According to my Onyx and my System check, it states my HD is corrupt and I need to run Disk Utility off of my OS CD. Well I have checked three times and my CD does not have the Disk Utility on it. I would happily BUY it to fix this, but cannot locate it in the Apple Store. Is there a download? I have been searching the Apple Web Site. What’s needed for a clean install on a Mac A backup of the disk before it’s erased. Two options are to use Duplicate (a free utility which can copy and paste an entire bootable volume), or Mac Backup Guru (a paid, fully featured backup utility with unique incremental backups capability) for that. Here is a detailed guide for the process. A Mac operating system installer. MacOS Big Sur can.
Disk Utility can find and repair errors related to the formatting and directory structure of a Mac disk. Errors can lead to unexpected behavior when using your Mac, and significant errors might even prevent your Mac from starting up completely.
Before proceeding, make sure that you have a current backup of your Mac, in case you need to recover damaged files or Disk Utility finds errors that it can't repair.
Open Disk Utility
In general, you can just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. However, if your Mac doesn't start up all the way, or you want to repair the disk your Mac starts up from, open Disk Utility from macOS Recovery:
- Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:
- Apple silicon: Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window. Click the gear icon labeled Options, then click Continue.
- Intel processor: Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold these two keys until you see an Apple logo or other image: Command (⌘) and R.
- You may be asked to select a user you know the password for. Select the user, then click Next and enter their administrator password.
- From the utilities window in macOS Recovery, select Disk Utility and click Continue.
Select your disk in Disk Utility
Choose View > Show All Devices (if available) from the menu bar or toolbar in Disk Utility.
The sidebar in Disk Utility should now show each available disk or other storage device, beginning with your startup disk. And beneath each disk you should see any containers and volumes on that disk. Don't see your disk?
In this example, the startup disk (APPLE HDD) has one container and two volumes (Macintosh HD, Macintosh HD - Data). Your disk might not have a container, and it might have a different number of volumes.
Repair volumes, then containers, then disks
For each disk that you're repairing, start by selecting the last volume on that disk, then click the First Aid button or tab.
In this example, the last volume on the disk is Macintosh HD - Data.
Click Run to begin checking the selected volume for errors.
- If there is no Run button, click the Repair Disk button instead.
- If the button is dimmed and you can't click it, skip this step for the disk, container, or volume you selected.
- If you're asked for a password to unlock the disk, enter your administrator password.
After Disk Utility is done checking the volume, select the next item above it in the sidebar, then run First Aid again. Keep moving up the list, running First Aid for each volume on the disk, then each container on the disk, then finally the disk itself.
In this example, the repair order is Macintosh HD - Data, then Macintosh HD, then Container disk3, then APPLE HDD.
If Disk Utility found errors that it can't repair
If Disk Utility found errors that it could not repair, use Disk Utility to erase (format) your disk.
If your disk doesn't appear in Disk Utility
If Disk Utility can't see your disk, it also can't see any containers or volumes on that disk. In that case, follow these steps:
- Shut down your Mac, then unplug all nonessential devices from your Mac.
- If you're repairing an external drive, make sure that it's connected directly to your Mac using a cable that you know is good. Then turn the drive off and back on.
- If your disk still doesn't appear in Disk Utility, your Mac might need service. If you need help, please contact Apple Support.
Download Disk Utilities For Mac
An external hard drive is often purchased to extend the space of your Mac or Windows PC, for the first time of using a newly purchased external hard drive, like Seagate, you will be required to initialize the disk. But why there is still error about external hard drive uninitialized on mac and how to fix this?
To solve this, here are 8 fixes regarding External Hard Drive Uninitialized on mac. Also, you will learn about how to recover data from uninitialized external hard drive on mac, no matter which brand of external hard drive you are using.
Download Disk Utility Mac Os X 10.6.8
Recover Uninitialized External Disk Data
- Compatible on macOS 11 Big Sur
- Recover files from uninitialized, formatted and deleted external hard drive
- Recover 200+ types of file from external and internal hard drive
- 5 recovery modes to restore data lost due to different reasons
- Preview files before recovery
- High recovery rate
What Does Uninitialized External Hard Drive Mean?
If there appears a message indicating uninitialized external hard drive, it has 2 meanings:
For 1st time user of a brand new external hard drive, you will be required to initialize the disk for use, if your mac shows it as initialized external hard drive when connecting, it means your new external hard drive is not activated and not ready for use, your mac needs to use its own language to assign a starting value to the variable of this external hard drive.
For users who have initialized the external hard drive before, uninitialized external hard drive means your mac cannot read your disk anymore and deems this risk is not accessible, while this happens in most of the cases when talking about uninitialized external hard drive. This can be caused by different reasons, keep reading to find out how this come out.
Reasons for Uninitialized External Hard Drive
Reasons to cause uninitialized external hard drive vary but basically fall into following types:
- Connection issue
- Physical damages
- Virus Attack
- Partition Loss
- Bad sectors
- File system corruption
To fix uninitialized external hard drive caused under different situations, here we list 9 solutions as in following part, you can choose the one according to you need.
8 Fixes for Uninitialized External Hard Drive on Mac
#1 Restart Mac
When errors happen, no matter on your mac, Windows PC, iPhone or Android phone, you will be recommended to restart your device as the first aid, since restarting is the most magical method to put everything back to normal again.
You just need to unplug your external hard drive from your mac, then click the Apple icon>Restart, or press Command+Control+Power to restart your mac, then connect the hard drive to your mac again and check if this works.
#2 Reconnect External Hard Drive
Your Seagate or WD uninitialized external hard drive may be caused by connection issues, you can reconnect your external hard drive to mac by changing a USB port or use another USB cable, to make sure it is connected properly.
