How To Recover Data From A Macbook Hard Drive

Sue Wayne

Dec 24, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

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Losing the data on a Mac hard drive is one of the worst things that could happen to anyone. If you’ve lost data on a Mac hard drive or external hard drive, and you need help with Mac hard drive recovery, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll provide you with various recovery methods for getting your data back.

Part 1: Possible Hard Drive Issues and Errors

Here are the various problems that could happen to your hard drive leading to a need for data recovery.

Problem 1: Lost or Deleted Data on Mac Hard Drive

If you’ve deleted your files by mistake, you will need a data recovery tool to retrieve data from Mac hard drive. Files like documents, videos, audios, images, emails, archives, and others can be recovered.

But you need to be careful not to write more files to the hard disk. The more files, you copy or write to the drive, the harder it becomes to recover your deleted or lost files.

Problem 2: Formatted Mac Hard Drive

Formatting a drive isn’t the end of the world, as many users often think. Special recovery software can aid you in retrieving all your data from the formatted hard drive.

Problem 3: Damaged Mac Hard Drive

Hard drives could get damaged by falls, sudden shocks, water damage, old age, temperature, corrupt firmware, circuit board failure, and other reasons.

Not all damaged Mac hard drives are unsalvageable. Regardless of what caused the hard drive failure, your data can be recovered.

Problem 4: Unrecognized Mac Hard Drive

Mac hard drive recovery process also works for unrecognized hard drives. This is often caused by wrong hard drive format, faulty external hard drive cables.

Problem 5: Computer Crashed

If your Mac computer or Operating System crashed, you can recover data from it. This guide will also show you how to recover crashed hard drive mac.

Part 2- Solutions for The Hard Drive Issues and Problems

The best hard drive recovery software Mac is Recoverit. That’s what we’ll be using during the entire data recovery process.

Here are the step-by-step guides for Mac hard drive recovery using Recoverit. This procedure works for deleted data, formatted hard drives, damaged hard drives, and unrecognized hard drives.

To retrieve data using Recoverit, here are the steps to take:

Step 1: Launch the Recoverit Software on Your Mac

Go to your Mac desktop and launch the Recoverit software.

You can also search for it among your list of applications and launch it from there. Go to “Finder,” then “Applications,” then “Recoverit” to open it.

Step 2: Select the hard drive where the data was lost, deleted, formatted, damaged, unrecognized, or damaged

When the Recoverit boots up, you’ll see a list of available drives on the computer. Select the particular drive where you want to recover data.

Step 3: Click on Start to scan the hard drive

After selecting the hard drive, click on start to scan it. During this time, you’ll see a progress bar showing you the list of files being scanned and the estimated duration of the scan. Be patient and wait for the entire scan to be over.

But, if the software finds your files before the scan is over, you can stop the scan.

If you wish to recover large videos, you can select “Advanced Video Recovery.” This is particularly handy for recovering large, complex videos.

Step 4: Preview the results and select the files to recover

The scan results will show you a list of files that Recoverit found. You can filter the scan results of the hard drive recovery software mac using various categories like file type, file size, date modified, etc.

Any of these files can be recovered. Select the ones that you want to preview and copy out. You can preview the files by clicking on the preview button or double-clicking on any file. You can only preview mac hard drive recovery files that are lesser than 15 MB.

You can preview all types of files.

Step 5: Recover your data

After selecting the files to be retrieved, click on the “Recover” button to retrieve them. You’ll need to restore them to another drive other than the one you are recovering data from.

If you save the files on the same hard drive, you run the risk of overwriting data, and this will prevent you from fully recovering your files.

Part 3- Conclusion and Security Tips for Securing Data

Now that you’ve recovered your data, you need to take certain precautions to ensure that your data remains secure, so you won’t go through another mac hard drive recovery process. The following tips will keep your files protected.

Tip 1: Backup data from an internal hard drive into an external hard drive

Backup the important files on your internal hard drive to an external hard drive. This way, you get to keep two copies of the files, and you can easily restore your files from any drive should a data loss occur.

Tip 2: Have an online/cloud backup for critical files

Backup your data to cloud storage platforms like Google Drive, Mega, and others for a monthly or yearly fee. These cloud backup companies also provide free backup for limited file sizes. Your files are secured on these platforms, and you can easily download them when you need them.

Online backups are immune to hard drive crashes, hard drive errors, damaged data, and unrecognizable hard disk drives. Also, you can access your data from any smartphone or computer, no matter where you are.

A minor setback of cloud backup systems is that you need an internet connection to access your files.

Tip 3: Reduce the data load on your hard drives

The fuller your Mac hard drive is, the harder it becomes to recover data on it. Avoid leaving your hard drives too full. Delete all unwanted and unused files on your hard drives. If your hard drive is getting too small to contain your files, buy a larger drive or an external hard drive.

Tip 4: Run regular diagnostic tests on your Mac hard drive

Run regular diagnostic tests on your hard drives to detect potential errors and possibilities of failures. Some of these software are open-source and free, while others will cost you some money.

Tip 5: Avoid interrupting or ejecting external hard drives when files are being transferred

A major cause of file corruption and hard disk failure and the need for hard drive recovery software Mac is the sudden removal of an external hard drive of media during the transfer of files. This could result in corruption of the files being transferred and other residual files. It could even cause the hard drive to crash.

Use the “eject media” icon to safely eject any external hard drive or media connected to your Mac. This option ensures that all files have been properly transferred. It also powers down the hard drive properly. Place the external hard drive on a flat, non-slip surface to prevent falls. Also, be careful to use the right hard drive cable.

Tip 6: Keep your physical backups offsite

It’s dangerous to have your physical backups and original data in the same location. Theft and physical disasters like fires, earthquakes, flooding, and more will affect data and backups that are stored in the same location.

Keep your backups in another location. You could even pay for a safety deposit box in another city. These boxes are often inexpensive. You could make periodic trips to sync your data and add more files to the backup. With a good offsite backup, you won’t need to keep searching for how to recover hard drive Mac.

Part 4- Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Is it possible to recover files from a damaged or formatted Mac hard drive?

Answer: Yes, you can recover data from Mac hard drive using Recoverit software. The software will scan your Mac hard drive and bring up options for recovering your precious data.

Question: How long will it take to erase the data on a Macbook hard drive?

Answer: It depends on the total size of the hard drive and the size of the contents on it.

Question: How can I get files off a Mac hard drive that refuses to boot?

Answer: You can do this by using Recoverit software and following our guide.

Question: Where is the recovery tool on Mac?

Answer: You can purchase recovery tools like Recoverit to retrieve data from Mac hard drive. You’ll find it on your desktop or list of applications after purchasing it and installing it.