How a MacBook repair in Herald Square Park became a 2-million subscriber YouTube channel & data recovery lab

Where honest repair meets hard drive data recovery

Walking out on bullshit

Rossmann Repair Group started 17 years ago when I walked off the job at a shady repair shop in Midtown Manhattan. A customer showed up with a dead white A1181 MacBook. I find a shorted component on the logic board, basic board-level repair. I knocked it off, the board worked. This was an easy fix.

The customer put on the form they could spend up to $250. Since this was "motherboard repair," shop wanted $350. Fair enough, customer can't pay, we don't do the work. But then my boss asked me to re-open the device and break it to "restore it to its original condition."

"Think about that for a second. Rather than collect $250 for a repair that was already done that had no parts cost, he wanted me to take extra time out of my day to break it so we could collect nothing: all because this customer couldn't pay the full $350. I walked out and never came back."

This same dishonest approach plagues the data recovery industry today - which is why we do hard drive data recovery differently. No games, no upsells, no breaking your drive if you can't pay inflated prices.

The foundation of transparent service

With $250 in my pocket in a city where commercial real estate costs $100/sq ft, I set up shop in Herald Square Park. I carried around 40 pounds of soldering equipment, screens, spare parts, & every common MacBook logic board component that tends to fail.

My business model was simple. I'd visit you, fix your MacBook in front of you, and only charge if it worked. No waiting for parts orders, no "we need to replace the whole LCD assembly." I provided old school, honest component-level repair while you watched.

My business model was very different from the others. I didn't hide how I did my job, or obscure parts numbers. My website had every part number right there, & I helped people on forums to do their own repairs. I never believed in the mentality that repair had to be made difficult for others in order for it to be easy for me. if someone wants to do a repair themselves, and something I said or posted helps them along, that'll come back to me in a positive way. I don't like being restricted or told what to do, and I felt like withholding information was a way of me doing that to other people.

We told people when something wasn't worth fixing, showed them everything involved in the process if they were interested, and provided honest answers. These were simpler times. So simple, I still had a full head of hair.

This same transparency now drives our hard drive data recovery service.

Getting space at Play Studios on 247 w. 30th st

By 2009, I needed a real workspace. Working at Avatar Studios back in 2007, I learned real skills from the best techs in the business. I made a deal with a studio owner whose cocaine habit left him perpetually broke. I'd fix all their equipment so clients never complained, & they'd let me use their unused room as an office.

Three blocks from Penn Station. Free rent. Here's my professional marketing materials from that era, made in Microsoft Paint:

Expanding

My first "business loan"

One day I find a $70,000 loan document on top of a bass amp. The studio owner who got this loan was weeks behind on payroll. My good friend Jake & I read this as he worked on one of his records, fuming and raging at the unfair nature of the world. We work our ass off honestly everyday & get nowhere, but a drunken smelly cocaine addict gets $70,000 out of nowhere???

After a bottle of Southern Comfort & a Frank Grimes moment, I drunkenly confronted the lender:

"If you had given me 10% of that money I'd have built an empire with it!"

Next day, he handed me a check for $7000 and said 'now build something with it.' So I did.

The parts problem

Here's what nobody was talking about in the repair industry 15 years ago.. finding good parts is nearly impossible. Suppliers don't know the difference between LP154WP2-TLA1 & LP154WP2-TLC1 screens (one works, one doesn't). They sell customer returns as "Grade A."

I started testing everything. Every supplier, every part! I built relationships with LG & AU Optronics brokers and started Rossmann Supply to sell tested, verified parts to other repair shops. We failed horribly by 2013, but I learned exactly how the component supply chain works & gained invaluable contacts for my repair business's growth.

Lesson Learned

This experience taught me how the supply chain really works - knowledge that now helps us source 1000+ donor drives for our hard drive data recovery service.

Getting kicked out

The studio owner's habit of spending money on cocaine rather than paying rent eventually caught up to him, and the business was about to be evicted. The new owners came along that didn't know how to run a studio. They demanded I put 15" PA speakers in a 200 sq ft mix room as nearfield monitors. I was speaking to my girlfriend after receiving a phone call from the new owners while cleaning my bathroom. The water caused my phone screen to pocket dial the acting manager; needless to say, he wasn't happy with what I was telling my girlfriend about working for idiots, so out the door I went. My apartment now became a wall of LCD screens I obtained from LG & AU Optronics brokers & a mini shipping department for the burgeoning ecommerce business.

A real shop with our name on it

By the end of 2011, I had found a real store. It was in a building owned by an older gentleman named Allen Park, and it cost $3500/month. He knew he could get more money for it if he waited it out or spruced things up a little bit, but he seemed to be looking for a very specific kind of tenant. A mild mannered, quiet(this was 14 years ago) repairman seemed like his style of tenant over a noisy bar or restaurant. I was so broke after paying the deposit & some basic maintenance, that all I could put on the front was a Home Depot patio door instead of a real storefront door. This place might've been a dump, but it was mine :)

The video Apple didn't want online

I uploaded a video titled "How 'unauthorized idiots' repair Apple laptops". In it, I fix a MacBook Air that Apple claimed needed a logic board replacement. The actual problem was a single 0 ohm resistor that failed (think of this like a fuse), cutting off the 3.3v power rail to the trackpad and keyboard.

The video shows the schematic on screen. I explain exactly which component failed, why it failed, and how to fix it. This was a problem, because two days later I get a call from Kilpatrick & Townsend, Apple's law firm. They were very polite & professional in saying they'd really appreciate it if I'd remove the video. Showing people that a 2-cent resistor can fix their "unrepairable" MacBook is bad for business when you're charging $750-$1500 for unnecessary logic board replacements.

