Mar 12, 2020 Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended. Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. There has never been any way to see the S.M.A.R.T. Decided to give this a try and the first thing that pops up is that my Crucial M4 SSD was close to failure because of a bug in the microcode. I have not tried to use this to look at my USB attached drives, since the only one I have is a small external that I boot from in emergencies. Jul 09, 2020 Read Case Study: Whooping 94% data recovered from unmounted external drive on MacBook Pro. Mac hard drive running slow. Problem: Aging and prolonged usage can slow down a Mac.Also, a lot of other factors can degrade your Mac performance, like hard drive becoming full, macOS being outdated, several login items enabled, many apps running in the background, hardware issues, etc. Nov 14, 2019 First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.
Summary :
This tutorial offers some ways to allow you check hard drive or USB flash drive health for free in Windows 10. You can check the detailed guides. Still, if you lost some important data in your hard drive or USB drive, you can use the professional data recovery software from MiniTool to easily recover lost data for free.
Quick Navigation :
- How do I check external USB drive health?
- How to check my hard drive health Windows 10?
If you find your hard drive or USB flash drive can’t work well and wonder how to check hard drive or USB drive health in Windows 10, you can try some of the free ways below.
This post introduces how to check USB flash drive or hard drive health for free with Windows 10 CHKDSK or Scandisk utility. You can also use the best free hard drive partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard to easily check and repair hard disk errors in Windows 10.
Besides, if you mistakenly deleted or unexpectedly lost some important data in your hard drive or USB flash drive, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to easily recover the deleted/lost files for free.
How to Check Hard Drive Health (Internal/External HDD, USB) in Windows 10
Method 1. Use Windows 10 CHKDSK Utility
Improper use or mechanical shock of drive can cause logical corruption and failure, physical scratches and damages, or other disk errors to hard drive. When things go wrong with your hard drive or USB, you can try the simple method first to check hard drive health: use Windows 10 CHKDSK tool to check and fix hard disk errors.
Tip: This method works with computer local hard drive, as well as external hard drive and USB flash drive. To check errors in external HDD or USB, you should connect the external hard drive or USB to your Windows 10 computer at first.
Step 1. You can open elevated Command Prompt in Windows 10 since running CHKDSK needs administrator privileges.
You can press Windows + R, type cmd in Run box, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 2. In Command Prompt window, you can type the command chkdsk *: /f, and hit Enter key on the keyboard. Replace “*” with the actual drive letter of the target drive. The CHKDSK tool will start checking the hard drive or USB health, namely, it will scan and fix detected errors in the external hard drive or USB.
Tip: If you want to find out if there are any bad sectors on the hard disk, you can run chkdsk *: /r command in Command Prompt. This command will take a longer time since it will scan each sectors on the disk. You can check chkdsk /f or /r for more information about these two CHKDSK commands.
Step 3. After CHKDSK finishes the hard disk health check and repair, you can type Exit or click Close icon to close Command Prompt window.
Method 2. Use Scandisk to Check USB/Hard Drive Health
Windows offers another disk error checking tool Scandisk which allows you to check and fix hard disk errors. You can check below how to check hard drive health or USB health with Scandisk.
Step 1. You can click This PC or press Windows + E to open File Explorer window. In the Devices and Drives section, you can right-click the target drive you’d like to scan and choose Properties.
Step 2. Next you can tap Tools tab, and click Check button under Error checking section.
Step 3. In the pop-up Error Checking window, you can ignore the “You don’t need to scan this drive” message and click Scan drive to start scanning the drive for errors. If errors are found, you can decide if you want to fix them.
Method 3. Use MiniTool Partition Wizard
To check hard drive or USB health, the third-party free hard drive partition manager - MiniTool Partition Wizard - is also professional. It also works for SSD health check.
MiniTool Partition Wizard can detect and fix disk file system errors, find hard disk bad sectors, test hard drive speed, analyze hard drive space usage.
Besides, MiniTool Partition Wizard also allows you to easily create/resize/extend/format/wipe hard drive partitions, convert partition format, copy disk, migrate Windows 10 OS to SSD, and more.
Free download the free hard disk health check software MiniTool Partition Wizard on your Windows 10 computer, and check the guides below on how to check hard drive health Windows 10.
Step 1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter into its main interface. Right-click the partition on the hard drive (internal or external) or USB drive, and select Check File System.
Step 2. In the pop-up Check File System window, you can choose Check & fix detected errors option, and click Start button.
Step 3. If you want to check bad sectors on the drive, you can right-click the target partition and choose Surface Test option. MiniTool Partition Wizard will start checking if there are any bad sectors on the hard drive or USB drive.
Projektmanagement software mac os x. If your USB flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up in Windows 10, you can check the tutorials below for some solutions:
If you meet problem when trying to eject USB or external hard drive in Windows 10, you can check this tutorial: 12 Ways to Fix Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device Win 10.
How to Recover Data from Your Hard Drive or USB
If your USB or external hard drive has problems and you lost some data on it, you can use the professional data recovery software to recover data and files after you use one the three ways above to check hard drive/USB health and fix errors.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery, the best data recovery software for Windows 10, enables you to easily recover deleted files and lost data from computer local hard drive, external hard drive, USB, SSD, SD card, etc.
