Sep 06, 2019 Because the file system on the WD Passport For Mac external hard drive is a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This file system is also call HFS+. A Windows PC cannot see, read, write to that file system. To share that drive between a Mac and Windows PC you need software. Software that translates HFS+ into something the PC can understand.
Summary: Don’t panic if your Mac SATA hard drive becomes inaccessible and you are worried about your data. This blog is going to help you convert a failing Mac SATA hard drive to an external drive for data recovery. Try the below data recovery application on your Mac for free.
Mac SATA Hard Drive
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives are widely used disks. All thanks to its attributes like quick data transfer through higher signalling rates, native hot swapping, reduced cable size & cost, and much more.
A drive can be used on any type of computer - PC or Mac. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. This article explains about file systems and provides instruction to format a drive on Windows and Mac. Nov 19, 2007 The drive will currently be in FAT32 or NTFS format. Connect the drive to the iMac. It will load on the desktop. Copy any data off the drive. Open Macintosh HD Applications Utilities Disk Utility.; Select the drive in the left hand pane.
However, despite being so intuitive, at times it too starts failing due to one or other reason like firmware or electrical. When such condition strikes in, Mac hard drive recovery from an inaccessible SATA hard drive becomes a foremost need to avoid data loss and any possible impact on business.
To understand, let us consider a real-life example of John
“A few days back, I got my MacBook Air repaired from the Apple store. They replaced my old hard drive with a brand new SATA. Further, for my convenience, they also transferred the data from my older drive to a new SATA drive. However, now after a few days, I realized that there are a few missing files that I need urgently. I don’t know why they were missed in the data transferring process, the only important point hovering in my mind right now is its retrieval. Unfortunately, I do not have a backup. Thankfully, Apple gave a ray of hope by providing me with my older drive, and it is still functional partially.
Now, the only big query, how can I recover my missing files from my older & at-times visible disk. Please advise!”
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By unveiling the results of several discussions done on forums, it will not be erroneous to state that converting Mac SATA hard drive to an external drive is a viable solution.
Next, how to go about the conversion of internal Mac SATA to an external drive?
The process to convert Mac SATA hard drive to an external for data recovery is very simple.
What is required from you?
Your Partially Functioning Hard Drive
A Brand New External Drive Enclosure (You can purchase it from Amazon or eBay)
A screwdriver to bolt and unbolt the enclosure screws
Step 1. Unscrew all the screws and remove the brackets from hard drive.
Step 2. Open up the enclosure and slide the hard drive into the enclosure in the right way up as per the SATA Port orientation.
Step 3. Bolt the screws
You have successfully placed the SATA drive into the enclosure. Next, attach the enclosure to your Mac using the included USB cable to recover the data.
Now, when you connect the SATA drive to your system, you may encounter two scenarios as mentioned in the below figure.
Scenario 1: You Can See the Drive on Desktop
In this case, simply copy all the data from the drive to your new Macintosh HD. Adding more, you can also Clone or Image the older SATA drive using Disk Utility.
Scenario 2: You Cannot See the Drive on Desktop
If you are unable to view your Drive on Desktop or Finder even after placing it in an enclosure, then go to Disk Utility and verify it in the list of the unmounted drive.
Fortunately, if you can find it over there, then you can trust Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software to regain inaccessible data from your SATA external hard drive. This software is coined as the best Mac data recovery tool because of its smart attributes like recovery from a Corrupt disk, Time Machine hard drive, BootCamp Partition and Encrypted Media, etc.
Watch the Video to Know – How Stellar Data Recovery for Mac Works?
Conclusion
Go for placing your internal SATA Mac disk drive into a brand new enclosure. Fortunately, if this works, you will be able to copy back your files. However, in case, it doesn’t work as planned, then leverage Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to scan and recover the converted SATA drive for recovering files.
Give a free shot to the Stellar Data Recovery application. The software is macOS Catalina, Mojave compatible.
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The Hard Drives formatted for mac have an HFS+ file system. This file system is specifically for Mac systems and windows can’t read this file system. You can have access to the HFS + file system hard drive on windows with the help of any third party software. There are a number of tools that can help you in this regard. But using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. A user has to know how to convert Mac formatted hard drive to Windows formatted.
The Windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the Mac systems. Windows-formatted hard drives have either NTFS file system of an FAT32 file system. Thus in order to make the hard drive Windows formatted, you have to convert the file system to NTFS or FAT32. In the further discussion, you will learn how to make a hard drive useful for Windows by changing the formatting of the drive.
Get a Backup
Before going ahead and formatting your hard drive for Windows, you should get a backup. Formatting of any kind can leave the hard drive totally empty by erasing all your data. There are a number of instances when users lose their important data due to formatting. It is very important to save the integrity of your data on the hard drive.
You can take help of any third party tool to make a backup of your hard drive. Or you may opt to make a normal backup in your external drive or another computer. Make sure you perform all the backup properly, an improper operation may leave the hard drive with error and hard drive may ask for formatting before use. However, data from formatted disk error in Windows can be recovered generally with any good tool.
Taking a proper backup is very important for your data before formatting your hard drive. Some of the most important things to take care of involve using a hard drive carefully during any kind of transfer, installation or formatting.
Delete the Mac Formatted Partition
The first step in this regard should be deleting the Mac partition with HFS + file system. In order to make it possible, you have to run the disk management tool. Here is how to do it:
Right-click on Windows icon, select Disk Management.
Select the Mac drive from the list of drives - Make sure this is the drive you want to work on, if you do it for the Windows formatted drive in the list, it may cost you a lot of important data.
Right Click on the partition and select Delete Volume – This will remove the partition.
Right click on the space and select New Simple Volume from the list.
Set the file system as NTFS or FAT 32 according to your need.
Delete EFI System Partition
Most of the times the mac drives are formatted with an EFI system partition. This is secure than the simple partition and you can’t right click and format the drive. To format such a partition, you have to go through a complete wipe out of your hard drive. If your Mac drive has an EFI partition, follow the steps to format it:
Go to device management window – As explained in the above section.
Locate your drive partition which has Mac format file system.
Note the disk number from the window
To go to command prompt – Type Run in Search Box on Taskbar and press Enter > Type cmd and press Enter
OR
Go to Windows > Type cmd and press Enter
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Type diskpart in the command prompt window and press Enter
Type list disk in the diskpart window and press Enter
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Find your disk with the disk number that you have seen initially
Type select disk <disk number> and press Enter
Type Clean and press Enter
This will clean your hard drive all the data will wipe out. Now in order to use this on Windows, you have to designate a file system to the hard drive partitions.
Assign NTFS File System
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Once you have wiped out the content of your disk along with file system that was stopping it from use by Windows. you can go ahead and give a file system to the partitions:
Go to disk management again
Select the Mac disk from the list of drives – It shows Not initialized message in the empty disk.
Right-click on the disk and select Initialize disk
Create a partition for your disk
Right click and select New Simple Volume
Set the file system as NTFS or FAT32 as per your requirement
The drive is now formatted and ready to use in Windows Operating System.