#3 Scan Virus
As we mentioned in the 2nd part, virus attack may lead to uninitialized disk, no matter there is virus attacking your mac or not, you can scan virus with an anti-virus program on your mac to make sure there is no harm from outside, trying to weaken your mac.
As for anti-virus program, you can try following:
Download Apple Disk Utility
- Kaspersky
- Norton
- ESET
- Bitdefender
- Avast
#4 Fix with Disk Utility
Disk Utility is the free macOS program designed to manage and repair both internal & external hard drive, also, you can utilize Disk Utility to format and combine disks. For uninitialized external hard drive on mac, you can use Disk Utility as the first aid to kill this problem.
Steps to Fix Uninitialized External Hard Drive with Disk Utility
- Go to Applications>Disk Utility, run the program;
- Choose your external hard drive name;
- Click on First Aid>Run, repair the external hard drive on your mac;
- Then check if the hard drive can be accessed to;
#5 Reinstall, Upgrade or Downgrade macOS
If the uninitialized external hard drive happens just after you upgrade or downgrade macOS, that may be the problem, the working environment has changed. In this case, you may need to reinstall macOS, upgrade or downgrade to original macOS version, get back the files from your external hard drive first, then install your preferred macOS.
Fix Uninitialized External Hard Drive with OS Reinstallation
- Press Power button;
- Once you hear the sound, press and hold Command+R;
- In the macOS utilities interface, choose Reinstall macOS;
- Choose hard drive, click Install and wait for the installation to finish.
Fix Uninitialized External Hard Drive with OS Upgrade
If your external hard drive is displayed as Uninitialized after macOS downgrade, you will need to upgrade to your original macOS.
- Go to Mac Appstore;
- Click “Update”;
- Download and install the latest macOS;
- Restart your mac and plug your external hard drive for check.
Fix Uninitialized External Hard Drive with OS Upgrade
(with TimeMachine Backup)
- Click Apple icon>Restart;
- Once you hear the startup sound, press and hold Command+R until the Apple logo appears;
- Choose Restore from a Time Machine Backup, click Continue;
- Choose your Time Machine backup disk;
- Choose the Time Machine backup to restore and follow the onscreen instructions;
#6 Format
If above listed methods all fail to fix your uninitialized external hard drive on mac, maybe it is time to format it. To format the disk means erasing the data from your disk, a data recovery program will be needed to restore these formatted files, yes, this is risky, but it is an efficient way to fix your uninitialized disk.
Also, for your information, formatting doesn’t mean deleting files permanently, it refers to no portal is provided to find and access to these files anymore, they become invisible but is available for add new data. Once there is new data added, the previously formatted files won't be recovered anymore.
Steps to Fix Uninitialized External Hard Drive with Formatting
- Go to Disk Utility, run the program;
- Choose your external hard drive;
- Click Erase, choose name and format for your disk;
- Then click Erase;
- Find a data recovery program to recover files from formatted hard drive. (You can jump to the 3rd part for steps)
#7 Contact Support
Or the issue of uninitialized external hard drive is caused by physical damages of the disk, like loose or malfunctioned small elements in the hard disk, then you can contact the support staff from the supplier of your hard drive, especially your hard drive is still within the expiry date. If you are using Seagate or Western Digital or other famous brands of hard drive, it is quite easy to get contact with their support.
Just visit their official website, grab the contact information and have a call, or find out your receipt and contact as instructed on the file.
#8 Replace
If your hard drive is still in its life circle, fix 1 to fix 7 should have worked, but if failed, you just need a new one to replace this uninitialized hard drive. Before disposal, find a professional data recovery software to save the files into your mac or other storage devices, then buy yourself a new and better external hard drive.
Recover Data from Uninitialized External Hard Drive
What if you just lost the files in an uninitialized external hard drive? Take it easy, you can get them back. A data recovery software is designed to handle this.
The list of data recovery tools is long, but Cisdem’s won't ever let you down. Cisdem Data Recovery is a mac program enabling users to recover more than 200 types of file from both external and internal storage devices on mac, it provides 5 recovery mode to deal with data loss caused by different reason, like formatting, trash removing, external hard drive file loss, etc.
Why Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac?
- Recover files from uninitialized, formatted and deleted external hard drive
- Get files back from external and internal hard drive;
- Support recovering 200+ types of files: video, audio, image, document, etc.;
- 5 recovery modes to restore data lost due to different reasons;
- Preview files before recovery;
- High recovery rate;
- Easy and fast;
Steps to Recover Data from Uninitialized External Hard Drive on Mac
- Go to Disk Utility, run the program;
- Choose your external hard drive;
- Click Erase, choose name and format for your disk;
- Then click Erase;
- Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery to your mac;
Free Download - Run the program and choose External Drive Recovery mode;
- Choose your external hard drive and click Scan to start scanning your hard drive;
- Preview and recover files from your uninitialized external hard drive on mac;
Extended: How Do I Initialize External Hard Drive on Mac
Then how to initialize an external hard drive for use? Actually, it is quite easy, because macOS can detect that if a hard drive is initialized or not, then lead you to the initialization.
1. Click on your external hard drive on mac;
2. Then continue with “Initialize” as following, done;
Conclusion
It is not that difficult to fix an uninitialized external hard drive as long as you figure out what caused this, then refer to above listed 8 fixes to get the problem solved. What’s the key is, how to recover the files from your uninitialized external disk even when you are locked out of the disk for now or forever, in this case, Data Recovery Software, like Cisdem will be the life savior.