MacOS – Unmountable HDD – Can I save the data

disk-utilityhard drivemacos

I have an iMac, and the internal HDD is failing. My files are still there, and I'm able to login, but it freezes when I try to do anything. I attempted to use asr in terminal to copy the entire Macintosh HD folder to an external HDD, but facepalm set the target as the WRONG HDD. When I hit enter, asr went through it's normal steps, and then hit PSTT 0 100 start restore and hung there for longer than I expected it to. Then I realized that I put the wrong target volume, and terminated the window.

Now, when I try to plug the HDD into my laptop, it doesn't mount. I can see it in Disk Utility and can run repair on it, but get the following:

"Problems were found with the partition map, that may prevent booting"

Trying to mount it in the terminal fails too.

I have Disk Warrior, and it can see the HDD (and even shows the name I set for it, whereas Disk Utility shows it as Untitled) but it says the drive is too big.

I have Drive Genius, but it shows up under devices and not volumes, so I can't repair it there either.

Can anyone help me fix the map?

Details:

UPDATE PER @DAVIDANDERSON'S REQ:

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk1 results:

     start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  732331114      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  732407920     158720      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  732566640          4         Sec GPT table
  732566644          1         Sec GPT header

results of sudo fdisk /dev/disk1:

Disk: /dev/disk1    geometry: 45600/255/63 [732566645 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  732566644] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

PARTITION STRUCTURE VIA TEST DISK

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - 732566645 sectors
Current partition structure:
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

 1 P EFI System                     6      76805      76800 [EFI System Partitio
No HFS or HFS+ structure
 2 P Mac HFS                    76806  732407919  732331114 [Holland Big Boy]
 2 P Mac HFS                    76806  732407919  732331114 [Holland Big Boy]
 3 P Mac Boot               732407920  732566639     158720 [Recovery HD]

ADDL UPDATE: Analysis via TestDisk – see below for progress

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - 732566645 sectors
Analyse sector   278102016/732566644: 00%


check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
  EFI System                     6      76805      76800 [EFI]
  Mac HFS                   156013  271598000  271441988

TESTDISK UPDATE
I have to stop the process prematurely – I brough tmy work laptop home to work on all of this, and unfortunately the scan didn't finish before I have to return to work. Progress below:

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - 732566645 sectors
Analyse sector   296943616/732566644: 00%


check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
  EFI System                     6      76805      76800 [EFI]
  Mac HFS                   156013  271598000  271441988
  Mac HFS                280526626  282014439    1487814
  Unknown                285399261  791014120  505614859
  Mac HFS                288815421  288905227      89807
  Mac HFS                288931061  289023226      92166
  Mac HFS                289086265  289190956     104691
  Mac HFS                290295252  291221714     926463



  Stop

UPDATE
I bought Disk Drill, scanned the drive, and was able to retrieve my files, copying now (3 days!!!!! ugh!!!!). Disk Drill categorized the found files by type – video/pictures/audio/etc and dumped all file name info – they're now file 000001.jpg etc. So I've lost file names and folder structure. I'm so grateful and happy to be able to have my files back, now hoping there's a way to get my structure/names back on the old drive… Any ideas?

Thank you!

Best Answer

I figured it out and I'm leaving my solution here in case someone else has the same issue:

I bought Disk Drill ($90 for the Pro version). Had it go through all recovery options for the drive (took 6 hours for a 3TB drive), which resulted in a list of files, organized by file type and without file info.

For example, all of my JPGs were in one folder, with names like file00001.jpg, file00002.jpg, etc.

I saved the session, went back, and had it search for lost HFS partitions and all my folders and file names are back.

UPDATE I started transferring my files over to a new drive, and unfortunately none of them are readable. All of them throw an error that says the file is either empty, or damaged/corrupted. Taking a couple steps back and transferring over the deep scan files instead - the unnamed/sorted-by-file-type versions. Although those don't have any organizational data, they are not damaged.

Any ideas of how I can recover my files WITH information intact would be much appreciated... Or a way to salvage the map of the original drive.

Related Solutions

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

Theoretically everything is fine with your Fusion Drive. Fusion Drives look like this. Disk0 is your SSD with 121 GB and disk1 is your HDD with ~1 TB (~1.121 TB summed up).

The larger parts of your SSD (disk0s2) and your HDD (disk1s2) are pooled to a CoreStorage LVG (Fusion Drive: disk3) with a size of 967.8 GB. The rest is reserved for EFIs, a Recovery HD (alltogether ~1.3 GB) and your old Windows partition - now probably free space (~152 GB).

The logical volume 'Macintosh HD' (967.8 GB) spans disk0s2 and disk1s2. This is the first 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1. The volume 'Macintosh HD' - it's the one visible on the desktop - should ideally also have about 967.8 GB. This is the second 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1.
In fact it has only 852.67 GB (see picture 3).

In the second picture the logical volume 'Macintosh HD' is the first listed in black, the volume 'Macintosh HD' is the second listed in black, the other two 'Macintosh HD's listed in grey are the parts of your SSD and HDD dedicated to the logical volume 'Macintosh HD'.

In my opinion something went wrong after deleting various partitions with the Bootcamp Assistant/Disk Utility or in Windows.

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite).

