Category: Hard Drive Troubleshooting

Understanding partitions, volumes, and containers

Before we begin the discussion about how to create APFS containers, let us understand the basic terms like partitions, volumes, and containers. The term ‘partition’ is defined as the logical division on the hard drive. These partitions need to be formatted and mounted before the OS can read/write data into it.

Once the partition is formatted with a file system, then it is referred to as a volume. When the OS recognizes the file system, it will be mounted, so data can be read and written. These 2 terms, you probably already understand even before reading this article, but what may new to you is the term ‘container’. The Container is a term introduced with the new APFS file system.

A container is a space on the hard disk that contains one or more volumes. It is created in such a way that the container space is shared among all the volumes it holds. The size of the volume is not fixed in APFS. Although, while creating a volume, you assign a minimum and maximum amount of space, however the actual amount of space a volume uses changes dynamically. So, the volume can expand or shrink without the need for repartitioning.

Also, another thing to be noted is that the disk can be divided into one or multiple containers. And each container can have one or more volumes like said before.

Next, let us see how to create a container in APFS file system.

• Go to Applications > Utilities folder and open Disk Utility
• In the Disk Utility window, click View > Show All Devices

Now you will need to convert HFS to APFS file system. This conversion is automatic if using an SSD, otherwise, you will need to do it manually.

• From the list of all devices, choose the HFS+ volume and click Convert to APFS

• Next, to format the drive to APFS, first choose the drive and click Erase
• Assign a name and select the APFS file system format from the menu
• Then click Erase to format the drive

Now Disk Utility will create one container and one volume within that APFS container. But you can always add more containers according to your preference. By doing so, you can have groups of volumes. That way, one group of volumes is separated from the other and prevents sharing of disk space.

How to add containers?

Before you begin with this process, please make a backup of all data on your drive.

1. Go to Disk Utility and select the APFS drive from the left menu bar
2. Then click on Partition in the top menu
3. Next, you will be asked if you want to add a volume or a partition. Click on the Partition button
4. In the Partition window, click the ‘+’ symbol
5. Assign a name to the partition

Similarly, you can add more partitions by clicking on the ‘+’ sign. If you want to alter the size of the partitions, you can use the pie chart or enter a value manually. Once the sizes are set, click Apply to save changes.

Please note that although Disk Utility is referring to these as partitions, it is, in reality, a container because this is an APFS formatted drive.

How to add volumes to a container?

Each container in the APFS drive can have one or more volumes. To add volumes to the container, you can make use of Disk Utility.

1. Open Disk Utility and on the left menu bar, select the APFS container
2. From the Edit menu, select Add APFS volume

In the next window, assign a name to the volume and set the size options. There are 2 sizing options called ‘Reserve Size’ and ‘Quota Size’. Reserve size is the minimum size the volume cannot go below and Quota size is the maximum size the volume can take. These size limits are useful when you don’t want the volume to consume the entire space available in the container or when another volume shouldn’t take all the space from a volume that needs a minimum amount of space.

Once you have set these volume size limits, click Ok to save changes.

Data recovery using Hi5 Software

Using disk management tools like Disk Utility is extremely risky when you don’t have a backup. It is always suggested that you make a backup first and then proceed with disk related operations. However, in the event that you don’t have a backup and data is lost after partitioning or any other operations such as the one above, then you can use Hi5 data recovery software to your rescue.

It is designed for partition recovery in Mac systems. All your partitions are recovered in original form and hierarchy along with the file names. Once files are recovered, just save them to any desired location.

Errors while repairing a drive using Disk Utility

If you are having problems with a drive or if your computer is not booting properly, a general course of action to repair the drive is to run Disk Utility. So you run Disk Utility on the drive only to find an error ‘Volume header needs minor repair’. You are now stuck and not sure how to go about this error? Are there ways to resolve this? Let us find out in this article.

The main reasons for the error ‘Volume header needs minor repair’ are file system corruption, bad sectors on the drive or virus attacks on the system. This error in some cases may be an indication of a failing hard drive, so it is important that you have a backup of your data in case something like that happens.

Solutions to resolve the error ‘Volume header needs minor repair’

Solution 1: Run Verify Disk

• As a first solution, open Finder > Applications
• Then click on Utilities > Disk Utility and select the disk you are trying to repair
• Click First Aid > Verify Disk

This process repairs errors in the disk and you may have to run this multiple times until you see a ‘The drive appears to be Ok message’.

