacBook.


Your best bet is to retrieve your music files from your backups. You WERE keeping backups – right? There is also the option of going back to the source, e.g.,

  • If you have music that was purchased from the iTunes Store, you could re-download it on another machine.
  • If you have music from your own CDs, you could extract it from CD again on another machine


You could also connect a monitor to the MacBook. You might then be able to get the Mac to mirror its display to the external monitor by pressing Command-F1. Note that since the 12" Retina MacBook only has one USB-C port, you might want to use a powered hub/dock (instead of a USB-C to (whatever) adapter) so that there would be a place to plug in an external drive at the same time that you were plugging in the monitor.

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Need to retrieve my music off mac retina

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