- Repair External Hdd Mac Os
- Repair External Hdd Macbook Air
- Repair External Hdd Window
- External Hdd Repair Tool
- External Hard Drive Repair Services
How to Repair a Macintosh Hard Drive. Mac tools lincoln ne. For safety, you should go to Applications Utilities Disk Utility, click your start-up disk in the sidebar and click Verify Disk to check it. CNET Download provides free downloads for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices across all categories of software and apps, including security, utilities, games, video and browsers. Data recovery repair on external hard drive for mac free download - Mac Free External Hard Drive Recovery, Free Mac External Hard Drive Data Recovery, Shining Mac External Hard Drive Data Recovery.
Summary: In this blog, we’ll share a variety of alternative methods to repair your Mac external hard drive in case Disk Utility fails to fix the drive. You’ll learn to:
1. Use FSCK Command in Terminal to Repair External Hard Drive
2. Use FSCK Command in Single-User Mode to Fix External Drive
3. Recover Inaccessible Data Using Mac Data Recovery Software
Download the free-to-try Mac data recovery tool to recover data from an external hard drive.
1. Use FSCK Command in Terminal to Repair External Hard Drive
2. Use FSCK Command in Single-User Mode to Fix External Drive
3. Recover Inaccessible Data Using Mac Data Recovery Software
Download the free-to-try Mac data recovery tool to recover data from an external hard drive.
Disk Utility is a useful storagedrive management software that allows you to perform the external hard driverepair task with ease by using First Aid. But sometimes, Disk Utility’s FirstAid fails to repair your external hard drive and the drive’s data remains inaccessible.Don’t worry, you can use alternative methods to repair your Mac external harddrive in case Disk Utility doesn’t work. Also, you can recover data from acorrupt external drive on Mac.
But before learning the repair andrecovery methods, know why a Mac external hard drive turns inaccessible, appreciatethe Mac file system and its importance, and learn the reasons that lead to filesystem corruption.
Why Mac External Hard Drive TurnsInaccessible?
At times, an unexpected eventcorrupts the partition table, EFI partition, or APFS/HFS file system of the Macexternal storage drive. This logical damage of the external hard drive makesthe drive and its stored data inaccessible on Mac.
Mac File System and Its Importance
Your Mac external hard drive containsreserved space for GUID Partition Table, EFI System Partition, and APFSContainer. The APFS container comprises Container superblock, Checkpoint area,Space manager area, and storage for objects and file data. The container canhave multiple volumes with their file systems. The Mac’s file system allowsstorage and retrieval of data to and from the storage drive.
Reasons for File System Corruption
Repair External Hdd Mac Os
The following situations may damagethe storage drive’s file system, which may not get fixed with Disk Utility’sFirst Aid feature:
![Mac Mac](https://www.datlabsdatarecovery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Seagae-Rosewood-1-1.png)
- An application may write into thefile system thereby causing corruption on the disk.
- If the block containing the filesystem of the drive turns bad, then the storage drive fails.
- A malware on Mac may write on thefile system space, thus crippling drive access.
Few reasons for corruption of legacyfile-system formatted storage drive are as follows:
- A macOS crash or abrupt power cutresults in non-syncing of information to the file system, which results in itscorruption.
- The sudden removal of an externalstorage drive without proper un-mounting may result in an incomplete writeoperation and corruption.
- If the external storage drive doesnot un-mount due to running programs that are accessing the drive, forcedejection can corrupt its file system.
The next sections describe numerous methodsto repair Mac storage drive without Disk Utility.
1. Use FSCK Command in Terminal to Repair External Hard Drive
Repair External Hdd Macbook Air
When Disk Utility’s First Aid can’t fixthe file system corruption issue on your Mac external hard drive, run the fsck (filesystem consistency check) command in the macOS Terminal.
Steps to repair Mac external harddrive by using Terminal are as follows:
- Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
- In the Terminal window, type df –h and hit Return. Note down the file system identifier of the external hard drive, say /dev/disk4s1.
- Type unmount /dev/disk4s1 and hit Return. This command unmounts the external drive.
- Type fsck_hfs -y /dev/disk4s1 and hit Return. The fsck_hfs verifies and repairs hfs containers and volumes. If the external storage drive is in the apfs format, use fsck_apfs instead of fsck_hfs. The parameter -y repairs any damage that is found.
- If you receive the message “File system was modified”, re-run the above fsck command.
- Use the fsck command again until it says, “The volume appears to be OK.”
