Summary :
Subject: Pros & Cons using Apple’s Disk Utility vs. SoftRAID for Managing RAID sets? I’ve been using Apple’s Disk Utility (DU) for ages and purchased a SoftRAID full license in Dec 2015 to handle RAID sets beyond what DU offered. The prospect of configuring RAID-5 using SoftRAID appealed to me for protecting against a single drive failure.
- Apple reserves the right to refuse or limit the quantity of any device for any reason. In the Apple Store: Offer only available on presentation of a valid, government-issued photo ID (local law may require saving this information). Value of your current device may be applied toward purchase of a new Apple device.
- Apple took system protection to the next level in macOS 10.15 Catalina by splitting your normal boot volume into two pieces. And is tagged in Disk Utility with a Home icon over its disk icon.
- Mac Disk Utility. Note: formatted data can be recovered by data recovery software. Disk Utility is a built-in app in macOS. When you open this app, it will show all the hard drives and devices on your Mac. You can use the erase function to format a hard drive or device.
Do you know what Disk Utility Mac is? Do you know how to access it and use it to partition, wipe, repair, restore, and copy a drive on your Mac? If your Mac data gets lost by mistake when using Disk Utility, do you know how to get it back? MiniTool Solution will show you the answers in this post.
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What Is Disk Utility on Mac?
Disk Utility is a hard disk management tool that comes with your Mac operating system. It can be used for disk partition and disk volume-related tasks on your Mac computer.
What does Disk Utility Do on a Mac?
To be specific, Mac Disk Utility can do these things for you:
- Format volumes on your Mac storage devices.
- Manage volumes on your Mac storage devices.
- Create a disk image for data migration/backup/archive.
- Combine multiple hard disks into a RAID set to make it act as a single disk.
- Check for and repair disk errors on your Mac.
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When Use Disk Utility on Mac?
Under these situations, you can use Mac Disk Utility to fix your issues:
- One or more applications on Mac quit unexpectedly.
- There are some corrupted files on your Mac.
- You need to mount, unmount, or eject a disk.
- You need to change the file system of a disk or a partition on Mac.
- There is something wrong with your startup disk.
- There is a damaged or corrupted disk on your Mac and you need to repair it.
- You need to erase, format a partition or a disk for some reason.
- And more….
How to Use Disk Utility on Mac?
Now, we will show you how to use Mac Disk Utility including how to open it and how to use it to solve your issues.
How to use Disk Utility on Mac:
- Open Disk Utility on Mac
- Partition drives or format partition on Mac
- Repair the file system on Mac
- Wipe a partition or a drive on Mac
- Create and restore a disk image on Mac
- Set up RAID disk sets on Mac
How do I Open Disk Utility on Mac?
Where is Disk Utility on Mac? You can’t directly find Mac Disk Utility on the desktop. Then, how to access Disk Utility on Mac? There are different methods in different situations. Here we will show you some universal methods.
Way 1: Open Disk Utility via Spotlight Search
- Press Command+Space on your keyboard or click the Spotlight icon in the upper-right corner of the top menu bar to open Spotlight search.
- Type Disk Utility into the search box.
- Double-click Disk Utility - Utilities from the search results to open it.
Way 2: Open Disk Utility via Launchpad
1. Press the F4 button to open Launchpad.
2. Select the Other folder from the Launchpad.
3. Select Disk Utility to open it.
Way 3: Open Disk Utility via Finder
- Click Finder from the bottom menu on your Mac.
- Click Application from the left sidebar, double-click the Utilities folder, and double-click Disk Utility to open it.
Way 4: Open Disk Utility via Recovery Mode
High definition audio recording software. You can also access Disk Utility via Recovery Mode. This method is especially useful when your Mac won’t turn on.
- Press and hold Command+R when you boot your Mac.
- You will enter Mac Recovery Mode, seeing the following interface. Then, you need to select Disk Utility and click Continue to open it.
Tip: In Recovery Mode, your macOS can run in a special environment, allowing you to use Disk Utility to wipe or repartition the whole drive.
How to Partition Drives and Format Partitions on Mac?
Apple Disk Utility Clone
How to View All Devices in Disk Utility?
In Disk Utility, you can see all the internal and external drives on your Mac. You can also see all the mounted volumes on the left side list. But you can’t see the empty hard drives by default. You need to go to Views > Show All Devices to make Disk Utility show a tree of drives and the internal partitions.
The parent drive stands for a separate physical drive and the drive icon in the subdirectory stands for a partition on that drive.
Do you know how to clear disk space on Mac? In this post, we will show you how to free up disk space on Mac automatically and manually.
How to Partition or Format a Drive on Mac?
