There are many types of motherboards from the MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air, including the iMac and also the Mac Pro.
Many customers ask us if their Mac can be repaired or not and if they can recover their data; usually, they have gone to other repairers who recommended replacing the motherboard or even the entire Mac. In this kind of situation, since 2016, Apple has changed the design of its computers: the SSD or hard drive is now integrated into the motherboard, and since 2018, with the arrival of Apple's T2 chip, the data is now encrypted. The only solution to recover it is to repair the motherboard.
When the motherboard needs to be changed, customers lose all their data, which is very important to them, such as professional documents or family photos. We therefore recommend repairing the motherboard to try to recover this data, and since the diagnosis is free, you take no risks.
Apple has neither the technical skills nor the personnel to repair motherboards. It may sound crazy, but Apple computers are manufactured in China by independent companies like Foxconn and Pegatron; they are the ones with the knowledge.
The products refurbished by Apple often come from the repair of these motherboards covered under warranty by Apple and repaired in China by these companies, but Apple does not perform repairs for these customers, and in the case of a repair, it systematically erases all data, which causes great dissatisfaction among customers. They also offer a monthly iCloud account, which quickly becomes very expensive when you have a lot of data.
On Macs from 2016 and 2017, Apple had integrated a connection port that allowed, in certain cases where the motherboard fails and with a specific case, to recover data, but they removed it starting in 2018, justifying that the new Macs with the T2 chip could not technically have this feature, certainly with the aim of selling more iCloud subscriptions, which is an endless financial boon for Apple.