How to Repair a Corrupted Hard Drive on a Mac: A Comprehensive Guide

Before attempting any repairs, it’s crucial to have a current backup of your Mac’s data. This will ensure that you can recover your files in case the repair process fails or causes further damage to your hard drive.

Using Disk Utility to Repair a Corrupted Hard Drive

Disk Utility is a built-in tool in macOS that allows you to check and repair disk errors, including those related to formatting and directory structure. Here’s how to use Disk Utility to fix a corrupted hard drive:
Open Disk Utility. You can find it in the Utilities folder under your Applications folder. If your Mac won’t boot up normally, you can access Disk Utility from macOS Recovery:
For Macs with Apple silicon, turn on your Mac and hold down the power button until you see the startup options window. Click the Options button, then click Continue.
For Macs with Intel processors, turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold the Command (⌘) and R keys until you see an Apple logo or other image.
Select your hard drive. In Disk Utility, go to View > Show All Devices to see all available disks and storage devices on your Mac. You’ll see containers and volumes listed beneath each disk.
Repair volumes, containers, and disks. For the disk you want to repair, select its last volume and click the First Aid button. Click Run to check the volume for errors. Once Disk Utility has finished checking the volume, repeat this process for each volume, container, and finally the disk itself.
If Disk Utility is unable to repair your hard drive or the First Aid process fails, you may need to erase and reformat the disk. Back up your data first, then use Disk Utility to erase the disk. After that, reinstall macOS and restore your data from the backup.

Using Terminal Commands to Repair a Corrupted Hard Drive

If you’re comfortable with the Terminal, you can also use command-line tools to fix a corrupted hard drive. Here’s how to use the diskutil and fsck commands:
Open Terminal. You can find it in the Utilities folder under your Applications folder.
Use the diskutil command. Type diskutil repairvolume / and press Return to repair the corrupted Macintosh HD (Mac hard drive).
Use the fsck command. To run the fsck command, you’ll need to boot your Mac into Single User mode:
Turn on your Mac and press Command S keys simultaneously while it starts.
When you see some text appearing on the screen, release the keys.
At the command prompt, type /sbin/fsck -fy and press Return.
If fsck reports that the volume was modified, type reboot and press Return to restart your Mac.

Using Third-Party Recovery Software to Repair a Corrupted Hard Drive

If Disk Utility and Terminal commands fail to repair your corrupted hard drive, you can use third-party recovery software to attempt to recover your data. One popular option is EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Here’s how to use it:
Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac on a different drive than the corrupted one.
Launch the software and select the corrupted hard drive. Click “Search for lost files” to start scanning.
Once the scan is complete, preview the recoverable files. Select the files you want to recover and click “Recover” to save them to a different location.
Keep in mind that using third-party recovery software should be a last resort, as it may not always be successful in repairing a severely corrupted hard drive.