I use several hard drives in an enclosure for backups and have never had a failure until now. A Seagate IronWolf 14TB drive suddenly reported that it could not be repaired. I can still read the drive and open all of the files, mostly images, but macOS no longer lets me write anything to it. I've been trying Disk Drill and considered rebuilding the HFS+ database, but I'm worried that could make the data inaccessible. Buying another 14TB drive and copying everything would be expensive and could take a couple of days, although I do have access to a Windows computer that cannot read the HFS+ volume. Is there a safe way to repair the drive without formatting it, or should I immediately copy the data elsewhere?
3 Answers
If this is truly your only copy of the files, then it isn’t really a backup. The safest option is to buy or borrow enough storage and copy everything off as soon as possible, even if the transfer takes a couple of days. Afterward, you can test or replace the original drive without risking the data.
Treat the drive as failing and prioritize copying the data to a replacement drive. Don’t try repairs, rebuild the filesystem, or continue using it more than necessary until you have another copy. A repair attempt could turn a readable drive into one that is much harder to recover.
There probably isn’t a safe repair that will make a failing hard drive trustworthy again. Since the files are still readable, consider yourself fortunate and use that window to migrate them. Professional recovery for a large helium-filled drive can cost far more than a replacement disk, so replacing the drive is usually the least expensive option.
That’s fair—I worded the backup situation poorly. I’ll focus on getting the files copied before attempting anything else.