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When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
"While migrating from my MacBook Pro with an Intel chip to a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip, I lost all the data stored on my hard drive. I managed to recover only a few items from iCloud. Most of the lost items were in the Downloads folder and on the desktop. This data is very important to me; please help me restore it. Thank you."
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.0
sushilfromkathmandu Said:
"need to restore data from formatted hard drive: 'While migrating from my MacBook Pro with an Intel chip to a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip, I lost all the data stored on my hard drive. I managed to recover only a few items from iCloud. Most of the lost items were in the Downloads folder and on the desktop. This data is very important to me; please help me restore it. Thank you.'"
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Trobuleshooting Lost Data:
If you cannot upload data, then it is gone, if not backed up. So, look in a place would would have backed it up. Elsewise, it is gone. For example, here is how you wouldtroubleshoot Photos and Videos:
Locating Lost Photos and Videos:
I. Enable Photos and Contacts in iCloud:
On the iPhones, enable Contacts in iCloud.
On the iPhone:
II. Troubleshooting Deleted Photos:
Three Things to Try:
A. Start here: If you're Missing Photos or Videos in the Photos App - Apple Support
B. Check iCloud, Directly:
Go here, and see if they reside in iCloud: https://www.icloud.com/photos
C. Where Else to Check:
sushilfromkathmandu Said:
"need to restore data from formatted hard drive: 'While migrating from my MacBook Pro with an Intel chip to a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip, I lost all the data stored on my hard drive. I managed to recover only a few items from iCloud. Most of the lost items were in the Downloads folder and on the desktop. This data is very important to me; please help me restore it. Thank you.'"
-------
Trobuleshooting Lost Data:
If you cannot upload data, then it is gone, if not backed up. So, look in a place would would have backed it up. Elsewise, it is gone. For example, here is how you wouldtroubleshoot Photos and Videos:
Locating Lost Photos and Videos:
I. Enable Photos and Contacts in iCloud:
On the iPhones, enable Contacts in iCloud.
On the iPhone:
II. Troubleshooting Deleted Photos:
Three Things to Try:
A. Start here: If you're Missing Photos or Videos in the Photos App - Apple Support
B. Check iCloud, Directly:
Go here, and see if they reside in iCloud: https://www.icloud.com/photos
C. Where Else to Check:
sushilfromkathmandu Said:
"need to restore data from formatted hard drive: 'While migrating from my MacBook Pro with an Intel chip to a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip, I lost all the data stored on my hard drive. I managed to recover only a few items from iCloud. Most of the lost items were in the Downloads folder and on the desktop. This data is very important to me; please help me restore it. Thank you.'"
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Troubleshooting Lost Data:
Download All of iCloud:
One though would be to download all of iCloud, and then search through it in Finderon a Mac. You would download it to an external drive, and then open the drive in Finder. Search through it using the search bar on the top-right corner of the Finderwindow. Use my user tip: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - User Tip
Did you erase the old Mac? If you erased the old Mac, then the data is gone unless you have a copy of the data stored elsewhere like in a backup or some other external media where you may have transferred some files. iCloud is not a backup. iCloud is a cloud file syncing service so that you can access a document on any connected device.....if you delete a document from iCloud, then you delete it from every other connected device as well.
Apple provides the Time Machine software which is built into macOS to backup your Apple computer....all you need to do is purchase a large enough external USB3 drive and configure Time Machine to back up to that external drive. It is usually best to have more than one backup copy for really important data.
If you did not erase the old Mac, then boot the old Mac and create a backup. You can then use Migration Assistant to migrate the backed up data from the TM backup or you can migrate from the old Mac directly.
need to restore data from formatted hard drive
