How to Retrieve Data from Crashed External Hard Drive on Mac?

“I have a 500 GB Western Digital external drive that crashed two days ago. When I connect my WD drive to Mac Book I can see the blue light on and I can hear the hard drive spinning, and then it sound like stuck or clicking. I separately need to find the way to fix the external hard drive or recover the data from it. This 500 GB was my main HD and I have so much important data that I needed to recover, but I don’t have any backups. I had thousands of pictures, family videos, documents, letters, personal information and personal journals that I’ve been keeping over years in this external hard drive. Somebody was telling me that there is special software that will recognize the HD and allow you to recover the data. If there are any solutions for this problem then, please help me to get out of it!!!”

In most cases, I have seen users who have lost their data from external HD; it is because they don’t have backups. If you came to know that your external drive is crashed, then don’t take any measures on it. Instead you just disconnect the external drive from the Mac machine and connect it to other machines to check whether it is working properly. If it is not responding, then you can try to recover your data from external drive by making use of good external hard disk recovery software.

What are the causes for external hard drive crash?

The main reasons for external drive crash on Mac OS X are mentioned below:

  • External hard drive crash might happen due to interruptions while you are transferring data from external hard drive to Mac machine
  • If you are accessing the external drive on Mac machine and suddenly power goes off, then your external hard drive may likely to get crashed
  • If read or write header is not working properly in your drive, then it would cause failure of external hard drive
  • During file system conversion, if you don’t follow the proper procedure then your external drive may get crashed
  • If data on external drive is rigorously infected from virus or malware then your drive becomes inaccessible
  • Creation of too many bad sectors, external hard drive heat touching the platter, aging of external hard drive, etc can cause external hard drive  crash

    • These are the common circumstances which leads to external hard drive crash and if you came across such situation, then don’t panic. The data is not lost forever; it is only invisible from your computer. You can use recovery software to retrieve your data from crashed external drive on Mac OS X.

How can I recover files from crashed external hard drive on Mac:

Yodot Mac Data Recovery tool is specially designed to recover data from crashed external hard drive on Mac OS X. It will also recover data from formatted or re-formatted drives from external drives on Mac Operating System and all type of storage devices. This tool also retrieves data that are accidentally deleted or lost from internal Mac hard drive volumes, flash drives and other storage drives. You can also use this software to get back your data from MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and other devices that use Macintosh Operating System.

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Procedure for using Yodot Mac Data Recovery tool:

  • First connect your crashed external hard drive on Mac machine
  • Download and install Yodot Mac Data Recovery toll in your Mac machine
  • Run the software to begin recovery process and follow the instructions that are present on screen
  • The main screen will display two options i.e. “Volume Recovery” or “Formatted/Reformatted Recovery”
  • Select the appropriate option based on your data loss circumstances
  • The software scans your entire Mac machine and displays all logical volumes including the external hard drive
  • Select the external drive volume from which you need to retrieve your data and click on “Next” option
  • In next window you can choose a particular file type or simply press “Skip” option to select all file types by default
  • The application will display all the recovered data from selected volume and you can preview them in Data or File Type view
  • Use “Save Recovery Session” option to save the scanned information
  • Finally save the recovered data to your desired destination (and not from the volume which you are trying to retrieve your data)

Useful Tips:

  • It is good to have regularly backup your crucial data
  • Don’t use any third party application to create or delete volumes on external drives
  • Scan your external hard drive when it is connected to different Mac machines, so that your data cannot be infected by virus or malware

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