If the Verify Disk option is greyed out or this method didn’t work, you can also use a Mac OSX installation disc to access Disk Utility.

1. Insert the installation disc and restart your Mac while pressing the Option key
2. Select the Install Mac OSX disc and follow the on-screen instructions
3. Then click on Utilities > Disk Utility
4. Select the drive on the left-hand menu and click First Aid
5. In the bottom of the window, check the SMART If it says ‘About to fail’, it is time you backup everything and replace the disk. If it reads ‘Verified’ or ‘Not Supported’, click on Repair Disk to repair errors in the disk.

Solution 2: Recover data and format the drive

If ‘Verify Disk’ doesn’t help resolve the error, it is an indication that your drive is severely corrupt. In that case, it is best to recover data and format the drive in question. In order to recover data from corrupted drives, you can make use of Hi5 partition recovery software for Mac. It is a comprehensive data recovery solution to recover data from corrupted or damaged drives. If the drive has bad sectors, Hi5 software skips them and creates disk images, using which data can be recovered.

It recovers all your data and partitions in its original form and structure, so you will not find any changes in the recovered data.

This software can also be used to recover data from formatted drives or partitioned drives, hence the name comprehensive data recovery solution. If you are experiencing data loss due to any these reasons, then you know the solution.

Format your drive

So, once you have recovered data using Hi5 Software go ahead and format the drive using the steps below. Formatting will clear all data on your drive and create a new file system for you to work with, hence resolving the inherent corruption issues.

1. Click on Finder > Applications
2. Then select Utilities > Disk Utility
3. Select the corrupted hard drive on the left menu and click Erase
4. Choose a name, format style and once again, click on the Erase button

There’s almost no need for an intro to external hard drives, considering that almost everyone uses it nowadays. External hard drives are wonderful portable, on the go storage devices which makes data available at your finger-tips. It can be used to store a variety of files like documents, images, videos, audio etc. in a way similar to your internal hard drives.

Although external hard drives make a reliable means of storing data, you can sometimes encounter issues with it. In this article, let us discuss an error that causes your files to go missing. The bizarre thing is that even if the files are missing, they show that they occupy a certain space. What is the reason for this? Are the files hidden or are they corrupt? Let us find out more in this article and also discuss some solutions to resolve this problem.

Solution 1: Enable ‘Show Hidden Files’

1. In Windows, right click on the Start button and select Search
2. Type ‘folder’ and from the results, click on Show Hidden Files and Folders
3. In the Advanced Settings menu, select Show hidden files, Folders and drives and click Ok

Now that hidden files are enabled, see if you can find the files on your hard drive. If not, proceed to the next solution.

Solution 2: Take ownership

1. Click on Start and select Windows Explorer
2. Right click on the external hard drive and click Properties > Security > Advanced > Owner
3. Under ‘Change Owner to’ section, select the desired user to change to owner
4. Also check the box next to Replace owner on container and objects
5. Then click Apply

Now that you’ve changed the owner and assigned all permissions, you should be able to see all the files on the external hard drives. However, if you still cannot see the files and the problems still persists, your drive could be corrupted and needs repair. Repairing the drive is described in the next section.

Solution 3: Run CHKDSK

If the external hard drive is corrupted, you may have trouble viewing files on it. In that case, CHKDSK is a wonderful tool to repair file system errors. To run CHKDSK,

1. Go to the Command Prompt by clicking on Windows + X keys and selecting Command Prompt (Admin)
2. Then type the following command

CHKDSK /R /X: (Here, please replace X with the corresponding drive letter)

This command will fix all file system errors and also check for bad sectors should there be any. Once this command is complete, all errors should be fixed and you should be able to view files on your drive. However, if the file is still missing, you may need to resort to data recovery tools like Hi5 Software.

Restore missing files using Hi5 Software

Hi5 data recovery software is the ultimate tool to recover missing data from corrupted external hard drives. It retrieves data using a read-only mechanism, so you will not find the recovered data any different from the original. All your partitions in the drive along with original structure are recovered using Hi5 Ssoftware.

Not just external hard drives, Hi5 software can also be used to recover data from other storage devices like USB’s, SD cards and from your systems. If you are experiencing data loss, download a trial and give it a try today!

