![\"repairing](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Mac-Disk-Fail-Intro.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\nYour Mac uses the built-in internal storage to save and access data allowing you to get things done. Without the data stored on the disk, your laptop would not work correctly if at all. The disk, along with the machine\u2019s CPU, are the two most important components involved in designing a computer. Without either one of these critical elements, your Mac wouldn\u2019t operate correctly.<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Modern hard drives are more resilient than those used in previous generations of personal and business computers. The introduction of SSDs has minimized some of the mechanical issues faced by more traditional hard drives. You might go through life using multiple computers and never experience a disk failure. However, it\u2019s important to be prepared and know how to handle it just in case it does happen to you.<\/p>\r\n
Disks can fail for a variety of reasons. Your machine may be equipped with either a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or a Solid State Drive (SSD). SSDs are faster and employ an electrical grid to store data. These are the kinds of drives you will find in most modern laptops including MacBooks.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
They have fewer moving parts than an HDD which makes them less susceptible to mechanical problems. HDDs use mechanical means to read and write data to the disk and these parts can wear out over time, causing issues and the eventual failure of the storage device.<\/p>\r\n
SSDs are found in most computers these days since they\u2019ve come down in price and offer many benefits over traditional mechanical hard drives.<\/p>\r\n
These dangers can affect your external drives<\/strong> as well as those inside your computer, so care should be taken with all of your storage devices<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n The ability to predict a disk failure would save a lot of time and trouble, as you could take preventative action before any data loss occurred. While not foolproof, there are some indications that you should consider when determining the health of your computer\u2019s disks.<\/p>\r\n S.M.A.R.T.<\/a> stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. It is a feature of modern disk drives and can be used to help predict drive failure. You can obtain information such as the wear level of an SSD drive which might indicate it is nearing the end of its serviceable life. S.M.A.R.T. is not perfect and will not always alert you to impending drive failure, but it can alert you to issues that you can address before disaster strikes. Third-party tools such as Disk Drill<\/strong> can be used to monitor the S.M.A.R.T. status<\/a> of the drives on your Mac<\/strong> computer. It provides a window through which to gain some insight into the health of your drive and be better prepared if it appears to be experiencing problems.<\/p>\r\n Unfortunately, detecting a disk failure can be a painful and simple process. One thing to keep in mind is that some of the same problems you might experience from a failing disk can be caused by a malware<\/a> infection. You would do well to run a full scan on your machine and determine that malware is not the root cause of your problems before accepting the fact that you may have a bad disk.<\/p>\r\n If you think that your computer may be infected with malware, I would recommend using Malwarebytes<\/a> to scan it.<\/p>\r\n Your Mac may display an error message when booting it up which can indicate that there is an issue with your hard drive. There are multiple messages<\/a> that can appear and they can indicate different issues.<\/p>\r\n Some messages you are likely to see include:<\/p>\r\n When a drive has indeed failed you may be unable to boot your computer. If it does start, performance might be downgraded and your machine will often freeze and crash. You may have no choice but to try to salvage the data that resided on the disk. Disk Drill<\/a> enables you to recover data from a damaged disk by scanning it at the sector level to reconstruct and save your files.<\/p>\r\n If your hard drive is failing, there could be disk errors causing issues, you may not be able to access files or folders on your hard drive. If this is the case, the first thing that you should do is use Disk Drill<\/a> and try to recover files should the hard drive be failing.<\/p>\r\n After you\u2019ve recovered the files that are important to you, the next thing that you should do is use First Aid<\/a> to try and repair the hard drive on your Mac.<\/p>\r\n If your Mac hard drive is full, deleting some files off of it should help increase the speed of it. This really only becomes a problem when the hard drive is almost completely full. Your computer users RAM and if your RAM is full, then it will swap data to your hard drive. It can\u2019t do this if there is no space available on your hard drive.<\/p>\r\n You can check the storage on your Mac by going to the Apple logo in the upper left-hand side of your screen > About This Mac > Storage.<\/p>\r\n There are several actions you can take if you suspect that your disk is having issues and may soon fail. They will not necessarily prevent the failure but will leave you in better shape to recover and minimize the impact of the damaged disk.<\/p>\r\n Protecting your data against an eventual disk failure just makes sense. You should already be performing regular backups if you value your data, but in the case of warning signals being sent from the drive, extra precautions should be taken. You need to be careful when attempting to create a backup of a potentially damaged disk. It may not be able to withstand the rigors of many more backups.<\/p>\r\n The best course of action is to first create a disk image backup<\/a><\/strong> to be used for data recovery purposes if the drive does fail. Disk Drill<\/strong> contains this functionality and can create a disk image from which it can restore all of your files.<\/p>\r\n Time Machine<\/a> allows you to back up your Mac to an external hard drive. You don\u2019t have to download any additional software either as Time Machine is built into macOS. The software is free and all that you have to do is plug in an external hard drive into your Mac.<\/p>\r\n External hard drives are not super expensive these days and I would highly recommend that you back up your Mac.<\/p>\r\n First Aid can help extend the life of your drive by fixing problems before they become critical. Running the First Aid process<\/a> from within Disk Utility can repair file permissions or issues that are causing the drive to misbehave. It will alert you to an impending drive failure which indicates that you need to create a backup of your data as soon as possible.<\/p>\r\n Despite your best efforts, your drive may indeed fail and leave you scrambling for a way to get your data back. Here are some options for you to consider when faced with this dire situation.<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/span>Predicting a Disk Failure on Your Mac<\/span><\/h2>\r\n
\r\n\t
![\"smart](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/smart-disk-drill-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/span>Detecting a Disk Failure<\/span><\/h2>\r\n
<\/span>#1. Malware<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"malware\"](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/malware-scaled-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#2. System Errors<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
\r\n\t
![\"mac](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mac-error-boot-up-screen.jpeg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#3. Observing Slow Performance<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"storage](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/storage-selection-disk-drill-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#4. Certain Files or Folders Aren\u2019t Accessible<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"recovering](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/recovering-files-in-disk-drill-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#5. Hard Drive Is Full<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"storage](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/storage-on-Mac-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/span>Methods for Preventing a Disk Failure on Mac OS X<\/span><\/h2>\r\n
<\/span>#1. Back Up Your Data Using Disk Drill<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"byte](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/byte-to-byte-backup-disk-drill-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#2. Back Up Using Time Machine<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"time](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/time-machine-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/span>#3. Use First Aid in Disk Utility<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"first](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/first-aid-disk-utility-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/span>Recovering Your Mac From a Disk Failure<\/span><\/h2>\r\n
<\/span>#1 Disk Drill Data Recovery<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
![\"selecting](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/selecting-storage-device-to-scan-on-mac-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/li>\r\n\t![\"scan](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/scan-in-progress-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/li>\r\n\t![\"preview](\"\/howto\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/preview-feature-in-disk-drill-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/li>\r\n\t