How I can Recover Mac Data from my Corrupted Hard Drive?

Corruption of Mac hard drive is one of the most commonly faced error by macOS users from all around the world. And, once the driver get corrupted, all the data stored on that HD will become inaccessible for the end users which further gives Mac data loss problems.

However, there are few solutions using which you can easily fix the corrupted Mac HD and restore the data back for a normal use.

Repair the corrupt Mac hard disk drive using Disk Utility:-

If you are very lucky your hard drive (or SSD) isn't beyond repair and you will be able to resolve the problem yourself and further access all the lost data with ease.

If your drive is having problems and you become aware of this before the Mac computer crashes, or if you manage to get it up and running again (or in the case of an external drive your Mac is able to detect it), the first thing to do is launch the inbuilt Mac, Disk Utility.

1.Open the Disk Utility - You will easily find this in the Utilities folder, inside your Apps folder or by searching for it using Spotlight Search. (Press Command+Space to open it).

2.Now, Click on the drive you are concerned about from the list on the left, and then click First Aid.

3.You will see a prompt message (on screen) indicating that First Aid will check the volume for errors. It will then repair the volume if necessary.

4.You will see a warning that First Aid needs to temporarily lock the boot volume. It implies that while First Aid is running apps won't be responsive. Also, this drive repairing process probably won't take too much time.

5.If during the hard-drive repairing process Disk Utility detects any kind of errors, then it will automatically resolve them.

Restart Mac in the Recovery Mode:-

It has become something of a cliché, but turning the Mac off and on again is a good practice to reset any gremlins in the Mac computer. So; it’s often the first bit of advice you’ll hear from any professional macOS users.

If you tried to restart the Mac computer and the hard-drive didn’t survive the experience, you may find yourself in an even stickier situation. Also, modern Mac no longer ship with optical disk drives, you may not have an easy option to boot from another disk/drive.

However, as long as the drive failure isn’t too terminal, a restart in Recovery HD should be possible. This is actually a partition on the drive that contains a version of the macOS that you can boot from. Booting from this partition doesn’t do anything to the main drive, so there’s no need to worry about overwriting documents.

In short, to enter Recovery you need to hold down Command+R while your Mac starts up. Keep holding those keys until you see either an Apple logo or a spinning globe.

If you manage to get into Recovery mode, you should be able to run Disk Utility as described above, and potentially fix your disk so you can recover the data.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you do manage to boot from Recovery, you’ll need another drive to recover files to. If Disk Utility manages to fix your drive enough to let you boot from it again, be very careful how you use it. You should plan to get an external drive plugged in as soon as you can so that you can secure your data there.

You can also take the help of this complete Apple guide on starting the Mac in recovery mode.

Software Suggestion:- In case, the disk utility & further the Mac recovery mode, doesn’t fix the corrupt Mac drive problems, then you need to use some professional Mac data recovery tool. You can take the help of TechSoftwareLogic Mac data recovery software or DiskWarrior Mac recovery tool to restore the inaccessible files back to your Mac drive after fixing. I have used both of these software's just a few months ago and successfully retrieve my Mac data back safely. These 2-Mac applications will prove helpful in resolving the hard drive corruption error and further provides Mac data recovery.

Imp. Note:- If you have lost any data, it is very important to avoid using the drive, as anything that writes files to the hard drive, maybe writing over your lost files. Which would render them unrecoverable?

Also, check this post to fix your corrupt Mac hard drive.

If you are using another direct-to-disk backup method that you prefer, and you currently have a recent backup, that is great. If not, you should consider using Built-in Time Machine. Take steps to acquire an external drive as soon as possible. If you buy one, a drive 2 to 3 times or larger than your boot drive is preferable for long term trouble-free operation. Do not pay extra for a drive that is fast. (You can get by for a while with a "found" smaller drive if necessary, but it will eventually become annoying).

Attach your external drive and use

System preferences > Time machine ...

... to turn on Time Machine. It may ask to initialize the new drive, and that is as expected.

Time Machine will then spend all afternoon making your first full backup. You can continue to do your regular work while it does this. The first Full Backup is by far the biggest backup. After that, it will work quietly and automatically in the background, without interrupting your regular work, and only save the incremental changes.

Time machine's "claim to fame" is that it is the backup that gets done, because it does not ruin performance of the rest of the computer while doing its backup operations. You do not have to set aside a "Special Time" when you only do backups. When you need it, it is much more likely to be there.

How to use Time Machine to Backup or Restore your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht201250

If you choose to connect your backup drive only from time-to-time, try to do so at least every-other day, at minimum. Otherwise, it may take several hours of computation just to decide what needs to be backed up, before any files are transferred.

I've spent the past 13 days in living **** for exactly this reason. And, while the board has directed me somewhat in my successful restoration of the MUSIC library, my ADDRSS BOOK and my active MAIL on this 2010 laptop, nobody even breached the topic of restoring raw data. Your first line of recourse is NEVER continue to write to the drive! And, equally vital is NEVER launch Photoshop or a Timeline-based App, because scratch memory uniformly overrites space.

When I accidently deleted a camera with 300 images I panicked and rushed to buy a new memory chip. It turned out that the WINDOWS help sites were much more interested in this issue than the Mac techies. And, they made a handy little .EXE file in Unix which red the raw data in blocks. I didn't loose a single picture of the devastation during Hurricane Katrina, although I didn't make the news deadline either.

Spo, the nswer is to fish Google for some handy app, or take this drive to a COMPUTER RESELLER and be prepared to hand over your wallet for a .50¢ App.

Good information from jamesl19 above.

There are more data recovery utilities than he has metioned above, and some work very differently.

Disk Warrior tries to reconstruct your Disk Directory from whatever is still there, and place a new copy back on the SAME drive. This makes the assumption that your drive is close to correct, and can be brought back to life. A subtle twist is that it will require many blocks to store the new directory, so it will overwrite a portion of the drive. It may not be the best choice for a badly-damaged drive.

By contrast, Data Rescue from Prosoft, can make a foray onto a damaged drive, and attempt to salvage damaged files. But it will NOT write them back to the same damaged drive -- it insists you provide a different drive on which to place salvaged files.

There are other Utilities that specialize in salvaging Photos or Videos off damaged drives. Most also require an additional drive on which to store the salvaged files.

Remember that you may lose file names in this process. And that a bulk saving of the drive could include over 350,000 files that comprise MacOS. Focus on your files, and specifically on the files for which you have no other copies. You can reinstall a perfect copy of MacOS from fundamental sources -- it does not modify itself. And the Mac will boot from any appropriate drive, internal or external.

Restore from your backup.