Mac Hard Drive Recovery
Have you noticed your computer takes longer to boot up or use than it used to? Is your hard drive inaccessible? If you suffer from either of these conditions, it is time for a Mac hard drive recovery effort. For a slowing hard drive, you can first try utilities included with your Mac. For an inaccessible hard drive, you will need assistance from a third-party hard drive utility program.
If you are reading this article before you have a Mac hard drive issue, you are the wiser for so doing. Become familiar with the use of both the Mac's limited utilities for hard disk issues and with the extended features of an external Mac hard drive recovery program found on the web or at your local computer or electronics store.
Your Mac includes utilities you can access from either your installation disk or through the command line's use of diskutil or fsck. If your Mac runs OS version 10.4 or later, use disk utility from your installation CD or from the command line first.
The installation CD version of disk utility gives you broad support for hard disk and data issues on your drive. Use all the functions stated to verify your Mac hard drive is restored. Disk utility includes the following hard drive recovery support:
- Disk integrity verification and repair
- Restoration of corrupted permissions
- Reconciliation of partition information with the Master Boot Record
- Repairs to mounting, demounting and ejection of all disk media
- Volume repair for Apple Software Restore (ASR) images
- Use of the Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) tool to direct you where to return a warrantied defective hard drive
- Additional hard disk and CD image functions
Use the fsck program for Mac OS version 10.3 or earlier. Instructions for using this program are noted in your installation CD materials or the Mac help utility. Alternatively, you can search for information on fsck online.
A power loss event, an improper shutdown, or a forced restart of your Mac can result in an inability to use your computer and hard drive. When that happens, or when your computer partially boots, cannot get to the login screen or cannot display the desktop, you might try a safe boot for Mac hard drive recovery.
Safe boot is an option under startup shown for Mac OS x 10.2 or later. This mode includes automatic disk checking and repair. You might find your computer is fully restored after using the safe boot mode and restarting your computer.