In recent times, external hard drives have emerged as a popular option for increasing the storage capacity on Macs. You require them to store local backups created using tools like Time Machine and they are also an easy method to share files or transfer data between devices.
However, as is the case with any digital storage medium, external hard drives are prone to a variety of data loss situations, often caused by human error, such as accidental deletion, formatting or failure of their internal delicate parts.
But the good news is that if you possess appropriate tools and knowledge about safe data recovery processes, it’s quite simple to recover data from an external hard drive. To guide you, we have put together an in-depth guide that includes step-by-step instructions for recovering data from an external hard drive on Mac.
Is it Possible to Recover Data from an External Hard Drive?
Yes, it’s absolutely possible to recover data from an external hard drive. Still, the chance of success depends on various parameters such as the reason for data loss and your external hard drive’s health.
To help you understand better, here’s an overview of some common external drive data loss situations and how certain factors can affect recovery.
Accidental deletion or formatting: This usually occurs when you end up deleting files and folders on the external drive by mistake. In this case, macOS will temporarily place these items in the Trash folder, allowing you to recover them.
However, if the Trash is emptied or the drive is formatted, the file entries are erased from the system’s directory, complicating the recovery. In most cases, the actual data still remains on the storage drive until it gets overwritten by new information. This gives you a windows to recover it using a specialized data recovery software.
File system corruption: The file system may be corrupted by problems such as software bugs, system crashes, shutdowns, or hardware failure. File corruption may leave data lost, the file information may disappear, or even the whole volume can become unrecoverable.
In such scenarios, chances of recovery are based on the intensity and extent of corruption. Although certain file system issues can be fixed with native tools, more severe ones need specialized recovery software.
Defective hard drive: If your external hard drive is encountering errors, making your system freeze, or can’t read/write data, it might have developed bad sectors, or worse become corrupted. You can recover the data by bypassing or fixing the bad sectors and building up the data using data recovery software but the success rate depends heavily.
How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive on Mac?
There are various methods to recover files from an external drive. Below we will describe all the possible methods to recover lost or deleted files from external hard drive on your Mac.
Note: The moment you find data loss on your external drive, immediately stop using it to avoid overwriting the lost files. Also, don’t format your drive to repair any errors since it may cause permanent data loss.
Method 1: Recover Lost or Deleted Files Using Data Recovery Software
If haven’t backed up your external hard drive using any of the methods discussed below, using a Mac data recovery software is your best chance to get them back. Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac is designed to recover your deleted or lost files, folders, media, documents, and so forth.
If you’ve erased your external storage drive or cleared the Trash, this DIY solution is here to assist in retrieving your files from various data loss situations. To recover data from an external hard drive using Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac, do the following:
Step 1: Download, install, and run the software on your Mac.
Step 2: On the What to Recover screen, choose the file type you wish to recover and click Next.
Step 3: Then choose your external HDD as the storage drive to recover from and click Scan.
Step 4: The recovered files will be shown for you to Preview.
Step 5: Choose the files you need and click on Recover to transfer them back to your preferred destination.
Method 2: Recover Lost or Deleted Files Using Trash
If you can’t locate files from the external hard drive, the last place you’d want to search for them would be your Mac’s Trash. Files deleted end up in Trash until the folder is emptied and are easily retrievable from there. Here’s the rundown:
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive into the Mac and open up the Trash folder.
Step 2: Find and select the deleted files in the Trash folder.
Step 3: Tap with two fingers and select Put Back.
Your files will be restored to their original place. If you are unable to locate your files in Trash, proceed to the next methods listed below.
Method 3: Restore Lost or Deleted Files Using Backups
After losing data from your external drive, having backup of it can save your life. In the next section we’re going to discuss how to restore data from both Time Machine and iCloud backups.
Recover Using iCloud
Having your data backed up to iCloud allows you to restore it on any device as long as you have an internet connection and your iCloud account credentials. Below is how to do that:
Step 1: Open your browser, navigate to icloud.com and log in to your account.
Step 2: Tap on the iCloud drive and navigate through the folders to find your files.
Step 3: Choose the files you wish to recover and tap the download icon to restore them to your Mac.
Note: Files in iCloud’s Recently Deleted folder remain there for 30 days only.
Recover Using Time Machine
Once set up, Time Machine, the built-in backup utility on Macs works in the background to automatically create incremental backups of your files and folders. However, this method will only work if you have backed up your external drive using Time Machine.
Here’s how to recover your files using Time Machine:
Step 1: Connect the Time Machine backup drive to your computer.
Step 2: Navigate to the folder containing your lost files.
Step 3: Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar now and choose Browse Time Machine Backups.
Step 4: Navigate back to an earlier date and time by using the timeline on the right or using the navigation arrows.
Step 5: Locate the file, choose it and click Restore to relocate it to where it originally was.
Summing Up
The recovery techniques described above should be able to recover your data. In case they fail, we recommend using Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to reclaim your lost files.
Just remember to move fast and don’t use your external hard drive until you have recovered your data successfully to avoid it from being overwritten or damaged. Also, adopt the best practice of regularly backing up your data to avoid experiencing such problems in the future.
