- DiskWarrior cannot rebuild APFS formatted drives. Considering APFS is the default drive format going forward, unless Apple releases full documentation for the APFS file format, DiskWarrior and other third party disk utilities are dead in the water.
- Disk Warrior, developed by Alsoft, is the most famous one. Unfortunately, the latest version of Disk Warrior can only recognize but not repair APFS disks. Solution 4: Erase APFS disk to rebuild APFS disk. As any file system corruption can be easily fixed by reformatting or erasing, you can rebuild APFS disk in this way.
Diskwarrior Apfs
Using DiskWarrior 5.2 while started (booted) from High Sierra, Mojave or Catalina.
Disk Warrior works on all versions of OS X and macOS running on HFS. However, at the moment it is not compatible with High Sierra updated to run on APFS. This is why you'll have to wait for a fresh release of Disk Warrior 5.1 which Alsoft – the app's developer – announces to arrive in early 2018.
What you need to know (Click here for the summary)
1) Apple File System (APFS) disks (typically a macOS 10.14 Mojave or 10.15 Catalina Startup Disk) are recognized but ARE NOT able to be rebuilt by DiskWarrior 5.2. Click here to learn how to identify an APFS disk.
2) Click here to join the Mailing List to be notified of progress regarding Apple File System (APFS) support and updates to DiskWarrior.
3) Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disks can be rebuilt as before.
4) The Startup Disk of Macs are automatically converted from Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) to Apple File System (APFS) when installing or upgrading to macOS 10.14 Mojave or macOS 10.15 Catalina. Only internal SSD drives are converted to APFS by macOS 10.13 High Sierra.
5) External drives are not automatically converted to Apple File System (APFS). Your Mac OS Extended external drives can be rebuilt as before.
6) DiskWarrior 5.2 is compatible with macOS 10.13 High Sierra, macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina when rebuilding Mac OS Extended external drives.
7) DiskWarrior 5.2 now runs within macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina Recovery.
8) The Preview application in DiskWarrior can now copy files to APFS disks when recovering data from a failing Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk.
9) Numerous minor updates were made to accommodate additional security measures in macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina.
10) To rebuild Time Machine disks in macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina, DiskWarrior must be given 'Full Disk Access' from within System Preferences. Otherwise, they can be be rebuilt from macOS Recovery or the DiskWarrior Recovery flash drive.
The following applies only when running an installed copy of DiskWarrior from within macOS 10.13 High Sierra, macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina; not when booted from the DiskWarrior flash drive or macOS Recovery.
11) Due to the ever enhancing security of macOS you might need to first 'Allow' the system extension portion of DiskWarrior to be loaded on your Mac. The first time you launch DiskWarrior 5.2, the system extension might be blocked. You will only need to allow the system extension once.
Follow the instructions in the System Extension Blocked message to allow the DiskWarrior system extension software to be loaded. Open the Security & Privacy System Preference and click the lock and then click the Allow button.
Quit DiskWarrior, reboot your Mac and launch DiskWarrior again.
Click here for a step-by-step video guide on installing DiskWarrior 5.2 in these newer versions of macOS.
What's in the works
The next major release of DiskWarrior will include the ability to rebuild APFS disks. Apple released a portion of the APFS format documentation in September of 2018 . Our developers are now waiting for the remaining portion of documentation to update DiskWarrior in order to safely rebuild Apple File System (APFS) disks.
Using DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4.
What you need to know
1) DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4 is compatible with macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS 10.15 Catalina. You will need DiskWarrior 5.2 to run DiskWarrior from a recovery flash drive created while running macOS 10.14 Mojave or macOS 10.15 Catalina. Creating a 10.14 or 10.15 recovery flash drive will not allow DiskWarrior to rebuild APFS (Apple File System) disks.
Diskwarrior Apfs
2) An extra step is needed to create a DiskWarrior startup recovery flash drive on an iMac Pro, late 2019 Mac Pro, a mid-2018/2019 MacBook Pro, late-2018 / mid-2019 MacBook Air or a late-2018 Mac mini. These 4 Macs are equipped with Secure Boot via Apple's T2 Security Chip. By default, Secure Boot does not allow starting up from an external disk such as a DiskWarrior recovery flash drive. Also by default, Secure Boot prevents the creation of a macOS startup disk except for those created using Apple's Installer.
