Open the Disk Management tool. You can do that by typing 'disk format' or 'disk management' in Windows search or going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions. We’ll cover three of the best and most popular disk space analysis tools available for the Mac, each of which is either free or offers a free trial version to give a good test run with. How to format a startup drive for a Mac If you want to format a drive that will be used as your Mac’s startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary.
Last updated: Jan. 9, 2017
Although Disk Utility is a simple to use disk management tool built into all Macs, it has limited functions when it comes to advanced partitioning. For example, it won't work when you want to resize Boot Camp partition to arrange free disk space, or when you need to partition an external hard drive only to find the option is grayed out.
We'd like to share with you some better Mac partition managers, which aim to help you deal with customized partitioning needs for both Macintosh HD (or Boot Camp) and any external hard drives. At the end of the day, your Mac hard drive will be more organized and efficient.
QUICK PICKS: 2 GREAT CHOICES
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**Below, you'll find our expert reviews, but you can also click the links above to get the app.
Why You Need a Third-party Mac Partition Software?
Having extra space in your Mac hard drive helps many things. You are able to store more precious photos and videos, and your Mac is likely to run faster with a decent amount of free disk space. However these days your hard drive can be used up faster than ever, especially if you consistently sync iDevice (iPhone, iPad, iPod) data to your Mac. Thanks to technology innovation, we can quickly capture high-quality pictures and videos wherever we go. But those media files are much larger and need more space to store.
If your primary boot partition, either Macintosh HD or Boot Camp, is getting full, the macOS (or Windows in Boot Camp) operating system is going to run sluggishly. The best solution is to rearrange space between volumes by resizing either Macintosh HD or Boot Camp. In this case, you have to rely on a third-party Mac partition manager, as Disk Utility won't work. Other times you want to make several partitions or adjust the size on an external hard disk, you are suggested to try Disk Utility, only to find the partition option has been grayed out, or it takes forever to complete during the erasing process. Chances are a professional software would save you time and efforts.
In short, you'll need a third-party program when Apple's built-in Disk Utility fails to meet your partition needs.
Mac Partition Management Apps: What to Look for?
- Security: the program has to be 100% virus-free and malware-free, also it shouldn't contain any other bundled or embedded plugins that inject ads while you are browsing online. These years adware has been notorious among many Mac applications. Also, the software must perform a non-destructive operations without hurting the original data saved on your partitions.
- Functionality: a great Mac disk/partition app should do what Disk Utility can't. Otherwise, there's no point wasting time downloading an app. More specifically, the software should be able to resize Boot Camp partitions if your Mac has dual operating system (macOS + Windows), work with both NTFS and HFS volumes, create bootable media which can be used to perform partitioning on boot drives, and/or other standard features like create/delete/format any partition easily.
- Compatibility: it must be compatible with all common Mac OS X versions, including latest El Capitan and macOS Sierra.
- Ease of use: the program should be relatively easy to operate, quick in the partition resizing/deleting process.
- Technical Support: dealing with hard drive operations may need extra technical skills, any mis-operations could cause unexpected data loss. Therefore, a good Mac partition software provider should be able to respond user requests.
The Best Partition/Disk Manager for Mac
Please note: we've tested the tools recommended below and they are 100% secure to download and use. Also, they earned our trust with powerful features and intuitive interfaces.
Stellar Partition Manager (Mac)
It is the most powerful Mac volume manager that enables you to perform any partitioning operations like resizing, deleting, formatting, hiding/revealing a partition — except merging. What we like most is its ability to create a bootable media that can be used to partition the main boot drive, though you're advised to backup your data before proceeding. The software has been upgraded to version 3.0 which supports resizing Boot Camp partitions.
Paragon Camptune X
Primarily designed to rearrange space between Macintosh HD and Boot Camp, Campture X works amazingly fast in resizing all types of NTFS and HFS based disk volumes. The best part is that Paragon even works in El Capitan and Sierra with System Integrity Protection, dwarfing other alternatives. The trial version allows you to redistribute 2GB for free. Camptune is the most efficient disk manager for resizing Boot Camp partitions on your Mac.
Andreas is an Apple and Microsoft fanboy who works with his Mac and lives with a PC at home. While he is not reading technology journals, you’ll probably find him playing online games with friends or hiking in the wild.
Aug 21,2019 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
What is the Best Hard Drive Recovery Software?