"I told them if they believed the video violated their copyright, they should file a DMCA takedown. Otherwise, the video stays up. They never filed. The video stayed up."

I kept uploading more, each one showing the exact boardview and schematic sections needed to diagnose and repair these "unfixable" machines. They never called back. I don't think they wanted the flak of claiming that the location of a fuse is information people shouldn't be privy to. Hundreds of technicians started uploading videos of these repairs afterwards. The floodgates were open, component level repair was going mainstream, & there was no turning back!

Exposing Apple on international television

April 2018: CBC News calls. They want to do a story on how Apple is "bad with upgrades". This sounds boring, because the story starts with the conclusion. When you starst with the conclusion, you're not reporting the news; you're propaganda. By 2018 people were sick & tired of this. I suggested something different entirely.

I pitched them this idea: find a broken Macbook. Bring it to Apple, record what they say. Then, bring it to me & see what I say. "The story will write itself", I told them. and it did. :D

They found an A1398 MacBook that had no backlight on the screen. It had a bent pin on the display cable. This happens all the time when people try to do their own maintenance & don't plug the screen cable back in. It creates a short circuit between pin 1, backlight voltage, & ground. This model uses a current sensing circuit in addition to a fuse, so it doesn't require any soldering to fix once the short is resolved. Apple Store quotes them $1200+ for a new logic board and display. It's a 30-second fix.

We went viral. They bring it to me. I diagnose it correctly in under a minute, fix it for free on camera. The video goes viral - 20+ million views across platforms. Suddenly people realize what I've known for the past 10 years: the genius bar ain't what it's cracked up to be. Independents aren't the ripoff shady mechanics they're made out to be.

Taking the fight to legislators

In 2015 I made my first Right to Repair video which said everything I'd felt for seven years.

"Why are schematics illegal to share?

Why can't we buy genuine parts?

Why is everything we need hidden in dark corners of the internet?"

Above all, why is it the people who charge $750-$2000 for everything, who seem allergic to providing economically viable & sensible solutions to anything, the "good guys" while we're the schmucks?

I started visiting state legislatures. New York. Massachusetts. Nebraska. Maine. Minnesota. Washington.

One legislator told me Apple's lawyers claimed that when I repair a MacBook, it's "no longer a MacBook"and I'm committing fraud by calling it one. That's like saying when you change your car's oil, it's no longer a Ford. He decided to support the Right to Repair bill after a few minutes of discussion.

"There I swayed a politician and I had never stepped foot into a legislature before, or had any lobbying experience. I learned something here: it's possible to change things if people are willing to show up."

Steve Wozniak endorsement

July 2021: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak publicly endorsed Right to Repair. Says the Apple II succeeded because it came with schematics and people could fix and improve it. Validates everything we've been saying about repair.

Building the movement

Started two nonprofits:

I raised 1M to Repair Preservation Group & close to 1M to Repair Preservation Group Action Fund. I could hire actual lobbyists. No more showing up alone to hearings where Apple & Samsung send five lawyers. We've helped pass repair legislation in multiple states, though most have loopholes big enough to drive a Tesla through.

From logic boards to lost data

Why We Started Hard Drive Data Recovery

After years of component-level MacBook repair, hard drive data recovery was natural. Same skills, different application. While DriveSavers charges $3000+ for basic recoveries using PC-3000 equipment, we bought the same tools and do it for $300-650.

We're doing to data recovery what we did to logic board repair: showing people the truth, charging fair prices, & calling out the scammers.

Our data recovery capabilities

The Real Difference in Hard Drive Data Recovery

We approach data recovery like logic board repair. While others replace entire PCBs for $2000, we fix the actual failed component. That 0805 capacitor that failed on your hard drive's PCB? We replace it for $300. Others quote you $2000 for a "specialized recovery."

Escaping NYC bureaucracy hell

After 32 years in NYC and 13 years running a business there, I had enough. New York has:

• • Tried to revoke a business license for nonpayment that I had paid in full 10 months prior.
• • Placed a lien & warrant on my business in 2016, for an unpaid tax bill from 2012 that I had paid in full, and sent all correspondence to an unassociated PO Box in Berwick Maine, so that I would never know about it.
• • Claimed I owed over half a million dollars in unpaid taxes, only to find out that I didn't, and that my error rate was one tenth of one percent.
• • Fined me for noncompliance with a regulation they can't explain how to be in compliance with.
• • Wasted four hours on the phone because their payment system for the fine they levied on me didn't work & the court officer had "never done this before"

Six of my incredible technicians followed me to Austin. The ones who couldn't move still run Phoebe's Mac Repair in my old NYC space, they're the best MacBook repair shop in Manhattan.

Austin lab, worldwide service

We operate from Austin, near the UT campus. We serve customers worldwide through mail-in service. We've:

The fight continues

Manufacturers keep inventing new ways to prevent repair. Whether it's serialized parts, software locks, unavailable schematics & parts that can't be found anywhere. Right to repair was a canary in the coalmine for the widespread trend of companies changing & revoking what it means to own something, which we've pushed back against at every turn.

Whether you need MacBook logic board repair, hard drive data recovery, or SSD data recovery, you're working with the shop that did its best to teach the industry everything it knows, & we're not going anywhere. As long as companies keep lying to customers about what's fixable, we'll be here with a microscope & soldering iron to fix it.

"This company started because I refused to break someone's laptop & I've been lucky enough to watch it turn into something I never imagined. It wasn't because we had the best marketing or largest budget, but because we did something revolutionary in the modern era: we told people the truth & empowered them to help themselves."