Today, when I went to plug my 2TB external hard drive into my 2020 Macbook Pro 16”, I was met with a pop-up message that stated that it was not readable. This means that I cannot export any of the documents over to my Mac or interact with them in any way, which makes working on these files impossible. I am not sure whether my hard drive is just not being recognized, if it is a formatting issue, or if there is an issue with the hard drive itself. If I need to repair my Mac external hard drive, how would I go about doing this?
Fix 5: How to Recover Lost Data from External Hard Drive on Mac with Software?
4 Easy Ways to Repair an External Hard Drive on Mac
Using an external hard drive is pretty intuitive but when it comes to repairing one that ends up with corrupted files, that’s another matter. Here are 4 ways to repair an external hard drive on Mac and how to retrieve data that has been lost from your hard drive.
1Repair Mac External Hard Drive with Disk Utility
The disk utility program on Macs can fix disk problems like corrupted files, apps quitting unexpectedly, and issues with external devices. Here is how you would run disk utility to repair a hard drive on Mac.
Step 1: Open up the Disk Utility app and choose the Show All Devices option.
Fully compatible with all versions of macOS, making it easy for you to recover files from formatted external hard drive on Mac. Supports over 1000 file types, covering all the commonly used files, including videos, pictures, photos, documents, email attachments, emails, voice memos, and more. Apr 01, 2013 Recovering files from your Mac’s internal hard drive is a bit more complicated than recovering it from an external drive or device. The reason for this is that anything you do on your Mac, after you realize that a file has been deleted or lost, causes precious data to be overwritten.
Step 2: In the sidebar that appears, select the external hard drive disk that appears. Then click on the First Aid button.
Here, you see one internal hard drive (the 1TB SATA entry, which is selected) and one USB external hard drive (the Toshiba entry). The hard drive has three volumes (Wolfgang, Ludwig, and Johann), and the USB drive has one volume (Time Machine). Disk Utility also fixes incorrect file permissions automatically. Files with corrupt or incorrect.
Step 3: Choose the Run option and hit the Continue button to commence first aid.
Step 4: Wait for the first aid to run. If you get a message back that says that the disk is okay or has been repaired successfully, you are good to go.
If you get an overlap extent allocation error, this means that 2+ files are occupying the same space. One of them is likely to be corrupted, so check the files for damage and replace, re-create, or delete the damaged file.
If your external hard drive disk cannot be repaired by first aid, you will need to either run it again or back up your data and reformat the disk.
Mac App Scan File Tree External Hard Drive Download
2Repair External Hard Drive on Mac with FSCK Command
If the disk utility option above does not repair your Mac hard drive, the FSCK command may work.
Step 1: Head to your Utilities and choose the Terminal option.
Step 2: Type in diskutil; this will bring up all connected drives on your Macbook.
Step 3: Locate your external hard drive in the connected drives list. Find its drive identifier tag. Note this tag down.
Step 4: Restart your Macbook. Before the Apple logo appears, hold down the Command + S keys at the same time. This boots your Mac into single user mode.
Step 5: When the white text stops scrolling, type in /sbin/fsck -fy and hit Enter.
Step 6: You will be asked to type in another command. Type in /sbin/fsck_hfs -fy /dev/[drive-identifier-tag]. Replace the “hfs” with the file system of your hard drive and the “drive identifier tag” with the identifier of your external hard drive. Allow it to run.
Step 7: When the FSCK command is done running, type reboot into the command prompt and hit Enter.
Step 8: Check to see if the issue is fixed.
3Repair Mac External Hard Drive with Safe Mode
If the above 2 options do not work, it could be due to file system corruption on the startup section of the disk. You can use safe mode to repair this issue.
Step 1: Turn on your Macbook and hold down the Shift key when the startup chime begins. Release the key when the login screen appears.
Step 2: As you hold down the Shift key, the Mac will perform troubleshooting checks on the startup disk and boots you into safe mode.
Step 3: Now restart your Mac without pressing any keys. Follow the on-screen instructions.
4Repair Mac External Hard Drive by Reformatting It
If you need to repair an external hard drive on a Mac that is corrupted and you want to reformat the drive, you must first use a data recovery tool. If you do not recover the data first, it will all be lost when you reformat the drive. Here is how to reformat external hard drive on Mac.
Step 1: Head to your Utilities and choose the Disk Utility option.
Step 2: From the sidebar, choose your external hard drive and click the Erase button.
Step 3: Give it a new name and a format. Click Format to reformat the drive.
5How to Recover Lost Data from External Hard Drive on Mac with Software?
If you find yourself in the scenario where you cannot access the files on your external hard drive and do not have a backup copy, you may need to resort to recovering the lost data with a third-party program first. If you cannot repair your external hard drive on Mac with the above options, recover the data with AnyRecover firstly, before reformatting the drive or purchasing a new one.