There is many drive recovery software on the market, all these programs can help you recover data from hard disk drive. Even the data files got accidentally deleted or lost, formatted disk, the drive corrupted or damaged. But what is the best HDD recovery software? On this page we list top 10 hard disk recovery software for you:
10 Best Data Recovery Software of 2019
1. Recoverit Data Recovery software (Windows and Mac)
This recovery program is the most powerful hard drive recovery tool on the market, it can undelete any lost files such as, photos, video, music, Excel, Word document, PPT and PDF, Email PST and DBX files. Resotre lost data from hard disk, also restore lost files from emptied recycle bin, and other storage media like USB drive, SD memory card, even the data got lost or accidentally deleted, the device got damaged or corrupted, the files system errors.
It workable on Windows and Mac platforms, supported data recovery for all devices with FAT32/16, NTFS, HFS+, APFS
2. Recuva (Windows)
This harddrive recovery software comes from CCleaner, it is a totally free data recovery program. It can easily to recover files from computer hard drive, USB flash drive and SD card, or other storage media.
- It has the ability to recover damaged or formatted disks.
- Retrieves lost file from your USB drive camera, iPod, or computer.
- It is hard drive recovery software that recovers deleted emails, documents, videos, music, and images.
- Supports modern version of Windows plus many more languages.
- Supports deep scan where you can find files faster.
- Has the ability to delete any traces of deleted files permanently.
- Supports quick start wizard where you can get your files back quickly.
- It supports Windows 7, 8.1, 10, vista and XP including 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
3. Stellar Data Recovery (Windows and Mac)
Stellar Data Recovery software is one of the professional disk recovery tool, it can recover data from all types of Windows and Mac devices. Undelete all files such as document, emails, photos, videos, audio files, it can deal with all types of data loss situation including formatted and corrupted disk, accidentally deleted or lost and more. It supported the file system like FAT, ex-FAT, NTFS and other partitions.
- Has the capability to retrieve data from any form of damaged media.
- It is capable of recovering videos, audios, and photos.
- Stellar phoenix has the ability to retrieve deleted emails and lost partitions.
- Has the ability to recover back your data from CDs and DVDs.
- It enables preview of files before recovery.
- Other than hard drive, it supports other devices such as USB Drives, Flash Drives, SSD, and Memory Cards.
- Supports recovery from Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and XP.
- Scans Windows to find lost or deleted volumes.
- Supports quality scanning of storage space greater than 2TB.
4. Wise Data Recovery (Windows)
Wise Data Recovery is a free hard drive recovery software, it can easily to recover your deleted, formatted or lost data. Get back all lost data file from hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, digital camera, mobile phone and other storage media.
The software supported to recover data from FAT, exFAR and NTFS disk, it is only working on Windows operating systems (64 and 32-bit).
- Supports deep scan which retrieves lost or formatted data completely.
- Enables preview of files before recovering them.
- It supports storage devices such as hard drives, memory a card, USB drives, cameras, and flash drives.
- Has quick scan which retrieves lost or deleted files lost from recycle bin.
- It supports hard disk up to 8 TB.
- Recovers various file formats and supports file types such as document, emails, photos videos, music and archives.
- It supports Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 10, 8.1,8, and Windows
Mac Disk Utility
5. Pandora (Windows and Mac)
Pandora recovery software becomes Disk Drill when you go to the Pandora landing page, the program all change for Disk Drill data recovery software. The free Disk Drill is the new generation of Pandora Data Recovery, it can retrieve all lost files from Windows and Mac operating systems. You can view the old version as follow:
- It enables you to retrieve deleted files from hard drive.
- Also retrieves compressed, hidden, archived, system, encrypted, sparse and hidden files.
- Allow you to recover deleted files on the same drive that the files resided before.
- Enables preview of drive and file properties.
- Enables surface scan, which allows you to recover files from reformatted media.
- Has a search tool, which enables you to search for files where you can recall their size, date they were last accessed, or filenames.
- You can also retrieve music, songs, and documents with the recovery software for Windows.
6. Tenorshare Any Data Recovery Pro (Windows and Mac)
This hard drive data recovery tool, it can recover data from hard disk drive even the drive got damaged and failure, the computer CPU and files system got crashed, the hard disk bad sector and more.
It can restore all lost files due to any data loss scenarios: accidentally deleted, formated hard drive, emptied recycle bin folder, lost partitions and more.