Also Read: List of Top 5 Mac Hard Disk Drive Repair Software
2. Use FSCK Command in Single-User Mode to Fix External Drive
Use the fsck command in the single-usermode to repair the file system corruption issue on your Mac external hard drive.
Steps to repair Mac external harddrive by using single-user mode are as follows:
- Start or restart your Mac thenpromptly press and hold Command + S keys.
- Release the keys once you see whitetext. Your Mac boots into single-user mode.
- On the prompt, type fsck_hfs –y /dev/disk4s1 and hit Return.
- Check the message provided by thefsck command. Rerun fsck command till you get OK.
- Reboot your Mac and this time don’tpress any key to boot your Mac normally.
3. Recover Inaccessible Data Using Mac Data Recovery Software
When none of the above methodssucceed to repair the external hard drive, use a Mac data recovery software torecover the inaccessible data from the drive whose file system, EFI partition,or partition table is lost, deleted, or damaged.
Steps to recover data from a corruptMac external drive are as follows:
Free download the *trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac.
- Install the software in the Applications folder on your Mac.
- Launch the software. Toggle on the file types to customize the scan. Click Next.
- Select the corrupt external hard drive then click Scan.
- Preview the scanned items to check their integrity. Select all those files that are required.
- Click Recover then click Browse to specify the save location. Click Save.
- View the recovered files from the recovery location.
*The trial software allows you to scan and preview files, but you need to activate it to save the recoverable files. The software has a 30-day money-back guarantee, so activate with confidence.
Once you recover your data, use DiskUtility to erase the external hard drive, and recreate a new file system.Restore the recovered data to the newly formatted external hard drive.
Precautions and Best Practices
The following precautions and bestpractices will lessen the chances of file system corruption:
- Always unmount your external harddrive safely.
- Do not eject or pull the cable of thedrive abruptly.
- Don’t transfer files or manageexternal disk when your Mac is low in battery.
- Back up your external hard drivedata.
Conclusion
When Disk Utility’s First Aid can’t repairan external hard drive, use file system consistency check (fsck) command in Terminalor Single-User Mode to fix file system corruption issue. Corruption in the filesystem makes the stored data inaccessible, so follow the precautions and bestpractices to mitigate it.
The fsck method is risky and can result in data loss, so back up the external hard drive before performing the steps. If you can’t back up the data or want a safer solution, use Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to scan and recover data from the corrupt external hard drive. Later, erase the drive and restore data to the drive.
Disk Utility User Guide
Disk Utility can fix certain disk problems—for example, multiple apps quit unexpectedly, a file is corrupted, an external device doesn’t work properly, or your computer won’t start up. Disk Utility can’t detect or repair all problems that a disk may have.
Repair External Hdd Window
If you run First Aid on a disk, Disk Utility checks the partition maps on the disk and performs some additional checks, and then checks each volume. If you run First Aid on a volume, Disk Utility verifies all the contents of that volume only.
External Hdd Repair Tool
- In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View > Show All Devices.Note: If you’re checking your startup disk or startup volume, restart your computer in macOS Recovery, select Disk Utility in the macOS Utilities window, then click Continue. If you check your startup volume (Macintosh HD), make sure you also check your data volume (Macintosh HD - Data).
- In the sidebar, select a disk or volume, then click the First Aid button .If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, back up your data and replace the disk—you can’t repair it. Otherwise, continue to the next step.
- Click Run, then click Continue.If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you’re done. You can click Show Details to see more information about the repairs. Otherwise, you may need to do one of the following.
- If Disk Utility reports “overlapped extent allocation” errors, two or more files occupy the same space on your disk, and at least one of them is likely to be corrupted. You need to check each file in the list of affected files. Most of the files in the list have aliases in a DamagedFiles folder at the top level of your disk.
- If you can replace a file or re-create it, delete it.
- If it contains information you need, open it and examine its data to make sure it hasn’t been corrupted.
- If Disk Utility can’t repair your disk, or you receive a report that the First Aid process failed, try to repair the disk or partition again. If that doesn’t work, back up as much of your data as possible, reformat the disk, reinstall macOS, then restore your backed-up data.
If your Mac has a Fusion Drive and you see a flashing question mark or alert, see the troubleshooting section of the Apple Support article About Fusion Drive, a storage option for some Mac computers.
If you continue to have problems with your disk or it can’t be repaired, it may be physically damaged and need to be replaced. For information about servicing your Mac, see Find out how to service or repair your Mac.
External Hard Drive Repair Services
See alsoErase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on MacAdd, delete, or erase APFS volumes in Disk Utility on MacPartition a physical disk in Disk Utility on Mac