AnyRecover key features to help you recover lost data from external hard drive on Mac:AnyRecover is a top-class data recovery software tool that helps you retrieve lost, damaged, or deleted data from numerous medium storages.
It works extremely well for problems with external hard drives, as it does not overwrite any files during recovery and can retrieve over a 1,000 different file types.
With a simple 3-step process to recovering files, a free trial, regular updates, and a money-back guarantee, it’s the tool to use for external hard drive issues.
It doesn't matter whether you emptied the trash bin or not, the deleted file will show up after you use the program to scan your selected drive.
AnyRecover does not overwrite your currently available data. This helps you avoid further data loss.
Steps about how to recover lost data from external hard drive on Mac with AnyRecover:
Step 1: Download and launch the AnyRecover program. Make sure to get the Mac version. Choose the location of where your deleted, missing, or damaged files are. In this case it is your external hard drive. Click the Start button. This starts the scan.
Step 2: AnyRecover will begin an all-around deep scan for missing, damaged, or deleted files. Doing this on an external hard drive may mean it takes a while to finish the scan.
Step 3: After the scan is complete, preview and check the found files. Select which ones you want to recover (you can multi-select) and hit the Recover button to save them to your Macbook.
Summary: Don’t panic if your Mac SATA hard drive becomes inaccessible and you are worried about your data. This blog is going to help you convert a failing Mac SATA hard drive to an external drive for data recovery.
Try the below data recovery application on your Mac for free.
Mac SATA Hard Drive
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives are widely used disks. All thanks to its attributes like quick data transfer through higher signalling rates, native hot swapping, reduced cable size & cost, and much more.
However, despite being so intuitive, at times it too starts failing due to one or other reason like firmware or electrical. When such condition strikes in, Mac hard drive recovery from an inaccessible SATA hard drive becomes a foremost need to avoid data loss and any possible impact on business.
To understand, let us consider a real-life example of John
“A few days back, I got my MacBook Air repaired from the Apple store. They replaced my old hard drive with a brand new SATA. Further, for my convenience, they also transferred the data from my older drive to a new SATA drive. However, now after a few days, I realized that there are a few missing files that I need urgently. I don’t know why they were missed in the data transferring process, the only important point hovering in my mind right now is its retrieval. Unfortunately, I do not have a backup. Thankfully, Apple gave a ray of hope by providing me with my older drive, and it is still functional partially.
Now, the only big query, how can I recover my missing files from my older & at-times visible disk. Please advise!”
Best Way to Recover Data from Mac SATA hard drive
Ssd External Hard Drive Mac
By unveiling the results of several discussions done on forums, it will not be erroneous to state that converting Mac SATA hard drive to an external drive is a viable solution.
Next, how to go about the conversion of internal Mac SATA to an external drive?
The process to convert Mac SATA hard drive to an external for data recovery is very simple.
What is required from you?
- Your Partially Functioning Hard Drive
- A Brand New External Drive Enclosure (You can purchase it from Amazon or eBay)
- A screwdriver to bolt and unbolt the enclosure screws
Step 1. Unscrew all the screws and remove the brackets from hard drive.
Step 2. Open up the enclosure and slide the hard drive into the enclosure in the right way up as per the SATA Port orientation.
Step 3. Bolt the screws
You have successfully placed the SATA drive into the enclosure. Next, attach the enclosure to your Mac using the included USB cable to recover the data.
Now, when you connect the SATA drive to your system, you may encounter two scenarios as mentioned in the below figure.
Scenario 1: You Can See the Drive on Desktop
In this case, simply copy all the data from the drive to your new Macintosh HD. Adding more, you can also Clone or Image the older SATA drive using Disk Utility.
Scenario 2: You Cannot See the Drive on Desktop
If you are unable to view your Drive on Desktop or Finder even after placing it in an enclosure, then go to Disk Utility and verify it in the list of the unmounted drive.
Fortunately, if you can find it over there, then you can trust Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software to regain inaccessible data from your SATA external hard drive. This software is coined as the best Mac data recovery tool because of its smart attributes like recovery from a Corrupt disk, Time Machine hard drive, BootCamp Partition and Encrypted Media, etc.
Watch the Video to Know – How Stellar Data Recovery for Mac Works?
Conclusion
Go for placing your internal SATA Mac disk drive into a brand new enclosure. Fortunately, if this works, you will be able to copy back your files. However, in case, it doesn’t work as planned, then leverage Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to scan and recover the converted SATA drive for recovering files.
Give a free shot to the Stellar Data Recovery application. The software is macOS Catalina, Mojave compatible.