Now you may either repair CoreStorage or rebuild your Fusion Drive:

'Repair CoreStorage' (not recommended):

First i would try to check the volume 'Macintosh HD' with Disk Utility. If the volume is corrupted consider a reinstall of Mac OS X.
If the volume is ok quit Disk Utility
Open Terminal and enter diskutil unmountDisk /dev/LVIdentifier and both diskutil unmountDisk /dev/DiskContainingApple_CoreStorageIdentifier
In your case: first diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3 then diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
remove the EFI NO NAME partition with gpt remove -i IndexNumberOfEFINoName DiskIdentifier:
gpt remove -i 4 disk1
Remount the CoreStorage disks and then the Logical Volume:
In your case: first diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk1 and then diskutil mount /dev/disk3.

enter gpt -r -vvv show /dev/diskIdentfierOfApple_CoreStorage to get infos of your HDD CoreStorage disk.
In your case: gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
It should look like this:

-bash-3.2# gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512;         blocks=1953525168
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, start=40, size=409600
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=409640, size=1671210848
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=1671620488, size=1269760
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167                               
     start          size  index contents                                        
         0             1        PMBR                                            
         1             1        Pri GPT header                                  
         2            32        Pri GPT table                                   
        34             6
        40        409600      1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640    1671210848      2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1671620488       1269760      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1672890248     280634887
1953525135            32        Sec GPT table
1953525167             1        Sec GPT header

The free space on your HDD has 280634887 blocks. Please calculate the biggest block number dividable through 8. That's 280634880 blocks (á 512 bytes) which equals 143685058560 B or ~143.7 GB. Add the size of your HDD CoreStorage Physical Volume (852666400768 B) The result is 143685058560 B + 852666400768 B = 996351459328 B
Resize your HDD CoreStorage physical volume with diskutil cs resizeDisk HDDPVUUID newsize
In your case: diskutil cs resizeDisk 93892BE8-2B7F-4ABD-A4C3-984495DCD98D 996351459328b
Calculate the maximal size of your CoreStorage Logical Volume in diskutil cs list: (size disk0s2) + (size disk1s2) In your case that's 120988852224 B + 996351459328 B = 1117340311552 B. That should be the size of your refreshed Logical Volume Group.
Resize your Logical Volume with diskutil cs resizeVolume LVUUID LVGSize-128 MB In your case that's diskutil cs resizeVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0 1117212311552b. If you get an error (There is not enough free space...) choose a smaller size like 1117148311552b.
Quit Terminal and open Disk Utility.
Check your expanded CoreStorage Volume for errors.
Quit Disk Utility, choose your CS volume as startup disk and restart your Mac

'Rebuild Fusion Drive' (recommended if you have a Time Machine backup)

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:
diskutil cs list to get the CoreStorage listing.
Copy the Logical Volume UUID, it's the fifth listed.
Now delete the Logical Volume with diskutil cs deleteVolume LVUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs deleteVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0.
Copy the Logical Volume Group UUID, it's the first listed in the listing of diskutil cs list.
Then delete the Logical Volume Group with diskutil cs delete LVGUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs delete 1EFE58BC-3613-44C4-86EE-D816F3B66E3E
Enter exit and quit 'Terminal'
Open 'Disk Utility'. Enter 'Ignore' if you are asked to fix the drives.
Choose your SSD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~121 GB

Example:
Choose your HDD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~1 TB

Example:
Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal
Enter diskutil list

Example (your disk identifiers and sizes are different of course: Your volume SSD probably has the Identifier disk0s2 and the size 121 GB and your volume HDD probably has the Identifier disk1s2 and the size 1.0 TB):
Enter diskutil cs create "Name" IdentifierSSD IdentifierHDD
In your case probably diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0s2 disk1s2.

Copy the resulting LVGUUID

Example:
Enter diskutil cs CreateVolume LVGUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.

Example:
Enter diskutil cs list
Check the size of your Logical Volume. It should have the size ~1.121 TB

Example:
Quit Terminal
Open 'Disk Utility' and check your newly created volume for errors
Quit 'Disk Utility'
Attach your external Time Machine backup drive or check this answer if you use NAS or another network share.
Open 'Restore from Time Machine Backup'
Choose the appropriate Time Machine backup and restore your system
Reboot to your restored system.
Unmount and detach your Time Machine backup drive
Open 'Terminal' and enter 'diskutil list'
Check if your 'Recovery HD' is listed.
If your 'Recovery HD' is missing, usually reinstalling your current system with the latest available system installer (e.g. 'Install OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)' if Mavericks is currently installed) will recreate it without loosing any data. AFAIK Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 will NOT create a Recovery HD on CoreStorage volumes.
After reinstalling the system with the latest available system installer open App Store and install the latest security fixes.

MacOS – Erasing and Partitioning Hard Drive from Internet Recovery

This sounds like your hard drive failed entirely. I see that it's a typical SATA drive in that model. You should be able to open it up and remove the drive, then wire the drive to a desktop and see if it is detected. If it is not, that confirms that the hardware failed.

Comment by OP: It turned out to be a SATA cable failure, see Hard Drive Issues with MacBook Pro 13-inch mid-2012.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

MacOS – Erasing and Partitioning Hard Drive from Internet Recovery

Related Question