4 Ways to Recover a Failed Internal Mac Hard Drive
A failing or already failed Mac hard drive is a nightmarish however an inevitable course of action. That is why Apple facilitates a built-in Mac backup application called ‘Time Machine’ to keep an updated and exact copy of files from Macintosh internal hard drives.
Our focused topic for today is Mac hard drive recovery after it had failed to operate, mount or accessed on the OS X Mac. [Update – 13 June 2016 Try Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery Free Edition]

Course of Action for data recovery on failed hard drive
Fix 1) Fix the hard drive with FSCK command
You can repair Macintosh HD using a non – GUI mode on Mac OS X. To do it successfully, follow the below procedure:
(i) Make sure your Mac is turned off
(ii) Press the power button to startup the Mac and press hold the Command and S button (i.e. Command + S)
(iii) This will bring you the Single User Mode from where you can repair the Mac hard drive and access all files from it
(iv) Now, you must enter the command line – /sbin/fsck – fy
(v) Press Return (Enter)
(vi) The command line will begin analyzing your Macintosh HD volume and will return message as per the action performed
(vii) When the Mac HD is healthy, it will display the message: “The Volume (name) appears to be OK”
(viii) When FSCK repairs the damaged volume, it shows the message: “File System Was Modified”. Repeat the FSCK run again, until the file system is corrected and the message in step (vii) is displayed
Fix 2) Target Disk Mode and File Recovery
Target Disk Mode is a potent method to mount and access a faulty hard drive using accessories,
which includes a Firewire or a Thunderbolt cable that connects the 2 Macs (Healthy Mac and Unhealthy Mac) for file transfer. How to connect 2 Macs using the cables?
(i) Make sure uninterrupted power supply is provided to both the Macs
(ii) Use a Firewire 800 or Firewire 400 cable to connect both the Macs through USB ports. You may also use a Thunderbolt for the same.
(iii) Start the Mac with failing/failed hard drive and immediately press the keyboard button “T”
(iv) The Mac should boot into the Firewire mode. Once it does, you will see a large Firewire icon the Mac screen
(v) On a healthy Mac, you will see the troubled hard drive icon showing on the Desktop. The ‘Macintosh HD’ will have a Firewire symbol mounted on its icon. In case of Thunderbolt cable, the Macintosh HD will have the Thunderbolt icon mounted onto it
(vi) Once Macintosh HD is mounted, you can perform disk repair and copy files from the hard drive to a healthy HDD or an external hard drive
Mounting, accessing and copying files from an unhealthy hard drive to a healthy disk seems to be a child’s play with Target Disk Mode facility. However, if the disk is unable to mount on the healthy Mac then it will be an impossible task to copy or recover the files from it.
What to do when the hard drive is failing to get the mount on another Mac? [Solution lies in the helpful link section of this article]
Fix 3) Convert Internal Macintosh HD into an External Hard Drive
Converting the internal Macintosh HD to an external hard drive for recovering files could possibly be an alternative solution of Target Disk Mode. How should you make an external drive out of an internal HDD?
(i) Safely take out the internal Macintosh HD out of your Mac system. There are plenty of D-I-Y videos which can help you remove the Mac HD safely
(ii) Prior to removal of the internal HD, you must also order an external hard drive enclosure from an online seller. Hard drive enclosures these days are cheap and can be acquired by spending $10 or $15
(iii) Open the plastic cover of the enclosure and place / slide your internal hard drive in the matching context. Once done, turn over the hard drive and put in the screws that came up with the enclosure. Tighten all the screws with the help of a screwdriver
(iv) Put back the front-back plastic cover to cover-up the hard drive
(v) Now connect one and the another tip of the USB cable to the ports the hard drive and Mac OS X for mounting and accessing files
A badly damaged hard drive may fail to get accessed on Mac even after being converted to an external hard drive? [Solution lies below in the helpful link section of this article]
Fix 4) Data Recovery Software for Macintosh HD

Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery
This particular point of the entire article deals with the situation when Mac hard drive recovery is to be done at all costs and above solutions (FSCK, Target Disk Mode, Drive Enclosure) have resulted negatively.
Mac data recovery app to the rescue
Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery is an advanced data recovery software that can help you mount and access a failed / failing hard drive on Mac, Target Disk Mode Mac or the Mac drive that got converted into an external drive. Please refer to the KB article mentioned in the helpful links at the end of this article.
Bootable Media and Recovery
Fortunately, you can avoid all the above steps and save your energy by ordering Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery with Rescue CD. This CD boots up your failed or failing Macintosh hard drives and performs speedy recovery of files from it.
Helpful Links




Vishal, I have a Samsung J series smartphone whose 16 GB memory card is damaged. I have no idea as to how to fix it on Mac with terminal or fsck methods. Could you please let me know so that I can repair and recover the files from this memory card?
Hi Evelia,
Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery Platinum Edition is recommended utility for repairing a corrupt Mac hard drive or HFS / FAT formatted storage media. The same Edition allows data recovery from storage media too. Go for it.
Hey Author,
I am looking to repair my Macintosh HDD but FSCK and Target Disk Mode doesn’t see my hard drive. Is there other way out to repair the disk. I only want to repair the hard drive since I have the backup of my files elsewhere.
Hi Chad,
I recommend you download and install Stellar Volume Repair application which is a Mac disk repair software. This software will help you create a bootable media with which you can boot up the Mac and repair Macintosh HDD (startup drive). Additionally, it enable Journaling on Mac volumes.
I downloaded the free edition of Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery but the file which I want to recover have size of 1.29 GB. Your software isn’t allowing me to recover and save this file. Do I need to purchase the registered version just to recover those extra MBs?
Hi Joe, Free Edition allows 1 GB of free recovery but to recover more files from the hard drive you need to upgrade to the Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery Pro Edition.
How I can recover the data from a bad DVD?
Hi chand, you need to use Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery Software for recovering the deleted data from a bad DVD. This data recovery software provided data recovery from FAT, ExFAT, NTFS based hard drive. You can check the detail features of this software from here. I hope, the answer will satisfy your problem.
My hard drive fell from the computer table and went dead, though blue light still turns on. I tried your data recovery application but it couldn’t mount the disk. I can understand that it might be beyond recognizing but how can it possibly be recovered?
Hi Simon,
NO data recovery software guarantees recovery of files from a physically damaged hard drive. But no worries since we have Class 100 Clean Rooms to salvage inaccessible data from burned, broken and failed hard disk drives. Do visit Stellar Data Recovery Services.