GUID is a new type of partition table that is slowly replacing the good old MBR. It is called a GUID partition table because every partition on your drive has a unique identifier called GUID, short for Global Unique Iidentifier. The advantages of using GUID partition tables are that they can grow very large in size and the partitions are extremely well structured compared to MBR.

You can format, partition or erase hard disks with GUID just like you do with MBR’s. Now consider a situation where you partition or format a wrong disk on your Mac. For example, you have run a ‘diskutil partitionDisk’ command on a wrong disk such as the main system drive. Considering these are command line tools, these things do happen sometimes. Consequently, the GUID partition table is damaged and turned inaccessible. Now, is it possible to recover data on this drive? Yes, it is possible with the help of the right tools. Please read this article to find out how it is possible and methods for recovery.

Data recovery from damaged GUID partition table

In some cases, it is possible to recover data from damaged or trashed GUID partition table using ‘testdisk’ command. However, in cases, where the damage is severe, you can make use of tools like Hi5 Software to recover data.

Hi5 Software is designed to recover lost or damaged partitions in a quick and easy manner. This partition recovery software works in a unique read-only way, so none of the original files are altered. Using this tool, all your partitions and data are recovered safe and sound along with the original structure.

About Hi5 data recovery tool

In addition to recovering data from damaged or corrupted GUID partition table, Hi5 Software can also be used to other situations such as

• To recover data when partition table is deleted
• When bad sectors are present in the area where partition tables are stored
• Virus attacks on the system
• Damage to partition table due to third-party disk management utilities

The advantage of Hi5 Software is that it is multi-device friendly, meaning it can be used to recover data not only from internal hard drives but also from external hard drives, flash drives, and SD cards.

Moreover, all file systems like HFS, HFS+, HFSX, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT are supported by the software. As far as operating systems are concerned, Mac OS High Sierra, Sierra, Yosemite, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Lion etc. are all supported.

Once you have recovered data from the GUID partition table using Hi5 Software, you can go ahead and create a new one using Disk Utility. To do so, follow the steps below.

1. Press and hold Command + R keys while your Mac restarts
2. The recovery console opens, from here select Disk Utility
3. Choose the disk from the left menu and click Erase
4. Follow the on-screen format instructions and select the required file system
5. Finally, click on Erase

Conclusion

GUID overcomes size limit issues and also provides a better structure for your partition tables, compared to MBR. However, like MBR’s, GUID’s also experience corruption and damage issues at times. In such cases, Hi5 Software is your best bet for data recovery as data will be recovered in original condition quickly and easily.

When you’re troubleshooting your PC or installing a new OS, you may need to boot from a disc or USB that has Windows installer on it. What this means is that your computer will boot from the USB or disc instead of booting from the internal hard drive.

To create a bootable USB is really easy nowadays with the Windows creation tool readily available. It has been a savior for most users considering how easy it is to create a bootable OS instead of having to wait for an expert or wait for Microsoft to send you another copy.

But even with these advantages, you may still have problems when booting from the USB created using the Windows creation tool. In this article, let us discuss how to go about this problem and be able to boot from USB successfully.

Solution 1: Change Boot priority

The boot priority is by default the internal hard drive first followed by other external drives. So by changing this order, you can get your system to boot from the USB.

1. Restart your system keeping the F2 key pressed. This should help you enter the BIOS screen. If this method doesn’t work, click on the Start button
2. Then select Power, hold the Shift key and click Restart
3. You will now enter the UEFI/BIOS settings screen
4. In this screen only the keyboard works, so use the arrow keys and move the USB media to the top
5. Then restart your system (with the USB connected) to be able to boot from the USB installer

Solution 2: Disable fast boot

Having fast startup turned ON may prevent you from booting from your USB. Hence, disabling fast startup has been proven to be helpful in some cases. To disable fast startup, follow the steps below.

1. Right click on the Start button
2. Search for Control Panel and open it
3. Select Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do
4. Then select Change settings that are currently unavailable
5. Uncheck Turn ON fast startup

Solution 3: Format the USB drive and create a new Windows installer

You may have trouble booting from the USB if the Windows installer is not properly created or is corrupt. In that case, format the USB drive and create a fresh copy of Windows installer. Then try to boot from the USB and use it to repair or reinstall your PC.