To manage a specific partition on your Mac, you need to click the parent drive and then select the targeted partition from its subdirectory. You will enter the partition layout interface as follows. Then, you can resize, create, rename, delete, and reformat that partition.
![Apple disk utility erase Apple disk utility erase](https://help.apple.com/assets/5C072579094622C40134BD65/5C07257A094622C40134BD6C/en_US/4facbfe0a5d634962f5c839303b1ede2.png)
Tip: Many of the operations in this interface are destructive for the data. So you’d better back up your Mac with Time Machine beforehand.
However, if you want to partition your system disk, you will need to do the job in Recovery Mode. But there is an exception: APFS volumes. APFS is a new file system on Mac. It is the default file system on the solid-state drive (SSD) since macOS High Sierra. Complex flat file stage datastage example programs.
If you want to add a new APFS volume, you can just select the system disk, click Edit > Add APFS from the menu bar, and then set up the volume according to your requirements.
Want an alternative to Time Machine for Windows 10/8/7 to back up your PC? MiniTool ShadowMaker is the best alternative to keep your PC safe.
How to Repair File System on Mac?
If the drive on your Mac is corrupted, damaged, or inaccessible, you can use the First Aid feature in Disk Utility to check the file system for errors and then correct them.
You can just:
- Select the drive you want to fix from the left drive list.
- Click the First Aid button. The file system checking and fixing process will start automatically. If it is checking your system drive, your Mac will have no response. You should wait until the whole process ends.
Get 'Disk Utility can't repair this disk' error message on Mac when using Disk Utility to fix certain disk problems? Here are the solutions!
How to Wipe a Partition or a Drive on Mac?
The Erase feature in Disk Utility allows you to securely erase all data on a disk or a partition. You can even only erase the free space using it.
- Select the drive or partition you want to wipe.
- Click the Erase button on the top menu.
- Click Security Option and then select a security level to overwrite the data on the drive.
The Fastest option is not a secure choice because a Mac data recovery program can recover these erased files. You can switch to the next level to erase the drive. Of course, you can use a more advanced level to erase the drive.
Note: This feature is only available for a mechanical drive. You should not do this to a solid-state drive because it just wears down the drive for no advantage.
How to Create and Restore a Disk Image on Mac?
How to Create a Disk Image on Mac?
1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. You can also use other methods mentioned in this post to open Disk Utility on Mac.
2. On the Menu bar, you need to go to File > New Image > Image from Folder.
3. Select your startup disk ad then click Open.
4. Type a name for the disk image and add tags for it if necessary. Then, select a location to save it.
5. You can encrypt the disk image by clicking the Encryption pop-out menu and choosing an encryption option.
6. Click the Format pop-up window and you will see 5 format choices: Read-only, Compressed, Read/write, DVD/CD master, and Hybrid image (HFS+/ISO/UDF). You can select one option according to your requirements.
![Apple Disk Utility Apple Disk Utility](https://wikibulz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Disk-Utility.jpg)
7. Click Save and then click Done to save the disk image.
You can also use the same method to create a blank disk image for storage/a disk/a connected device.
How to Restore a Disk Image on Mac?
The Restore Hp elitedisplay software. feature on Disk Utility can help you restore a disk image to a partition or a disk. Here, you need to know that this process will erase the destination partition or disk and copy the data from the disk image to it.
How to Set up RAID Disk Sets on Mac?
You can also use Disk Utility to set up RAID on your Mac. The operations are very simple:
1. In Disk Utility, you need to go to File > RAID Assistant.
2. Select a RAID type you want to use when seeing the following interface.
3. Follow the wizards to define RAID and save the settings.
Reading there, you can see that Disk Utility Mac is like the Disk Management tool on Windows. It is more advanced. If you are a Windows user and you are looking for a more powerful partition manager, you can try MiniTool Partition Wizard.
How To Use Disk Utility
What If You Lose Some Important Files when Using Disk Utility on Mac?
As mentioned above, some operations in Disk Utility can destroy files on the targeted drive. If your operation is wrong, you will lose your data unexpectedly. As long as the missing files are not overwritten by new items, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac to get them back.
This Mac data recovery software has a trial edition. You can go to the MiniTool download center to get it. Then you can use it to scan the target drive and see whether it can find the files you want to restore.
You can follow this guide to make the software scan the drive for lost files:
1. Open Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
2. Select the files’ types you want to recover. For example, if you want to recover all types of files, you need to make sure the button for Recover Everything is turned on. If you only want to recover videos, you just need to turn on the button for Videos.
3. When seeing the next interface, you need to select the drive you want to recover data from to continue. If you want this software to perform a deep scan, you need to turn on its button that is at the bottom left corner. While a deep scan will last longer relatively. You need to wait patiently.
4. After scanning, this software will show you the scan results that are in the Classic List. You can switch to the Deleted List to only view the deleted items.