- It provides an easy step in which you can recover your lost data.
- Capable of restoring partitions and restoring lost files from dead, deleted or disrupted partitions.
- Recovers your lost files you might have lost by emptying the recycle bin.
- Supports other devices such as MP3 and MP4 Player, SD Card and Data Traveler.
- Supports file types such as videos, documents, audios, photos, archives, emails and more.
- Provides a filter tool to search for files easily by date, file name, and type.
- Allows for searching of files before scanning.
- It is a fast data recovery tool for Windows OS.
7. Disk Drill (Windows and Mac)
The drive recovery tool can scan and recover lost data from internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, digital camera, USB flash drive and SD memory card. It easily make data recovery in Mac OS X, retrieve all deleted files from any data lost scenario
- Has special protection features such as recovery vault, S.M.A.R.T monitoring and guaranteed recovery.
- It allows for free previewing and scanning of files.
- Supports file systems such as NTFS, HFS and HFS+, FAT, EXT4 and more.
- Has the ability to prevent overwriting of data during scanning.
- Helps to freely maximize existing disk space.
- Runs all recovery methods such as deep scan and quick scan.
- Supports various file types such as raw camera, documents, photos, graphics, music and videos.
- Supports recovery of data on an e-reader.
8. Data Rescue (Windows and Mac)
Data Rescue is excellent hard drive recovery software for Mac OS. It allows for recovery of lost data like photos, documents and videos from a hard drive that has been corrupted or formatted accidentally.
- Has BootWell feature that makes recovery of Mac's main hard drive easy and fast.
- Has the ability to retrieve lost data from a secondary hard drive.
- Supports recovery of data from HTFS-based Boot Camp partitions.
- Supports any HFS/HFS+ formatted drive and retrieve data from it.
- Efficient for all Mac hard drives.
- Enables raw data recovery.
- Is capable of retrieving pictures from your camera media.
- It restores your whole hard drive or on particular files you choose.
- Supports recovery from any Macbook Air, Macbook, Macbook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini.
9. PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a free data recovery software, it supports hard drive data recovery software for Mac OS that restores any lost data or files from Mac computer or any other storage devices.
- It supports to recover any data files from any device.
- It allows you to preview files or data before retrieving them.
- It is hard drive data recovery software for Mac that works quickly.
- It has four modules that enable any Mac computer to recover various lost data from hard drive.
- Undelete recovery feature restores accidentally deleted data from Mac's storage device.
- It offers hard drive data recovery services that are safe and reliable.
- It has simple and beautiful interfaces that are attractive.
10. TestDisk
TestDisk data recovery is the most professional hard disk program. It is opensorce tool and you can get the free license under the terms of the GNU Genaral Publice License. The software supports to restore lost partitions, it can reboot the non-booting disk. If you lost and delete a partition table or get viruses attack, TestDisk program can help you out those troubles easily.
- Recover lost partitions and fix partitions table (FAT)
- Supports to retrieve FAT32 boot sectors from the backup
- Rebuild boot sector like FAT12/16/32
- Recover lost NTFS partition and rebuild the boot sector
- Supports to fix MFT with the MFT mirror function
- Locate ext2/3/4 backup SuperBlock
- Restore files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem.
- Supports copy files from those deleted partitions (FAT, exFAT, NTFS, ext2/3/4)
- Supports the operating systems: DOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS and Macos x.
All these hard disk data recovery software can help you retrieve all lost data from the hard drive, or you can follow th next steps to learn how to recover data from hard driv with Recoverit Data Recovery software.
How to Recover Lost Data from Hard Disk Drive
Download and install Recoverit Hard Drive Recovery on your computer, follow the next 3-step to restore your lost data back. (If you got the external hard drive, please connect it to the PC and make sure the drive detected.)
Step 1. Launch Recoverit Data Recovery program, select a location where you got data lost and next.
Step 2. The disk data recovery will start scanning the device to searching your lost data and files, it will take for minutes.
Step 3. After the scan, you can preview some recovered files. Select your file and save them to a safe device by clicking 'Recover' button.
Disk Repair Utility For Mac
With Recoverir Hard Drive Data Recovery software you can easily get back your all lost data, if you try other hard drive recovery program as above mentioned, you also can restore all lost dat aback.
Tutorial: How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive?
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