The average lifetime of each hard drive is limited. Over time, errors will appear increasingly without preparation. Hard drive errors can be caused by many reasons like power outages, hardware failures, poor system maintenance, viruses, or human error. To fix disk errors and repair hard drive data, you need to know what kind of HDD repair software is surely worth a try. Here I have put together a list of hard drive repair software for troubleshooting, diagnosing and repairing a hard drive.
- >> Part 1. Five Best Hard Disk Repair Software for Mac
- >> Part 2. Five Best Hard Disk Repair Software for Windows
Free Disk Drill can scan and recover data from virtually any storage device — including internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, cameras, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Android devices, USB flash drives, Kindles, and memory cards. The MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition can also help you manage computer hard drives in a flexible way with its features like extend partition, resize partition, format partition, migrate OS to SSD/HD, copy disk, convert MBR to GPT and so on. So the free hard disk repair tool is worth trying. Now let's see the detailed steps. Mac OS X comes with an easy-to-use application, called Disk Utility, that allows users to verify and repair hard disks using a graphical user interface and it is recommended for most Mac users that are not comfortable using the terminal. However, this can also be performed using the command-line.
Five Hard Drive Repair Software for Mac
When Mac hard disk is subject to logical damage and data corruption, a majority of users intend to fix the issues with Disk Utility. But it only tackles the basic problems. If your data loss is caused by some serious issues like corrupted volume header, bad sector, etc., Disk Utility will be helpless. So, I recommend you to take a look at the best hard disk repair software for Mac.
1. TechTool Protogo
Price: $129.99
System Requirements: macOS 10.6 or later
TechTool Protogo allows you to easily turn a USB, FireWire device, iPod, flash drive, hard drive, or SD Card, into a bootable and diagnostics toolkit to troubleshoot all of the Macs. You can use this hard drive repair software to boot, run diagnostics and perform hard drive repair on a computer to determine problems bypassing the OS. Before you click “Build TechTool Protogo Device”, make sure that any important data on the device you chosen are backed up since the entire device will be completely erased.
2. Cisdem Data Recovery (My Pick)
Price: Free trial and $49.99 for lifetime license
System Requirements: macOS 10.12 or later
Cisdem Data Recovery is a powerful data recovery tool that allows you to repair hard drive data. It can recover photos, videos, documents, archives, emails, etc., from your hard drive and other storage devices like SD cards, flash drives, iPods.
Moreover, it supports recovering data of a wide range of formats such as PDF, Keynote, JPEG, PNG, DOC, HTML, MP3, GIF, M4A, Keynote and so on. Thanks to this critically acclaimed and efficient hard drive repair software, which makes HDD repairing much easier.
Quick Summary of Steps
Step 1. Select a Data Recovery mode. Basic Data Recovery and Advanced Data Recovery are both usable. As the name indicates, Advanced Data Recovery will dig out deeper damaged or lost hard drive files.
Step 2. In the “Where did you lose your files?” dialog box, choose the failed hard disk. Then click “Scan” button. During scanning process, the real-time scan results are appearing in time for you.
Step 3. The program scans the corrupt drive and analyzes its contents. You can quickly find the specific files that you wish to recover from filters and search bar. Finally, click “Recover” button to restore your hard drive data.
3. DiskWarrior
Price: $119.95 and $59.95 for upgrade
System Requirements: macOS 10.6 or later
DiskWarrior is one of the highest rated hard drive repair software for macOS. With a simple click, it reads the damaged directory and finds all recoverable files and folders and rebuilds a new error-free, optimized directory for you to use. You can also use DiskWarrior as a preventative maintenance utility for hard disks as it can monitor your drive's health. It also repairs cryptic errors reported by Disk Utility like “Invalid node structure” and “Keys out of order”.
4. OnyX
Price: Free
System Requirements: A specific version of OnyX for each major version of the operating system.
OnyX is a multifunction Mac hard drive optimization utility that can be used to verify the startup hard disk and the structure of its system files. You can use OnyX to clean up Mac, clear Mac caches and run miscellaneous maintenance. It can help you configure parameters in the Finder, Dock, Safari, and some other Apple applications. Moreover, it can remove problematic folders and files and rebuild various databases or indexes. It is free and much better than some paid Mac cleanup software like CleanMyMac and Dr.Cleaner.
