MBP failed and I want to restore data

It would be of some help to describe in what way it's failed, as the options would depend heavily on this.

If it's powering on at all, then target disk mode might still work to be able to connect it to another computer?, though this would need either a firewire adapter or another thunderbolt capable mac, but if it's completely dead and not powering on, then you will basically need to open it and pull the ssd and get an adapter to use it it in an nvme m2 to read from.

Apple store should really be able to help with target disk mode if this is option.

 

Don’t want to rub salt into the wound, but if you had a backup you’d have been done by now.

Good news is that the SSD is removable. As said though, we really need more details on exactly what happened and the current status.

 

OK, so not powering on at all, that does complicate matters quite a bit..

Do you have someone with a pc that you could install an addin card into, and likely a spare usb drive bigger than the original ssd? It would make it a lot cheaper to extract data.

If not and it has to be connected to the new macbook, then your options are something like the owc envoy pro ( https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3ENPRPCI/ )

But if you can borrow someones pc with a spare pcie expansion slot, and have a suitable larger spare external usb drive to temporarily use, then you can use a cheaper more direct adapter like https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Enclosure-MacBook-External-Adapter/dp/B01N9OUT8K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1538939721&sr=8-3&keywords=macbook+2015+ssd+to+usb&th=1 and then clone the ssd in windows onto the external usb drive as windows won't be able to do anything with the data on drive unless you get a suitable file system driver for it..

 

iFixit.com has your step-by-step instructions.
That's for a 13-inch 2015. If you have a 15-inch, it will be similar, but you can go to iFixit's guide for the 15-inch, too.
There's also a link to the OWC site from that page, which would give you a source for an external USB enclosure for the removed SSD - which you will need.
There may be cheaper enclosures available, but I am sure the OWC one will work (It's NOT a standard M2 SSD card)

 

Indeed, the envoy pro from OWC is probably the safest simplest option in the circumstances.

as a 'bonus' you would at least then end up with a spare fast external SSD drive, even if the enclosure is a bit expensive, but even the cheaper chinese options I can find are not that cheap because they need the chipset to convert from nvme to sata/usb, rather than just sata to usb.

--- Post Merged, Oct 7, 2018 ---

Also I hope learnt a lesson about backups here, and to note that at least somewhat lucky that the 2015 SSD IS removable, unlike the newer ones, where they can only be recovered using apple internal tools, if at all.

 

You should be able to use the cheaper direct pcie converter in the mac pro to read data off, though you'd probably want to boot off as recent an OS X as can run on it to ensure it has the drivers for the nvme. ( probably at least sierra to be safe )