Even though you take good care of your Mac, if internal hard drive fails, your data will suffer as well. Thus, in this article, we will teach you to diagnose a failing hard drive from 9 common signs.
When it comes to hard drive failure, you must become concerned about the data stored in this hard drive, no matter on Windows-based PC or Mac. Therefore, it is quite essential for every user to develop a good habit of backing up valuable data on a periodical basis. It’s because data backups will facilitate future data recovery, such as readily getting back damaged PST data from backups in case of Outlook crashes. Also, it would be better if you can detect the hard drive failure before it fails. So, here we will unveil 9 most common signs of drive failure on Mac system.
1. Errors in Disk Utilities
As we all know, Mac comes with a built-in disk repair tool – Disk Utilities. It’s able to scan the hard drive and fix most drive errors. Thus, you can use it to scan your Mac hard drive. If you receive any error messages like “Error: This disk needs to be repaired” after running the tool, it is very likely that the drive is failing.
2. Find Files/Folders/Partitions Inaccessible
Moreover, assuming that any files, folders or drive partitions become inaccessible somehow, you should firstly consider if you’ve made any mistakes before. If not, you can suspect that your hard drive is suffering something wrong.
3. Files/Folders/Partitions Disappear Mysteriously
Similar to the above one, provided that any files, folders or partitions on the Mac suddenly disappear without letting you know, there is a chance that hard drive should be to blame.
4. Programs Run Abnormally
In addition, when hard drive fails, various issues can occur to every aspect of your Mac, such as applications. More specifically, if programs run abnormally on your Mac, like frequent crash, working extremely slowly, random error messages, etc., it is possible that the drive is the culprit.
5. Mac Operating System Get Unstable
Furthermore, if your Mac hard drive fails, your Mac operating system will become singularly unstable. For instance, it may frequently crash, hang, freeze or keep in not responding. Hence, if you encounter similar cases, you should take the hard drive health into consideration.
6. Mac Can’t Recognize the Hard Drive
Like common computers, if a hard drive is seriously malfunctioning, the Mac will be incapable of recognizing it as well. Therefore, if your Mac is unable to detect a hard drive when booting and fails to boot up, you can almost affirm that it’s the hard drive’s fault.
7. Strange Sounds from Hard Drive
For the hard drive that suffers drive head crashes, you will definitely hear some grinding or whining noise from it. And, head crash is a blazing severe case, which can lead to drive death directly. Hence, if you hear similar noises, you should stop any operations on the drive and recur to recovery specialists as soon as possible.
8. Mac Becomes Unusually Hot
In general, Mac will surely become hotter if you keep using it for a long time. But it is still a strange case when the Mac becomes extremely hot. Thereby, if you feel that your Mac is always prone to get too hot, you can think about if the hard drive is failing.
9. Smell Burning Plastic/Solder
One of the worst scenarios is that you smell burning plastic or solder from Mac. Under this circumstance, the hard drive may have been damaged physically and seriously. But you still can try rescuing it by resorting to disk repair experts.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including fix sql and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
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