External hard drives are great portable storage device media for important data backup and file sharing. When an external hard drive error on Mac, your data at risk of loss for good. This article will explain to you the reasons for the external hard drive gets corrupted. And find the answer to how to repair a corrupted external hard drive on Mac with/without formatting. It also provides method for Mac data recovery before formatting the drive if necessary.
Why does the external hard disk gets corrupted？
There are many reasons for the external hard drive to be corrupted. For example, bad sectors, faulty connection, virus damage, malfunctioning antivirus software, and unsafe ejection, etc. However, it is difficult for ordinary users to figure out why the external hard drive is corrupted. Never mind, you only need to follow the procedure below to solve your problem.
How to repair a corrupted external hard drive on Mac without formatting？
Solution 1: Verify the connection
The faulty connection will cause the external hard drive error on Mac. You’d better check if your disk is properly inserted. You should follow the steps to check:
- Wipe the dust and impurities on the USB interface with a dry towel.
- Connect your external hard drive to another USB port or USB cable.
- Restart your Mac.
Solution 2: Fix the corrupted external hard drive with disk utility.
When you made sure that your external hard drive was neither faulty connection nor physically damaged. It may be that your disk has received minor file damage. You can enable “First Aid” in “Disk Utility” to repair your disk. The operating steps are as follows:
Step 1: Open the other folder in “Launchpad” and open “Disk Utility”. You can also open it by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner of the desktop and searching for “Disk Utility”.
Step 2: Select the corrupted external hard drive from the sidebar.
Step 3: Click on the “First Aid” button at the top bar, or right-click the external hard drive and choose “First Aid” from the options.
Fix a corrupted external hard drive by formatting
If the first two solutions failed to solve your problem, it means that the file system of your external disk has been severely damaged. At this time you have to format your external disk to be able to repair it. Many users worry that formatting will result in the loss of files in the external disk. In fact, you only need to download and use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover your data before formatting the external hard drive.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is a powerful data recovery software. It is simple to operate for all kinds of users. The most important thing is that it supports data recovery from a variety of storage devices. It can recover data from external hard drives and recover the lost data from unmountable/unreadable/unrecognizable/file system damaged/partition table damaged external hard drives. It is compatible with external hard drives of various capacities and brands. So you can repair your external disk by formatting without any worries.
Here are the steps to fix external hard drive error Mac with formatting:
Step 1: Download the iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on the official website and install it.
Step 2: Insert your corrupted drive into your Mac.
Step 3: Launch the iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac and select the corrupted drive. Then check “Deep Scan” in the lower left corner. Click the “Scan” in the lower right corner of the window to scan the files in the disk.
Step 4: Select the files you want to get back and click “Recover”.
Step 5: Save your lost data. Please note that the scanned data cannot be saved to the original disk.
Step 6: Open the Disk Utility and select the corrupted external hard drive.
Step 7: Click the “Erase” tab at the top.
Step 8: Enter the name of the drive-in “Name” in the pop-up window. Then choose the file system you like. In the third option “Scheme” you can just keep the default option.
Step 9: Click “Erase”.
Conclusion
This article has explained Why does external hard disk gets corrupted and how to repair a corrupted external hard drive on Mac with formatting and without formatting. Formatting is the most effective way to repair the corrupted external hard drive. But in order to ensure the safety of the data in the disk, please recover and save the original data through iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac before erasing the external disk.