5. You can open the folder from the left list and check whether your needed files are there. You can also preview some types of files like photos, videos, etc.
You are not allowed to use the trial edition to recover the found files. You can go to the MiniTool store to upgrade this free Mac data recovery program to a full edition and then use it to get your data back.
Bottom Line
Now, you should know what Disk Utility on Mac is and how to use it to manage your disk and partitions on your Mac computer. Should you have any related issues, you can let us know in the comment or contact us via [email protected].
Disk Utility Mac FAQ
Command+R is a keyboard shortcut for Mac. It allows you to enter the Mac Recovery Mode when your Mac won’t turn on or for some other reason.
If your Mac fails to boot, you can press Shift+Control+Option and the Power button at the same time. Then release these four buttons at the same time. Next, press the Power button to turn your Mac on.
First Aid can be used to verify and repair some directory structures issue on your HFS or HFS+ hard disks or volumes. This article shows you how to use this tool to fix an unreadable disk on Mac: Fixed - The Disk You Inserted Was Not Readable by This Computer.
If First Aid fails to repair your disk, you can try it again. If the issue persists, you should first back up the data on that disk if possible and then reformat the disk. After that, you can restore the data from the backup.
If you experience these issues on Mac, your disk may need recovery:
- multiple apps quitting unexpectedly
- corrupted files and access errors
- external devices work improperly
- your computer won’t start up
How do you know if your disk needs repair
If you can still turn your Mac on, check the startup disk with an app called CleanMyMac X. Open its Maintenance module and run 'Verify Startup Disk'. If you get the 'Disk needs repair' error, your disk needs immediate attention.
Don’t worry, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to replace it right away, there’s still a chance to fix it.
We’ll go over how to perform hard disk repair on Mac using software solutions. That’s only possible if your disk can be saved by means of Mac’s native app, Disk Utility. If it fails, the only alternative is backing up your data and getting a new disk.
Hard drive recovery using Disk Utility
- Print this article or open it on any other device. You’ll lose access to it after you restart your Mac later.
- Click on the Apple menu (top left corner), choose Restart.
- When your Mac restarts, press Command + R and hold the keys until the Apple logo appears.
- Select Disk Utility and click Continue.
- In the sidebar, choose the disk you think needs repair.
- Find First Aid and click on it.
Note, that if you are using FileVault to encrypt your disk, you must mount the disk first. To do it, click Mount at the top of the Disk Utility window. Then, enter your Mac account password in the dialog that appears.
At this point, there are two options.
Case 1. Disk Utility might tell you right away that your current startup disk is on the very edge of failing. This means you need to promptly back up all your files and take your beloved Mac to the repair shop. That’s about all you can do.
How to back up your Mac
If you’ve never used Time Machine, you’ll need to configure it first:
- Connect external storage (AirPort Time Capsule, USB flash drive, portable hard drive, or else).
- Go to System Preferences and click on Time Machine.
- Click the Select Backup Disk button in the center of the window.
- Choose the storage device you wish to back up your files to and click Use Disk.
That’s it! Your first backup will be started automatically in a couple of minutes. More detailed backup information is specified next to the Select Disk button. We recommend connecting your Mac to a power cable before starting the backup.
If your Time Machine is already configured, you probably know what to do:
- Click on the Time Machine status menu at the top right corner of the screen
- Choose Back Up Now
Can’t see Time Machine among status menus? Then, open System Preferences > Time Machine and select the “Show Time Machine in menu bar” checkbox. https://bestbfile764.weebly.com/hp-color-laserjet-1600-driver-for-mac-download.html.
Case 2. If Disk Utility offers you to run diagnostics, simply click Run.
Convertir reportes de vfp a pdf. If it reports that the disk has been repaired, you’re free to close it all and live a happy life from now on. https://catalina-for-macbook-pro0.peatix.com. But, unfortunately, there can be other troublesome issues.
For example, Disk Utility may inform you that the underlying task reported failure. In this case, you can try to repair the disk again. If that fails, use our guide above to back up your files and then completely reformat the disk. You’ll need to remove all the info from it, reinstall the operating system and restore the data afterward.
If you continue having issues with your disk and neither recovery option works, it may be physically damaged. Which means you should take it to your local Mac service, they will be happy to assist you at this point.
How to protect a disk from failure and keep Mac healthy
With the proper software tools, you can monitor your Mac’s well-being and keep it speedy and sound for years.
There are two essentials to a good-working Mac: a clean drive and a fast system. Both are covered by CleanMyMac X. It removes useless files from the drive, monitors your Mac’s performance, and keeps your macOS running smoothly.
That’s about it with DIY Mac hard disk recovery. Hope this article helps, stay tuned!