How to Fix A Corrupted Hard Drive on Mac/Windows PC
Quick Navigation:
- Symptoms of Hard Drive Corrupted
- 7 Proven Methods to Fix A Disk after Corrupted on Mac/Windows
- Use the Built-in System Option to Repair Damaged Disk
- Method 2. Use Command Line to Repair the Corrupted Hard Drive
- Method 3. Reinstall or Update Drivers for Hard Drive Repair
- Method 4. Scan for Viruses to Repair Hard Disk
- Method 5. Connect to Motherboard USB Port
- Method 6. Format the Damaged Hard Drive
- Method 7. Use Hard Drive Repair Software
- How to Recover Data After Hard Disk Repair
- Which Causes Cannot Repair Disk
- Conclusion
- F.A.Q.s
A hard disk is a vital storage medium in the computer. Sometimes, your hard drive might not work correctly or get corrupted for many reasons. It feels terrible if you encounter such a problem by accident. It may even have consequences for losing data.
In this write-up, you will be able to find some proven methods that can be useful for fixing a damaged hard drive on Mac/Windows and recovering your data.
Symptoms of Hard Drive Corrupted
Just as we all fall ill, sometimes our hard drives cannot perform well. There are specific symptoms it shows when it gets corrupted.
- 🚫 When reading a specific file, the hard disk repeatedly shows the prompt of file corruption or even a blue screen.
- 🛠️ Every time the system starts, Scandisk will automatically run to detect the disk.
- 🔊 Strange sounds are coming from the hard disk.
- 🖥️ The frequent crashing of the system or the blue screen of death.
- 📉 The significant slowdown of the device.
Next, let's figure out how to repair a corrupted hard drive without losing data in Windows 11/10/7 and macOS.
7 Proven Methods to Fix A Disk after Corrupted on Mac/Windows
Use the Built-in System Option to Repair Damaged Disk
The loading is slow when you are using the software or reading files. Then you can use the tools that come with the system to detect and repair hard disk on Mac or Windows PC. It can quickly repair bad sectors to improve its performance.
For Windows PC:
- Open "This PC" and select the hard drive/partition.
- Right-click to choose "Properties" and switch to the "Tools" tab.
- Finally, select the "Check" button and follow the wizard to complete the repair work.
For Mac:
- Navigate to Finder > Applications > Utilities.
- Open the "Disk Utility."
- Select the damaged drive in the left panel and click on the "First Aid" option in the top menu.
- Finally, follow the wizard to complete the repair task in the new window that appears.
Method 2. Use Command Line to Repair the Corrupted Hard Drive
With C.H.K.D.S.K. or Diskutil, you can use the command to scan and resolve issues on your hard disk. You can use distinct parameters and customize them per your utility.
For Windows 11/10/8/7:
- Tap on Windows and type "CMD."
- Select "Command Prompt.app" and run as administrator.
- Type chkdsk "drive letter":/r
Tip: If another process uses the hard drive. You can type "Y" and restart your computer. When the system starts up, it will repair the damaged disk automatically.
For macOS:
- Find "Terminal" in "Utilities" and open it.
- Typing the command: diskutil repair Volume /Volumes/[Drive Name]
Here you have to replace the drive's name with the hard drive on your Mac device that needs repairing, and then go ahead by pressing Enter. You will see a message saying that your drive got repaired successfully. If it occurs, you have to restart your Mac and check the accessibility of files.
Alternatively, you can check the accessibility of the Disk utility by using G.U.I.; for this, you have to open the application and tap on the button First Aid.
Method 3. Reinstall or Update Drivers for Hard Drive Repair
You need drivers to maintain and establish communication between hardware and the O.S. If some of them become outdated or corrupted, your P.C. may find it hard to read the hard drive correctly.
- Right-click on Start, and click the "Device Manager."
- In the open window, click the triangle icon in front of the "Disk Drives" to expand a list of hard disks.
- Select your failed hard drive, right-click and select "Update Driver" > "Search automatically for Drivers."
- Finally, the system will find the latest driver for this hard drive. You can follow the wizard to complete the installation.
Tip: If you manually downloaded the driver for this damaged hard drive. You can click "Browse my computer for Drivers" to complete the update.
Method 4. Scan for Viruses to Repair Hard Disk
Sometimes your system may experience a virus attack and may require you to run an antivirus program to scan your system. It helps eliminate the issue and prevent corruption from increasing further. If you do not have an antivirus, install one and proceed.
Method 5. Connect to Motherboard USB Port
Sometimes you may be unable to see or access your drive because of the issue with the connected port. So, connect the USB port on your motherboard instead of ports on USB Hub or P.C. that you can find on the panel at the back of your computer.