You can also try this data recovery program to recover data from formatted/corrupted/damaged/dead drive, USB, SD card. MiniTool Power Data Recovery helps you tackle various data loss situations incl. mistaken file deletion, hard drive failure, malware/virus infection, system crash, etc. (Related: Recover data when PC won’t boot)
Note: If you mistakenly deleted some files or lost some important data on the drive, you should stop using that drive immediately, and timely use data recovery software to retrieve deleted/lost files. This is because it’s very hard to recover overwritten files if the disk is overwritten.
Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your Windows 10 computer, and check the easy steps below for how to recover data from hard drive, USB, etc.
Step 1. If you want to recover data from USB pen drive or external hard drive, you should connect it to your computer beforehand. After that, you can launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery to access its main UI.
Step 2. Choose the corresponding device category from the left column. To recover data from your PC, you can click This PC; to recover data from external hard drive, you can choose Hard Disk Drive; to recover data from USB or SD card, you can choose Removable Disk Drive; to recover data from DVD or CD, you should choose CD/DVD drive.
After you choose the main device category, you can choose the target partition or drive from the right window.
Then you can click Scan button to start scanning all data including deleted or lost files on the device.
Step 3. After it finishes the data scan, you can check the scan result to find deleted/lost files, and click Save button to set a new device or destination to store the recovered deleted/lost files.
Back Up Data and Files Before You Format the Hard Drive or USB
After you use the ways above to check hard drive/USB health, and recover data from the drive, you can format the drive if problems still exist.
Before you format the drive, you should copy and back up all needed data. For external hard drive and USB drive, you can connect them to your computer and copy files to another safe device.
If you want to format a computer hard drive, you should not format the OS partition. If you really need to format the system partition, you should migrate Windows 10 OS to another HDD or SSD.
As the professional free PC system and file backup software, MiniTool ShadowMaker helps you easily back up Windows system, files and folders, partitions or whole disk content at fast speed. Besides, you can also use MiniTool ShadowMaker to easily backup and restore Windows system.
Free download MiniTool ShadowMaker and check the easy user guide below.
Step 1. Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker and click Keep Trial button to enter into main UI. Click Connect button under This Computer.
Step 2. Next you can click Backup module at the toolbar. Click Source section to choose the source files and folders, or partitions you want to backup. And click Destination section to choose the destination path to store the backups.
Step 3. When everything is settled, you can click Back up Now button to start backing up the selected files or partitions to the destination.
After you backed up the needed data, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard, Disk Management, or Diskpart command line to easily reformat hard drive for free if needed.
Verdict
This post provides ways to help you check hard drive or USB health in Windows 10 for free, and offers solutions to recover lost data and back up data for free. If you still have questions about how to use MiniTool software, please contact [email protected].
Check Hard Drive/USB Drive Health FAQ
Follow the guides above in this tutorial to use CHKDSK, Scandisk, MiniTool Partition Wizard to easily check hard drive health in Windows 10.
? How do I check for bad sectors on my hard drive?
To check for bad sectors on hard disk, you can run chkdsk /r command in Command Prompt window, or, use MiniTool Partition Wizard’s Surface Test function to accomplish the task.
There are some causes and signs indicating hard drive failure, you can check: Here Are 6 Signs Indicating Hard Drive Failure.
⏰ How can I check the health of my USB hard drive?
You can use CHKDSK, Scandisk, MiniTool Partition Wizard or WMIC command to check the health of USB hard drive. As for how to use WMIC command to check hard disk, you can press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Enter to open Command Prompt. Then you can type wmic command and hit Enter. Continue to type diskdrive get status command, and hit Enter. You can see if the hard drive status is OK.
Get a data lifeguard for Mac
Disk Drill brings deleted files back from the dead.
Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.
However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.
Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.
How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac
Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.
Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac
Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac
Start with the basics:
- Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop.
- Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
- Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
- Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh.
- Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report. - Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
- Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
- Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.
Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.
How to show connected devices in Finder
- Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
- From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.
In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.
How to add cloud storages to Finder
You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.
Repair the failed external drives with First Aid
If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.
To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:
- Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder > Application > Utility
- Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.
If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.
How to recover data from a crashed drive
Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.
Get a file recovery app
With Setapp you get a pack of professional tools for file recovery and Mac maintenance.
An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive
Mac Os Check External Usb Drive Status System
Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:
- Connect your drive to the Mac.
- Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
- Launch Disk Drill.
- Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
- To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
- Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
- Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
- Disk Drill “strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”
- A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
- Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.
Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.
A few more tips on getting your files back
![Usb Usb](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133282474/637876995.jpeg)
- Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither work, it’s recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
- Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
- Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
- CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties.
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Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:
- Shut down and unplug the power adapter
- Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
- Release all keys
- Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on
For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.
What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.
How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac
The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.
If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.
Mac Os Check External Usb Drive Status Tool
Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:
- Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as fuse-ext2 module.
- Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility’s debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
- Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
- In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
- Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
- For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.
Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.
![Errors Errors](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133282474/632193384.jpg)
- Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
- A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
- Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
- Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
- Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
- Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
- Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
- Physically remove the disk from you Mac
- Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it
Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.
To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.