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2 August 2023  Amanda J. Brook  Senior Product Manager
 

Summary
Learn a simple and practical Mac hard drive recovery method in this article. Discover how to recover data from macOS after accidentally deleting files or experiencing hard disk failure.



Table of contents

table iconI. Reasons for Mac hard drive data loss
table iconII. How to recover hard disk data on Mac computer?
table iconIII. How to repair damaged hard drive on Mac computer?
table iconIV. Extra tips: Regularly back up Mac hard drive data to prevent data loss
recover files from mac hard drive

I. Reasons for Mac hard drive data loss

On Mac computers, the following situations may cause data loss:
● Accidental deletion.
● Accidentally formatted the hard disk.
● The device was not safely removed.
● Misoperation results in the replacement of the file with the same name as the newly created/saved file.
● The hard disk is damaged.
If you have lost data on your hard drive due to one of the above reasons, you can check the following methods to learn how to recover data on MacOS.

II. How to recover hard disk data on Mac computer?

When we accidentally delete a file in the hard disk, the storage space occupied by the deleted file will be marked as empty, that is, the state where new data can be written. In this case, there is still a chance to recover the deleted data. at this time The drive should be stopped immediately , To avoid new data being stored and overwriting deleted/lost file data , and then use professional data recovery software to scan and restore it. The following will introduce a very practical data recovery software – Renee Undeleter , which supports the use of Mac and Windows systems.

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Rene.E Laboratory ™ data recovery software It is a software specially used to restore various data files. When you accidentally delete important files, empty the recycle bin, or format the disk/storage, you can use this tool to retrieve the lost data. The software covers four functional modules, including file recovery, format recovery, partition recovery and image creation, which can help you solve all data loss problems in an all-round way.
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2. How to use Renee Undeleter to recover lost/deleted hard disk data?

As a professional data recovery software, Renee Undeleter not only has comprehensive functions, but also has a very simple operation process. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Download, install and run Renee Undeleter on a Mac computer, and select the (Format Recovery) option on the main interface.
Note : In order to avoid data overwriting, please do not install Renee Undeleter on the disk with lost data. If the hard disk you need to recover data from is an internal hard disk and is the only hard disk in the Mac computer, please download the software to an external U disk or mobile hard disk. If the hard disk you need to recover data is an external hard disk, you can download the software Install to the internal hard drive of the Mac computer.
Mac version choose formatted recovery option
Data recovery function introduction:
File Recovery – Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Formatted Recovery – Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Partition Recovery – Analyze and get partition information and perform a full scan of the entire partition.
Create Mirror – You can create a mirror image for a partition to back up the current partition state.

Step 2: Next select the hard drive partition where you want to recover data. After the selection is complete, click (Next).
Select the partition to scan for the Mac version
Step 3: Then wait for the scan, the scan time will depend on the size of the hard disk partition. During the scanning process, you can double-click to preview the file. If you have found the file you need to recover, you can check it and click the (Recover) button. At this time, the scan will be terminated to start recovering the file. You can also wait for the scan to end, select the files to be recovered from the scan results, and then click the (Recover) button, please save the recovered files in other partitions, not in the original hard disk, to avoid data overwriting.
Mac version waiting to scan
If you still cannot restore the data through the above steps, the lost data may be overwritten by other data (the lost file will be damaged at this time and cannot be successfully recovered), or the hard disk is damaged, please refer to the following hard disk repair methods to proceed repair.
Kind tipsIf the external hard drive cannot be displayed or used normally on the Mac computer, please check the reasons and solutions for the Mac computer not recognizing the external hard drive.

III. How to repair damaged hard drive on Mac computer?

1. Repair the external hard drive

For repairing an external hard drive, Mac computer users can try to use Disk Utility to repair the damaged hard drive. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Find and click (Disk Utility) in the launchpad; you can also click (Finder) > (Applications) > (Utilities) to find and open (Disk Utility).
Open Mac Disk Utility
Step 2: Select your hard disk in the list on the left, and then select the (First Aid) function above.
Mac Disk Utility select disk
Step 3: After clicking (First Aid), a confirmation window will pop up, from which we can learn that the “First Aid” function will check the volume for errors, and then repair the volume, please click (Run) to start the hard disk checking and repairing process.
Mac Disk Utility First Aid Function

2. Repair the internal hard disk installed with the Mac system

If you want to repair the internal hard disk partition installed with the Mac operating system, you need to enter the macOS utility menu to operate. Proceed as follows:
Step 1: Restart your Mac computer, then press (Command + R) while restarting.
Step 2: Choose (Disk Utility) from the macOS Utilities menu.
macOS Utilities menu
Step 3: After loading Disk Utility, select the disk to be repaired, the default name of the system partition is usually “Macintosh HD”, then select (Repair Disk Permissions) or (Repair Disk), if (Repair Disk) is not available, click ( verify disk).
● Repair Disk Permissions feature: Designed to restore file or folder permissions to the state the operating system and applications expect them to be in. Permissions are flags set for each item in the file system, i.e. whether the item can be read, written or executed.
● Repair Disk function: It can make minor repairs to the file system of a volume/partition, and it can make most repairs to the directory structure of a drive.
Macintosh HD Repair Disk

IV. Extra tips: Regularly back up Mac hard drive data to prevent data loss

Using Mac’s built-in backup function “Time Machine” can automatically back up users’ personal data, including Apps, music, photos, emails and documents, without worrying about data loss caused by hard disk failure, system errors or operating errors. Once you connect an external storage device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine will automatically make hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. If the backup disk becomes full, the oldest backups are deleted.
Specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Connect an external high-capacity hard drive to the Mac computer as a hard drive for saving backups.
Step 2: Select (Time Machine) in (System Preferences), click (Select Backup Disk).
time machine select backup disk
Step 3: Select your backup disk from the list of available disks. To make your backups only accessible to users who have the backup password, you can tick (Encrypt backup) in the lower left corner. Then click (Use Disk) in the lower right corner. If the disk you selected is not formatted as required by Time Machine, you will be prompted to erase the disk first. Click (Erase) to continue, which will erase all information on the saved backup disk.
Time Machine selects and uses the disk