Two Ways to Repair a Damaged Hard Drive on a Mac

A hard drive failure or damage is the worst nightmare for any Mac or Windows user. You might lose all your data abruptly due to a faulty hard disk.

Thus, you should get into the habit of backing up your hard drive regularly to restore data effortlessly. Besides, to fix a damaged Mac hard drive, watch out for early signs of disk failure, such as:

- When you start getting errors in Disk Utility, such as "Error: This disk needs to be repaired" - Certain files, folders, or partitions become inaccessible or mysteriously vanish - If programs or applications on your Mac are behaving abnormally - The macOS becomes unstable or prone to crashes - Your Mac fails to recognize the hard drive during startup - The hard drive makes clicking or buzzing noises - Your MacBook gets hotter than usual after running for extended periods - In the most severe case, you might smell burning plastic coming from your Mac

If you're experiencing any of the above symptoms, it's best to learn how to fix a damaged hard drive on your Mac. Luckily, this article will help you quickly find the perfect solution to fix a damaged hard drive. So, let's get started with fixing your Mac hard drive right now!

How do I use Disk Utility to fix a damaged hard drive on my Mac?

Disk Utility is a built-in Mac repair tool. It can scan your hard drive and fix most formatting and directory structure issues with your drive. This program can also resolve specific disk issues, like apps crashing frequently, external devices not working, or your Mac not booting.

Disk Utility can scan for and repair any issues your hard drive might have. In addition, repairing a damaged drive with Disk Utility is simple, as outlined below:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility

Launch Disk Utility from the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. If your Mac won't start up, you can also access Disk Utility through macOS Recovery.

To do so, first determine whether you have an Apple silicon or Intel-based Mac. Follow the steps for your situation:

- For Apple Silicon users, turn on your Mac and press and hold the power button until you see the Startup Options window. Then click the "Options" button and select "Continue." - For Intel-based users, start your Mac and immediately press and hold the Command and R keys.

Choose a user account with a known password, and then open Disk Utility from the Utilities window in macOS.

Step 2: Select the hard drive

Go to “View” > “Show All Devices.” The Disk Utility sidebar will show all the disks or storage devices available on your Mac. Here, you'll see each disk's container and volumes listed beneath it.

Select the Damaged Drive

Step 3: Repair Volumes, Containers, and Disks

Select the last volume on the disk that you want to repair, and then click First Aid.

Click “Run” to check for errors on the disk. When Disk Utility finishes checking the volume, check each volume on the disk, then each container on the disk. Finally, verify the entire disk.

What to Do When Disk Utility Can't Repair Your Hard Drive

Disk Utility is one of the fastest and easiest ways to fix a damaged hard drive. However, there are times when Disk Utility won't be able to repair your drive, or the “First Aid” process might fail. In these cases, Apple recommends that you back up your damaged hard drive, format the drive, and then recover your data from the backup.

However, you must back up with Time Machine before the hard disk fails, because you can't back up to it after it fails.

So, if you haven't backed up your Mac hard drive before, you still have a chance to recover the data. Yes, with the help of a third-party data recovery tool, you can fix and restore a damaged hard drive without Time Machine backup.

Here Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is the perfect data recovery software for you. As long as your hard drive can be mounted on macOS X, the tool can even recover data from physically damaged drives.

Moreover, it can recover damaged Time Machine hard drive and USB flash drive or SD card. Besides, the tool also offers:

• Rapid scanning speed to find lost data
• Export and import scan results
• Recover lost data from emptied Trash
• Recover unsaved Word document
• Straightforward user interface for an easy recovery process

With the Data Recovery Wizard for Mac tool, you can recover a hard drive on your Mac by following these steps:

Step 1: Select the scanning location

Launch the Mac Data Recovery Wizard, select the hard drive, SSD, SD card, USB flash drive, or TF card from which you lost data, and click "Search Lost Files" to start scanning.

Note: Before data recovery, it's recommended to click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar and create a backup for your Mac to prevent further data loss. After the backup, the software can recover data from the Mac backup, and your computer can write new data again.

Step 2. Recover Lost Data from Mac

The software will automatically scan for lost data on your MacBook or iMac. Once the scan is complete, you can filter the required data using the "Type" and "Path" buttons.

Step 3: Recover Lost Data or Files

Double-click a file to preview it. Then, click the “Recover” button to restore your lost data to another location.

Additional Tip: How to Protect Your Mac Files and Data

No matter how careful or vigilant you are as a Mac user, your disk can fail at any time, taking all your data with it. The best defense for protecting your Mac data is to back it up.

If you back up your Mac files and data regularly, you don't have to worry about disk damage or failure. Luckily, the Mac lets you back up your data in several ways, such as:

Time Machine

Time Machine is a free backup solution on a Mac that you can use to back up your photos, videos, and documents. Once it's set up, Time Machine will back up your Mac data on a regular basis. You can set it up by:

Step 1. Insert the hard drive or SSD.

Step 2: You'll see a message asking if you want to use the disk for Time Machine.

Step 3: Click Use as backup disk.

Select the Time Machine Backup Disk

Step 4: If the message does not appear on screen, check that the disk has been formatted correctly.

Step 5: If it doesn't prompt you, go to System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Backup Disk.

Step 6: Select your storage device and click "Use Disk."

Step 7: Check the box next to “Auto Backup” to restore your backup to your Mac right away.

iCloud Drive is a cloud storage and file synchronization service provided by Apple, allowing users to store and access files across various devices such as iPhone, iPad, Mac computers, and Windows PCs. With iCloud Drive, users can store documents, photos, videos, and various types of files, seamlessly synchronizing them between different devices. Additionally, users can share folders and individual files with others.

Apple users can also use iCloud Drive to back up data securely. Here, you can configure settings to automatically store Mac files and folders in iCloud.

You get 5 GB of free storage for backups. After that, you can pay to be an iCloud member, starting at $0.99 per month for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB, and so on.

To back up your Mac data with iCloud, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open System Preferences > iCloud.

Step 2: Log in to your iCloud account and check the box next to iCloud.

Step 3: Check the boxes next to any items you'd like to back up to iCloud.

Step 4: Open “Finder” > click the iCloud Drive folder, and then move all folders that aren't in iCloud over.

Third-party cloud storage

If you don't want to use iCloud, there are plenty of other options like Dropbox or Google Drive. Simply create an account with your chosen cloud storage service and upload all of your data.

Other disks

If you have two hard drives on your Mac, you can back up files from one drive to the other. Before moving them, compress the files to save space. To do this, select File » Compress.

External storage device

You can also backup all Mac files to an external storage device like USB flash drive, hard disk, CD, DVD, and more for extra safety.

Conclusions

Losing your hard drive can be incredibly stressful, since it means losing all of your data. But if you have backups, it's not so bad.

Disk Utility is a great tool for Mac users to fix a damaged hard drive. Unfortunately, there are times when Disk Utility itself starts showing errors, making it impossible to use the program to repair or recover data.

In such cases, it's best to use a third-party data recovery software like Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. The software can even help you recover from a damaged Time Machine disk and USB flash drive.

So, guys, the best solution to fix a corrupted hard drive on Mac is to backup data timely. This way, you can easily restore all your important data in case of any hard drive failure. We have shared all the ways to protect and backup data on Mac. So, now it's up to you to choose the right method to safeguard your data.