Data recovery using Hi5 Software

If your system is not booting or if you have other problems where data on it is inaccessible, you can make use of data recovery tools such as Hi5 Software.

It is an all-in-one hard drive recovery tool that can be used in multiple situations such as when your system is not booting, drives are inaccessible or when your system has crashed. Even if you have formatted your system without backing up data and looking for recovery options, this tool is a perfect choice.

For more information about the software or about the recovery process, refer the link Hi5 data recovery software. To see how the software works and how you can recover data, download a trial for free!

Bad sectors are damaged spots on the drive. There are 2 types of bad sectors namely soft and hard bad sectors. Hard sectors are a result of physical damage and cannot be repaired. But soft sectors, on the other hand, are caused due to corruption or due to software issues. These bad sectors can also occur when your computer shuts down in the middle of a writing process or due to various other reasons.

Most often, when there are bad sectors on your drive, the data on that sector becomes inaccessible and unreadable.     But each time your system comes across that sector, it cannot read from it and your system may freeze or hang. Hence it is important to treat these bad sectors immediately.

To treat/remove bad sectors, we provide some solutions in this article. In the first step, recover data from the drive and secondly, perform CHKDSK to fix the bad sector issue.

 Step 1: Recover data from the drive with bad sectors

Before you run CHKDSK, it is advisable that you recover data from the drive with bad sectors in order to prevent data loss. Hi5 Software is a great recovery solution for this purpose.

If bad sectors are present in your drive, Hi5 Software skips those sectors and makes a disk image of the disk. This image can later be used to recover the necessary data. Please refer the link for complete details on recovering data from a drive with bad sectors.

The advantage of using Hi5 Software is that it can be used with all kinds of storage devices like external hard drives, USB flash devices and memory cards (SD, XD, CF, MMC etc).

Once data is recovered from the drive, proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Use CHKDSK, a tool for repairing your drive

What CHKDSK does is it checks the integrity of file systems and file structure? If it finds any issues, it repairs them and also scans your drive for bad sectors. If it finds any, it attempts to repair them and recover possible data from those sectors. Then it marks those sectors, so your system doesn’t keep bumping into these sectors, again and again, thus preventing problems.

How to run CHKDSK?

The CHKDSK command can be run using 2 methods; one is by right-clicking on the drive and selecting Properties > Tools. And the other method involves using the Command Prompt. To run CHKDSK using the command prompt, follow the instructions below.

1. Click on Windows + X to open the power menu
2. Then select Command Prompt (Admin)
3. Enter your admin details and login to command prompt
4. Type ‘CHKDSK X: /R’. (Please replace letter ‘X’ with the letter of your drive)

The ‘/R’ command will scan the drive for bad sectors and in addition, it will also repair file system errors in the drive. The CHKDSK scan may take a long time if the size of the drive is large and if there are a number of errors. Once the scan completes, all errors will be fixed. However, if you find CHKDSK is unable to fix the errors, it is probably time for you to discard the drive.

For an external device such as a USB flash device, SD card or external hard disk to work, the OS must be able to read and write to it. But if the OS is unable to read/write to the device, you may receive various error messages and the device will not work as expected. One such error message you may encounter is the following.

‘Error:0x80071ac3: The operation could not be completed because the volume is dirty. Please run CHKDSK and try again’.

In this article, let us look at the reasons for this error and some simple solutions to resolve the same. The main reasons for this error are corruption in the external hard disk, out-dated or corrupt drivers or due to bad sectors.

Now let’s move on to the troubleshooting steps to resolve this problem.

Solution 1: Run CHKDSK

The first step involves running CHKDSK, which is a built-in tool to resolve corruption issues in the disk (external hard drive in this case). It can resolve file system errors and also detect bad sectors. To run CHKDSK, follow the steps below.

1. Connect your external hard drive to your system
2. Click Windows + E to open File Explorer
3. Right click on the external hard disk connected and click Properties
4. Go to the Tools tab and click Check Now
5. In the dialogue box that opens, make sure both the options that are ‘Fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan and recover bad sectors’ are selected and allow the tool to complete scanning the drive
6. CHKDSK will try and resolve any issues it finds and if need be, run the tool again using the same steps.

Then try using the external hard disk and check if the error persists. If it does, proceed to the next step.

