Dealing with a crashed hard drive is never fun. Here are the steps you should take if the worst happens to your Mac.
Reset the System
I know it’s become a cliche, but turning it off and on could make a difference to the hard drive. It’s always the first thing you should do when you experience a problem. It gives the system the chance to reset itself and some of those minor problems that caused the crash could be worked out in the process. If you try to do this, and the system fails to restart, then is clearly hasn’t worked, and you’ll be in a tricky situation. But a restart should bring up Recover HD. Follow the onscreen instructions, but if the problem persists, you’ll have to try something else.
Boot From Another Drive
If you have another drive, it’s possible to plug in your Mac and try to boot it from that drive instead. When it’s plugged in, turn on the Mac and hold down Alt. This will bring up a screen that will allow you to choose which drive you want to start from. If this works, it will confirm that the problem is with the Mac drive, and you’ll have to go about getting it fixed or recovering the data from it if that’s not possible. So, this won’t help you fix the hard drive, but it will confirm your problem and allow you to take further steps in the right direction.
Hire a Professional
When you’ve established the fact that you have a problem with the hard drive, it’s best to contact a professional. You won’t have any trouble finding a good Mac repair shop, so make use of it. You’ll find all kinds of DIY guides and tricks about how to fix the hard drive. But those fixes are mostly a load of rubbish. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can fix your hard drive by hitting it in the right place with a hammer of putting it in the oven! All those silly tricks will do is make the situation even worse.
Recover Data
If your main is to recover the data from your hard drive, there are lots of things you can do. As long as the data is still on the drive, it should be possible for you to recover it, even if the hard drive is having problems. It’s best to use good data recovery software. It’s usually possible to use this software even if the hard drive is crashing. And if you don’t have any success with this, you could take it to a data recovery specialist who’ll be able to do the work for you. The only exception is if you’re using an SSD because it’s impossible to extract data from them.
Backup in Future
When you’ve been through the process of having to deal with a damaged hard drive, you need to learn a few lessons. You don’t want this to happen again in the future. So, you need to backup your data so that you don’t risk losing it if the hard drive crashes again. It will save you money on having to recover the data from the broken hard drive. If you value your data, it’s always a good idea to get a spare hard drive and back up all the files and documents you have stored.