5. Drive Genius
Price: $99.00
System Requirements: macOS 10.8 or later
Drive Genius is a disk utility application for Macsc with 18 essential features including automated hard drive health check. It alerts you to hard drive issues before they become major problems. The built-in BootWell® tool lets you create a special bootable secondary drive to defrag and repair hard drive. This hard drive repair software also allows you to repartition and clone hard drive, repair directory, check integrity, speed up Mac, protect Mac from virus attack, etc.
Five Hard Drive Repair Software for Windows
Windows computer doesn’t contain a built-in diagnostic tool like Mac Disk Utility. But if you searching the keyword “best hard disk repair software for windows” in Google or Google Play Store, you will be able to find a big heal of hard drive repair software, even the freeware. With regard to Mac, it’s relatively scarce.
1. TestDisk
Price: Free
System Requirements: Windows, macOS and Linux
TestDisk is a piece of free hard drive repair software that is primarily designed to repair FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sectors, recover deleted partitions, fix damaged partition tables and make non-booting disks bootable again. This app recovers deleted data, as well as copies files from deleted/inaccessible partitions. It supports a number of different file systems including FAT/NTFS/exFAT/ext2. This free hard drive repair tool is not a good choice for computer novices.
2. Disk Repair
Price: $134 for personal license, $204 for corporate license, $254 for technician license
System Requirements: Windows NT, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10, Windows Server 2003; 800 MHz Processor or higher
Disk Repair is another piece of hard drive repair software that removes the logically formed bad sectors and repairs 'Track 0 Bad Disks' from hard disks. It realigns the magnetic orientation to make each byte readable and writable. This hard drive repair software also supports many kinds of file systems like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 and moreover all the versions of MS Windows.
3. CheckDisk
Price: Free
System Requirements: Win 2000/03/08/XP/Vista/7
CheckDisk is another simple and free hard drive repair software to fix hard drive bad sectors on Windows. It offers Standard, Throughout and Check if dirty scan options for you to find hard drive errors. Select one of the connected hard drives to scan. During scans, the details of scan is displayed on the left column of UI. Then select the Correct Errors option and hit Check Drive button to begin the hard disk repair. It is very easy to use, and no tech knowledge needed.
4. Glary Utilities
Price: Free and $39.95 for one year license
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10
Glary Utilities is free, powerful and all-in-one hard drive repair software for cleaning your PC and boosting PC speed. It offers over advanced 20 tools to maximize your PC’s performance. It can scan your hard drive for issues and repair it if any errors found. And it also repairs registry and system files, fixes shortcuts, removes malwares, cleans up duplicates, etc.
5. Eassos PartitionGuru
Price: Free and $79.95 for professional edition
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Server 2008/7/8/10
Eassos PartitionGuru is all-around hard drive partition manager software helps you resize/split partition, remove bad sectors from hard drive, backup files, edit hex data, manage virtual disks, erase and recover data, etc. You can repair bad sectors of a hard drive by selecting it and clicking on Tools > Check Partition Table Error. If any error is found, click the “Correct” button on the window to repair hard drive. This hard drive repair software contains ads.
Conclusion
The main target of hard drive repair software is to recover missing, formatted & corrupted data and make the drive practicable again. There are three points I need to emphasize in the end:
- Free hard drive repair software can't detect your data on the inaccessible drive, and comes with lower security when compared to dedicated one;
- Although the best hard disk repair software offers the file recovery function, it is also important to backup hard drive data before you use them to repair hard drive;
- As an old Mac user, the reasons I pick Cisdem Data Recovery is because of the clear guidance interface, timely data recovery, formidable features and tremendous speed.
If you have any other powerful hard drive repair software to recommend, share them with all of us by leaving a comment below.
The Optimized Storage features of your Mac help you save storage space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:
- When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
- Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
- Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.
If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.
Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
- Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
- Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
- Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.
Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimize Storage
Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Trash Automatically
Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.
You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.
Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.
Disk Utility Repair Mac
Where to find the settings for each feature
The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.
- If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
- If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
- In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
- In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
- If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
- In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
- In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”
Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space
With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:
- Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
- Reminds you to delete used app installers
- Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
- Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed
How to free up storage space manually
Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
- Move files to an external storage device.
- Compress files.
- Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.
Learn more
Best Free Mac Disk Repair Software
- The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Other, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
- When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
- If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.