Once you connect your USB port to the motherboard, it ensures direct connectivity along with ruling out the incident of broken ports on your P.C. or USB hub.
Method 6. Format the Damaged Hard Drive
The format is one of the effective methods for hard drive repair. However, It will delete all data saved to this drive. So be sure to back up files to another disk before starting formatting. You can manually copy the files to another location if they are few.
Step 1. Backup Your Data
Here, we will use Qiling Disk Master to complete the disk backup. It can compress multiple files into one file to save storage space. You can use it for free for 15 days to have enough time to repair a damaged hard drive.
- Download and install it to your computer.
- Click on the "Drive Backup" option in the top menu.
- Select the target drive/volume in the disk list and choose a storage location.
- Finally, hit the "Start" button for the backup process.
Step 2. Format Drive and Restore Files
- Select the damaged hard drive in Disk Management, right-click and click "Format."
- After completing the erasing, use Qiling Disk Master to restore the backed-up files to this hard drive.
For Mac User: go to "Disk Utility," select your disk and click "Erase" to format the corrupted disk.
Method 7. Use Hard Drive Repair Software
If the above ways still don't help you fix corrupted hard drive, then you can still use repair tools. Here we will list five famous tools for you:
You can also go here to check out more best hard disk repair software.
How to Recover Data After Hard Disk Repair
It is the most convenient way to restore files from a damaged hard drive on Mac or Windows PC. Qiling data recovery software makes it all the more seamless. You will find it working in all situations with a few simple steps and lightning speed to find your lost data.
- Download and run it on your computer.
- Look for the corrupted drive from where you want to recover your files, then select it and click the 'Scan' option.
- Once the scanning process is complete, you can see all the lost or existing files on the damaged hard drive. Next, select the files you need and click Recover to save them at a designated spot in your P.C. or on any other external storage device.
Which Causes Cannot Repair Disk
Hard disk damage can be roughly divided into two categories, one is hard damaged, and the other is soft corrupted. If the problems below appear, your hard drive may have been physically damaged. At this time, you can only send it to a professional repair center to keep your important data.
- 🗜️ Damage to the magnetic head assembly: It mainly refers to the fact that a specific part of the magnetic head assembly in the hard disk is damaged, thus causing some or all of the magnetic heads to be unable to read and write. There are many reasons for the Damage to the magnetic head assembly, mainly due to the dirty head, wear, deformation of the cantilever, Damage to the magnetic coil, displacement, etc.
- 🚥 Control circuit damage mainly refers to the circuit breaker or short circuit of a specific part of the hard Disk's electronic circuit board. Some electrical components or I.C. chips are damaged, which causes the Disk to fail to spin.
- 💽 Physically damaged sectors: Because of collision, head friction, and other reasons, the disk surface has scratches, magnetic loss, and other physical damages.
Conclusion
This page discusses various ways of fixing a corrupted hard drive in Windows 11/10/7 and macOS without losing data. If the discussed methods do not work for you, we recommend using Deep Data Recovery software to recover file from a hard drive and send it to a repair center for fixing. But to avoid it having problems again, please replace it with a new HDD/SSD as soon as possible.
F.A.Q.s
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You can resolve the damaged hard drive error in the following ways:
- Unplug and re-plug your USB drive or external HDD.
- Uninstall and reinstall your disk drive.
- Run device and hardware troubleshooter.
- Run disk scan to detect any problematic drive errors.
- Run the C.H.K.D.S.K. command.
- At last, format it.
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Yes, you can check these points:
- Regular monitoring of S.M.A.R.T. data.
- Scan your computer regularly to reduce the chance of virus infection.
- When the hard disk is working, never forcibly turn off the power.
- When using the hard disk, try to avoid its vibration.
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It may happen due to the following reasons:
- Corrupted drive.
- Faulty Device or USB Port.
- Incompatibility of File System.
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If you format your hard drive, you can be sure of fixing the error, but you will also lose your valuable data. We recommend you first use Deep Data Recovery software to retrieve your files before formatting.
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Yes, If the computer can recognize your hard drive, you can use Deep Data Recovery to retrieve data. If it can't be identified, it's probably completely damaged.
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- Abnormal shutdown, sudden power failure, or voltage unstable leads to bad blocks in the hard disk.
- The hard disk is compressed frequently.
- The drive was shaken violently while it was reading and writing data.
- The hard drive has been formatted too many times.
- Insufficient disk cooling. Too high or too low will change the clock frequency of the crystal oscillator. Temperature can also cause circuit components of hard disks to fail, and magnetic media can cause recording errors due to thermal expansion effects.
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