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12 February 2024  John Weaver  Senior Program Developer
 

Summary
Having trouble with system applications or data recovery tools on your macOS High Sierra? Resolving these issues can sometimes be as simple as toggling System Integrity Protection (SIP). Here’s how to do it safely and effectively.



recover data from high sierra

When you upgrade macOS to 10.13 (High Sierra), you will find that the system software that was working normally before is abnormal, or even unable to run. For example, data recovery software cannot scan the system partition, but can only scan other data disks or external hard disks.

Mac system disk not detected

Why doesn’t the software run on macOS High Sierra?

This is because macOS 10.13 High Sierra enforces the built-in SIP technology (System Integrity Protection). SIP technology is a security technology included in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and later, designed to help prevent potential malware from modifying protected files and folders on your Mac.

SIP technology

SIP technology can also restrict the root user from performing any operations on critical locations of the Mac system. SIP (System Integrity Protection) will only allow a process to modify these protected parts if it is signed by Apple and has special permissions to write to system files such as Apple Software Update and Apple Installer.

To recover files from Mac OS system disk, data recovery software needs access to critical parts of the system. SIP technology will prevent similar operations, even if the software has root user privileges. At this time, we only need to turn off the SIP (System Integrity Protection) function on Mac OS to let the data recovery software scan the system disk.

How to disable SIP function?

Step 1: Click the menu on your Mac and select Restart.

Step 2: While your Mac starts up, press and hold (Command + R) until the Apple logo appears to enter Recovery Mode.

Mac menu launch

Note: It takes a long time to enter recovery mode, please wait patiently.

Step 3: Once in recovery mode, click on the (Utilities) menu and launch (Terminal).

Utilitiesmenu

Step 4: Type (csrutil disable) in the command line window and press the (Return) key

Start Terminal

Step 5: Finally, restart your Mac again.
Run again Renee Undeleter. The Mac system partition will be displayed in the program.

select whole partition scan in renee undeleter to recover deleted video from sd card

Renee Undeleter

preview before recovery

How to re-enable SIP?

After data recovery operations or other advanced operations, it is recommended to re-enable SIP to protect system integrity. Proceed as follows:
1. Turn off the Mac device.
2. Hold down (Command+R) and press the power button. Continue to hold (Command+R) until the Apple logo appears.
3. Wait for MacOS X to start and enter the utility window.
4. Select (Utilities) > (Terminal).

mac utility terminal
5. Enter (csrutil enable) and press the (Return) key.

enable SIP on mac
6. Restart the device.

To check if SIP is enabled successfully, you can open a terminal and type (csrutil status) to check the status of SIP. It should display “System Integrity Protection status: enabled.”

mac check SIP

epilogue

The MacOS High Sierra system uses SIP technology to protect the integrity of the system, so many system tools and data recovery software cannot scan the system disk. After the above-mentioned few simple steps, you can use Renee Undeleter to scan and recover data from the internal disk of Mac. Click the link below to download Renee Undeleter for free!