Solution 2: Reinstall drivers

The error ‘0x80071ac3’ could also be a result of corrupt or out-dated drivers. Hence it is a good idea to reinstall the drivers and check if the error persists. To reinstall drivers follow the steps below.

1. Click on Windows + X key to the WinX menu
2. Select Device Manager from the list
3. Identify your external hard disk and click Update Drivers > Search automatically for updated driver software
4. If this doesn’t work, click Uninstall instead of Update Drivers in the previous step.
5. Then restart your computer

Now check if the external hard disk works with any error. If it does, you are done here. If not, proceed to the next step.

Solution 3: Run CHKDSK using Command Prompt

In some cases, running CHKDSK from the command prompt may help resolve errors with the hard drive. To do so, proceed with the following steps.

1. Once again, click on Windows + X keys and select Command Prompt (Admin)
2. Enter the admin ID and password to log in
3. In the Command Prompt, type

‘CHKDSK <drive letter:> /R’

Note: Please replace <drive letter> with the letter corresponding to your external hard disk.

This command will resolve corruption issues in the selected drive and also scan for bad sectors.

Solution 4: Recover data and format the drive

If the above solutions don’t help you resolve the ‘0x80071ac3’ error, it is a smart move to recover data and format the drive. In order to recover data, Hi5 data recovery tool is a great solution. It is specialized in data recovery from drives that are inaccessible or producing errors such as this one.

The best part about the software is that you can use the free trial to recover files and try out the software. Once you have all data recovered, format your drive to resolve the error ‘0x80071ac3’.

Note: In case, you have formatted the drive before recovering data, you don’t need to worry because Hi5 Software can be used to recover data after formatting as well. Refer the link to check out the product and the steps involved.

Before we move on to the MBR errors, let us first understand what an MBR is. An MBR, short for Master Boot Record is present in the very first sector of your hard disk. When you turn ON your computer, the first thing the computer reads is the MBR, which tells it where the OS is located.

If there is any corruption or damage to the MBR, the OS cannot be loaded and your PC will not be able to boot. If the MBR is corrupted, you may receive errors such as ‘Missing operating system’, ‘Error loading operating system’, ‘MBR error’ etc.

In this article, we discuss errors ‘MBR error 1’, ‘MBR error 2’, and ‘MBR error 3’. All of these error messages indicate corruption in MBR. Corruption can happen due to various reasons such as bad sectors, virus attacks or physical damage. In some cases, it can also occur due to damage caused by third-party disk management tools generally used for partitioning drives.

Now before we move on to the solutions to resolve this error, it is a good idea to recover all data from the drive using Hi5 Software. It is a wonderful tool when you have to recover data from systems that are not booting (in cases of MBR corruption). All of your partitions and data will be recovered in original format without any change. In addition to this, you can also use it to recover data from formatted drives or recover data after an OS reinstall.

Once data is recovered, it is safe to proceed with steps to resolve the error.

Solutions to Fix MBR Error 1, 2 or 3

Solution 1: Using Startup repair

1. To perform automatic startup repair, you will need to enter recovery mode on your system
2. To enter recovery mode, restart your computer and keep pressing the F8 Click on Troubleshoot > Advanced Options
3. Select Startup repair

This tool will not only try and fix the MBR but will also resolve other startup issues. Hence, as a first troubleshooting step, you should let Windows automatically resolve these issues. However, if this doesn’t help, you can proceed to the next step.

Note: If you don’t have the recovery mode option, you will need a Windows installation disc. Insert the installation disc into your system and boot from the disc. Then click Repair your computer > Troubleshoot > Advanced Options; here you will find Startup repair and Command Prompt (explained below) options.

Solution 2: Using Bootrec.exe tool

1. Enter recovery mode using the same steps explained in Solution 1 and click on Troubleshoot > Advanced Options
2. Select Command Prompt and type the following commands

• ‘bootrec /rebuildbcd’
• ‘bootrec /fixmbr’
• ‘bootrec /fixboot’

3. Click Enter after each command and these commands should help fix corruption in MBR.
4. Once corruption is fixed, MBR errors will be resolved and then you should be able to boot normally into your system.

Once this is done, just to be on a safer side, perform a disk check and also SFC scan to check your file systems and system files thoroughly to eliminate problems if any. Also run an anti-virus scan to rule out the possibility of any virus or malware. Then you should be able to use your system without any issues.