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What to Do Before a Phone or Laptop Repair

By Humza and Zubair, technicians at the Mobidoctor.ae workshop ·

Before you hand a phone or laptop to any repair workshop, do three things. Back it up. Check how its anti-theft lock should be set for the repair. Decide how the technician will test it without getting more access than the job needs. Everything else on this list is small, and saves you a second trip.

We repair devices at our workshop in Deira, and this is the list we would give a friend, whoever was doing the repair.

The short version

  • Back up first. Most repairs never touch your data, but no repair is risk-free.
  • Do not switch Find My off by reflex. Ask what your repair needs, and make any security change at home.
  • Give the least access the job needs. A Samsung phone can be tested with your data hidden. A laptop can have a separate account.
  • On a Windows laptop, find your BitLocker recovery key before any hardware work.
  • Take out what is not being repaired, and write the faults down.

1. Back up, even for a simple repair

A screen, battery or charging port repair does not erase a device or open its storage. Take a backup anyway. A device with impact damage, liquid damage or an earlier repair can develop a further fault once it is opened, and a backup is the one thing that makes that an inconvenience and not a loss.

  • iPhone and iPad: back up to iCloud or to a computer. Apple also asks you to check that the iCloud features you use have finished syncing (Apple Support).
  • Samsung and other Android phones: use Samsung Cloud, your Google backup, or Smart Switch to a computer.
  • Mac: run a Time Machine backup. Apple’s reason is blunt: the startup disk may need to be erased or replaced during service (Apple Support).
  • Windows laptop: copy your files to an external drive or to cloud storage.

If the device no longer turns on, skip to the section below.

2. Find My: what to change, and what to leave alone

Find My ties an Apple device to your Apple Account, so that nobody else can erase it and set it up as their own. What you should do with it before a repair depends on who is repairing the device and which software it runs.

If Apple or an authorised provider is repairing it

  • iOS 27, iPadOS 27 or macOS 27 and later: leave Find My on and turn on Ready for Repair or Trade In. Open the Find My app, choose the device, select Repair or Trade In, then Enable, and enter your Apple Account password. It keeps the device findable during the repair and turns itself off when the repair is finished (Apple Support).
  • iOS 26, iPadOS 26 or macOS 26 and earlier: Apple asks you to turn Find My off. On an iPhone or iPad that is in Settings, under your name, and Apple says it might not be able to service the device otherwise (Apple Support).

If an independent workshop is repairing it

Ready for Repair applies to repairs through Apple or an Apple Authorised Service Provider. With any other workshop, including ours, ask what your repair needs before you change anything, and expect a reason with the answer.

One practical point either way. If your iPhone has Stolen Device Protection on, turning that protection off away from places it knows, such as home or work, means a Face ID or Touch ID check, an hour’s wait, and a second check (Apple Support). So make security changes at home, before the device is collected, and not at a counter.

On a Samsung or other Android phone, note the Google account and the screen lock the phone is set up with. You will need both if it ever has to be reset.

3. Passcodes: give the least access the job needs

You should not need to hand over a passcode just to book a repair. Our booking form never asks for one. Some checks, such as Face ID, the cameras or the display, can only be finished on an unlocked device, and a device that cannot be unlocked after the repair cannot be tested properly before it goes back to you. Where that applies we explain why before asking, as our FAQ and terms say.

There are ways to allow that testing without opening up everything on the device:

  • Samsung Galaxy: turn on Maintenance mode, available on One UI 5.0 or later. The phone restarts with your photos, messages, contacts and call logs out of reach, and it goes back to normal only when you switch the mode off again (Samsung Support). Its place in Settings varies between One UI versions, so search Settings for “Maintenance mode”. Samsung tells you to back up first, and so do we.
  • Mac or Windows laptop: create a separate user account for the repair and delete it afterwards. Apple also suggests turning on FileVault if you are concerned about your data during service (Apple Support).
  • Any phone: if you are asked for the passcode, you can change it to a temporary one before handover and change it back when the phone returns.

4. Windows laptops: find your BitLocker recovery key

A Windows laptop can have its drive encrypted with BitLocker without you ever having set it up. After a hardware change, Windows can ask at startup for the recovery key, a 48-digit number. If you signed in with a Microsoft account, the key is normally saved there: sign in at aka.ms/myrecoverykey from another device and keep a copy somewhere that is not the laptop. Microsoft is clear that its support team cannot retrieve or recreate a lost key (Microsoft Support).

5. The small things that save a second trip

  • Remove cards from your phone’s wallet. Apple lists removing cards and passes from Apple Wallet, and turning off Apple Cash, among its own steps before service (Apple Support). Adding them back takes a minute.
  • Take out the SIM and memory card, unless the fault involves them.
  • Take off the case and keep your accessories, unless the problem is charging. Then send the cable and charger too, because the fault may be in them and not in the device.
  • Write the faults down, including the ones that come and go, and when they happen. A fault that only shows on a warm phone or a particular charger is much quicker to find when somebody says so.
  • Photograph the device front, back and edges, so that its condition on handover is on record for both sides.
  • Keep your booking number. With us, the booking number and your phone number are all you need to track the repair.

If the device will not turn on

You cannot back up a device that will not start, so check what already exists. From another device, sign in to your Apple, Samsung or Google account and see whether an automatic backup ran, and when. Apple’s advice for an unresponsive device is to do as many of the steps as you can and finish the rest from your Apple Account page or icloud.com/find (Apple Support).

Then tell the workshop, when you book, that the device does not start and whether the data on it matters. That changes how a careful technician approaches the diagnosis.

When the device comes back

Undo what you changed, in this order:

  1. Switch off Maintenance mode, or delete the temporary user account.
  2. Change a temporary passcode back to your own.
  3. Turn Find My back on if you turned it off, and check the device appears in the Find My app.
  4. Add your cards back to the wallet, and put the SIM and memory card back in.
  5. Test the part that was repaired before you put the case back on.

If something is not right, say so straight away and quote your booking number. If you would like us to look at a device, diagnosis is free and so are pickup and return across Dubai: book a repair, or see what we fix for iPhone, Samsung, MacBook and other laptops.

Sources

All read on 1 October 2026.

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