How to Fix Mac Hard Drive Problems?

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Your Mac hard drive stores all your photos, videos, and other documents. Any errors disrupting it can be annoying and risk data loss. We have listed a few common hard drive problems in Mac and effective solutions. Please read the article completely and fix it in no time.

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  1. Mac is a powerful machine but it doesn’t escape storage issues However, since 2020 Mac’s moved to SSD from HDD. However, the hard drive issues in Mac are still being reported.

We will discuss some major Mac hard drive problems and their solutions without further delay.

Most Common Mac Errors and How to Fix Them

Here are a few hard drive problems in Mac and solutions to fix them:

1: Mac Hard drive not Booting

Your Mac could have booting issues when there is file system corruption, bad sectors, or physical damage on the hard drives.

To access the non-booting Mac:

  • Connect the non-booting Mac to a working Mac using a Thunderbolt, USB-C, or FireWire cable.
  • Restart the non-booting Mac and immediately hold down the T key.
  • You can now see the non-booting Mac’s drive as an external drive on a working Mac and copy the data on the working Mac.

Boot using recovery drive: Boot your Mac into Recovery mode, reinstall the macOS, and select disk utility to check and repair the disk. If the disk is fine, reinstall the OS without erasing the data.

Safe Mode: When Recovery mode on Mac doesn’t work, Try booting into safe mode to start Mac with only essential software, here’s how:

  • Power off the Mac, press and hold the shift key while restarting the Mac
  • When the Mac boots, back up your files using Time Machine or external storage.

2: Mac Hard Drive Partition Issues

You can encounter Mac partition issues and errors when there is file system corruption, bad sectors, partition table corruption, disk utility errors, or virus or malware attacks.

However, you can fix Mac APFS/HFS+/HFS partitions, by following the solutions listed below:

Disk Utility:

  • Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
  • You will see a list of drives in the left sidebar, locate the corrupt drive/partition (it may show a warning sign or greyed out)
  • Click on First Aid and click on Run

The drive scan may take some time depending on the size of the drive. If the repair is successful, you will see a successful message if not proceed with the next solution

Terminal Commands (FSCK): When Disk Utility couldn’t repair the drive, you can try using the fsck command in Single User Mode, here’s how:

  • Restart your Mac, press and hold the Command+S to boot into Single User Mode
  • Once you see the command-line prompt, type: /sbin/fsck -fy
  • Press Enter to start a file system check and attempt to repair the disk.
  • You will see “The volume was modified”. Run the command till you see “The volume appears to be OK
  • Once you receive the message type reboot to restart Mac.

Format and Repartiton:

When the above solutions don’t work, consider reformatting the drive to fix the partition issues on Mac, Make sure you have a backup before formatting the drive:

  • In Disk Utility, select the corrupt drive/partition.
  • Click Erase at the top.
  • Choose the appropriate format (APFS or HFS+) and click on Erase to format the drive.
  • Once the formatting is completed, restore the data using Time Machine or recovery software.

3: External Hard Drive issues on Mac

There are a variety of causes behind the external hard drive issues on Mac such as incompatibility, connection issues, corrupt external hard drives, etc.

Here are a few solutions that you can try:

Check the connection: When you notice your external hard drive not being recognized or detected, verify the loose, damaged, or incompatible USB cables or ports that are causing the external drive to not appear or function properly

Mount the drive:

  • Open Disk Utility, click the Finder icon > Applications in the sidebar > double-click the Utilities folder > double-click Disk Utility to launch it.
  • Check the external hard disk in the left sidebar, highlight your hard drive, and click Mount.

Now check if the issue is gone, if not go ahead with the other solutions.

Repair Disk Permissions:

  • Open Disk Utility, Select your hard drive in the left panel
  • Click the First Aid tab
  • Click Repair Disk Permissions
  • Now close the Disk Utility and restart your Mac

Force Quit Finder:

In case you are facing any difficulties or errors such as 1407 while transferring or deleting files
If you are encountering the error code 1407 on your Mac, here’s how you can fix it:

  • Press Option (or Alt), Command, and Esc (Escape) simultaneously
  • Select Force Quit from the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen
  • Now, click the Relaunch button.

Tips to Prevent Mac Storage Issues

Monitor Disk Health: Use the First Aid option on your Mac to check and repair any storage error.

Clean Up Unnecessary Files: Regularly clean up unwanted files, old applications, and temporary files.

Optimize Storage: Enable the “Optimize Mac Storage” in iCloud settings to automatically store older and less frequently used files in iCloud.

Regular backups: You can use the Time Machine to create automatic backups that can keep your system clean.

Conclusion

If none of the solutions in this article resolve the Mac hard drive problems for either internal or external drives, it is likely there is physical damage to the drive. In such cases, we recommend taking your Mac to an authorized Apple service center for further assistance.

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