I've been struggling with this for days and am at my wit's end. Hopefully someone can point me in a very specific direction.
Problem: I have data on two SSD drives that I used using Apple RAID 0 on a 2011 MacBook. This setup worked GREAT until my motherboard fried a few weeks back. All I want to do is grab the data off the drives and then sell the drives. That's my sole objective. I have a 1tb bootable external thunderbolt drive I used for backups (using CCC) but I added some data since then and would like to grab it.
The only other Mac I have is an older MacBook5,1. This is probably the crux if my problem because this POS won't boot anything properly. When I install the sata drives it will boot using single user mode, but that's useless for CCC. If I try to boot normally it will crash at the login screen. If I try to boot with shift I get the do not enter sign (no boot volume?). If I try to boot the backup (via USB because this older Mac has no thunderbolt) it gives the do not enter sign. I found a Mohave USB install stick and can boot that (the only thing I've found that boots thus far), but nothing I install the OS on will boot. Not if I install on an external drive, not if I install on another USB stick, etc. I tried running CCC via the terminal while booted to that install disk but that didn't run. I tried making a High Sierra USB install stick using Windows twice using two different source DMGs and two different sticks. One failed to boot and the other, although had a file system with the installer, wasn't even blessed (and I cannot find any info online which folder I'm supposed to bless on an installer USB stick, not that I have particularly high hopes that would help).
Yes, I have zapped PR RAM.
Yes, I know Mojave isn't officially supported on this MacBook. This appears to be a compatibility version (dosdude?). The data is on an APFS drive so if I got High Sierra installed I think Paragon has a driver, however I honestly don't think Mojave was the problem and getting a High Sierra installer to boot has proven a major hurdle.
I'm a dev who has used Macs since 1986 and have never had such trouble before. Maybe there is a command line app that can do the clone from single user mode? No, dd isn't a solution.
I'm really at a loss what to try next!
