How to Recover Files from Corrupt Mac Hard Drive or Partition?

A corrupt Mac hard drive or partition stops responding to your commands, behaves abnormally, crashes often, goes undetected, and does not mount. In such a case, the storage drive and the data stored in it become inaccessible, and you suffer from data loss.

Relax. You’ll learn how to recover files from a corrupt Mac storage drive or partition in the next sections, be it internal or external.

1. Use ‘diskutil’ to Verify & Repair Corrupt Volume

You can run the diskutil command through Terminal to verify and repair your corrupt drive or volume. To verify whether a drive or volume is corrupt, do the following steps:

• Open Terminal from Dock for a non-start-up or external volume. In case of start-up disk, start or restart your Mac, press-hold Command + R keys; and release them when the Apple logo appears. In the macOS Recovery mode, go to Utilities > Terminal to open Terminal.
• In the Terminal window, type diskutil list and press Return. Note down the volume ID. Type diskutil verifyVolume /Volumes/ID. Here, replace ID with the volume ID that you noted and press Return. 
• If the output shows, “The volume X was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.”, type diskutil repairVolume /Volumes/ID. Here, replace ID with the ID of your corrupt volume, then press Return.
• The Repair process will be initiated. When the repair is successful, you can access the drive or partition usually. Else, follow the instructions of the diskutil command.Pro Tip: After typing /Volumes/ enter a few words of your drive name and press Tab to autofill. The Terminal commands are case-sensitive.

2. Use ‘fsck’ Command to Repair Corrupt Volume

You can run the File System Consistency Check (FSCK) command by using the Terminal app in your macOS with specific parameters to repair your corrupt APFS or HFS partition. Steps are as follows:

• In case of boot volume, start or restart your Mac, press-hold Command + S keys; and release the keys when some character appears. In the single-user mode, type /sbin/fsck –fy command to fix the boot volume corruption. 
• For non-boot or external volume, open the Terminal app from Dock. Type diskutil list and press Return. From the connected drives with partition details, note the corrupt disk or partition identification number, say /dev/disk2 or /dev/disk2s2.
• Type sudo fsck_apfs -r -d /dev/disk# to repair entire disk or sudo fsck_apfs -r -d /dev/disk#s# to repair a partition in disk. Here replace # with the noted number, then hit Return. In case the disk or volume is formatted in hfs, replace apfs with hfs in the above command.
• Wait for FSCK to check and repair the errors. When repair succeeds, you can access your Mac volume without any trouble. If the repair fails, do as per the command’s instructions. 

3. Restore Lost Files from Time Machine Backup

If the above Mac drive or volume repair process doesn’t work, then you can restore your corrupt drive data by using a Time Machine backup—for that, you must have an up-to-date backup of your Mac start-up disk. But before data restoration, erase the drive by using Disk Utility to eliminate the corruption issue. Once erased, perform the following steps.

• Ensure your Time Machine backup drive is connected to your Mac and Open Time Machine.
• Navigate to the Mac backup and click Restore. Let the restoration process to complete. With the Time Machine application, you cannot complain about not having Mac backups. A secure backup safeguards you against any data loss situation and helps you restore your data without hampering your workflow. But, when the backup is obsolete, you must not format your corrupt Mac drive partition; instead, recover data by using a data recovery software for Mac.

4. Recover Files with a Mac Disk Recovery Software

When none of the above methods help, it’s time to implement a Mac data recovery software to recover your inaccessible or lost data from severely corrupt Mac partitions. Steps are as follows:

• Download and install the trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software on your MacBook, iMac, or Mac mini.
• Select the files you wish to recover, then click Next. Select the affected drive or drive volume from the listed options and click Scan.

• If the volume is missing, choose ‘Can’t Find Volume’ and click Scan. Select the drive containing the corrupt volume, click Deep Scan, and click Search. Select the found volume, then click Scan.

• After the scan, the software lists recovered files and folders in the left pane. Click any view type out of the File List, Classic List, or Deleted List tabs. 

• Search and sort the results based on File Name, Type, Size, Creation Date, and Modification Date. Click any file to see its preview. Select the required files and click Recover.

• Click Browse and choose a location where you wish to save the selected files and folders. Click Save. Wait till the software recovers files from corrupt Mac drive partition.

*Trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac helps you scan and preview files, but you need to activate the software to recover them. Don’t hesitate, as the software comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, just in case.

Conclusion

Retrieving data from a corrupt Mac hard drive is not easy. In some instances, the native diskutil or fsck command can’t repair a corrupt Mac partition or hard drive. In that case, software such as Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac becomes necessary. The software is easy to operate and doesn’t requires any technical skills. Its intuitive and user-friendly interface guides you through the 3-step process—Select, Scan, and Recover.

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About The Author

Vishal

Vishal is a data recovery expert @Stellar. He addresses data loss scenarios on a Mac. He intends to help people solve their macOS problems. Besides, Vishal prefers to read about astronomy and autobiography, and his favorite is Steve Jobs - The man who thought different written by Karen Bluementhal.