To create and use a DiskWarrior Recovery disk for Macs with Secure Boot, it will be necessary to change the default Secure Boot and External Boot settings using the Startup Security Utility. The Secure Boot setting will need to be changed to Medium Security or No Security. Alsoft recommends Medium Security. Additionally, the External Boot setting will need to be changed to Allow booting from external media.
Please follow the instructions found on Apple's web site using the following link to make the needed changes.
Notice: Creation of, or start up from, a DiskWarrior recovery flash drive will fail if the above steps are not taken.
Didn't read all of the above? At least read this summary:
1) DiskWarrior 5.2 is compatible with High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina when rebuilding external Mac OS Extended disks.
2) Your external drives (including Time Machine Volumes) can be rebuilt as before.
3) The Startup Disk of Macs are converted to APFS (Apple File System) when installing or upgrading to macOS 10.14 Mojave, macOS 10.15 Catalina or macOS 10.13 High Sierra (High Sierra only converts internal Solid State Drives (SSD/Flash).
4) APFS (Apple File System) disks ARE NOT able to be rebuilt. Click here to learn how to identify an APFS disk.
5) In Mojave and Catalina, Time Machine disks cannot be rebuilt with DiskWarrior unless DiskWarrior is given 'Full Disk Access' from within the Security pane of System Preferences. Otherwise Time Machine disks must now be rebuilt from macOS Recovery or the DiskWarrior Recovery Flash drive.
6) The next major release of DiskWarrior will include the ability to rebuild APFS disks.
7) Click here to join the Mailing List to be notified of progress regarding Apple File System (APFS) support and updates to DiskWarrior.
Updating to DiskWarrior 5.2 and DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4.
1) A free updater is available for owners of DiskWarrior 5.0 and 5.1.
2) The updater will replace the DW partition on the DiskWarrior flash drive. The updated flash drive will contain DiskWarrior 5.2 and DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4.
3) The updater will also update any installed copy of DiskWarrior 5.0 or 5.1 that is located in the Applications folder.
4) The updater will also update DiskWarrior 5.0 or 5.1 that is located on any attached DiskWarrior recovery flash drives that were created with earlier versions of DiskWarrior Recovery Maker.
5) Click here to download the combo DiskWarrior 5.2 and DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4 updater.
6) Click hereto download the standalone DiskWarrior Recovery Maker 1.4 updater.
The new APFS (Apple File System) was introduced with macOS High Sierra and continued for later versions of macOS such as Mojave and Catalina. Known for its efficient data management, APFS has been the preferred file system over the previous HFS or HFS+ versions.
Despite the credibility, the APFS drives could underperform due to bad sectors in the drive, abruptly shutting down the computer or the drive could be nearing its end. In any of these cases, the drive is always vulnerable to data loss. Regardless, there are ways to repair APFS disk and recover the data. Adhere till the end of the article to know more.
Caution: If your priority is safeguarding the data on the corrupted APFS drive, make sure you recover the files from the APFS formatted drive before you conduct any repair. Click here to learn more on how to safely recover the data before repairing the APFS drive.
Repair APFS disk with Disk Utility:
The Mac computer equipped with a built-in Disk Utility that can greatly aid in repairing APFS disk. Follow the steps below to perform the repair.
- Reboot the system, press and hold Command+R as the computer starts
- The computer will boot into recovery mode, from the list displayed click on Disk Utility option
- From the left sidebar, select the APFS volume or disk to be fixed and click on First aid
- In case the utility is not able to fix the drive, the computer shows the message stating 'First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue'.
- If no message is displayed click on Run. After completion of the process, you will be able to repair APFS disk
The effectiveness of the above-mentioned steps can be limited as they resolve only minor issues. Once the computer notifies that the disk cannot be repaired, it can be a serious threat to the data as well as the drive. You will need to take precautions and recover APFS data, as the disk might fail at any point in time.
However, if the Disk Utility could not repair your APFS disk, try fixing the disk by running the FSCK command as mentioned in the further section
NOTE: The FSCK command should be used as a last solution to fix the drive. The FSCK method does not guarantee to fix the Corrupted APFS drive.
Fix APFS volume by running FSCK command:
Repair APFS by following the instructions mentioned in this section. The FSCK method needs to be performed in single-user mode.
- Start the Mac computer, press and hold Command+R as the computer starts
- After entering the Single User Mode, you will see a white text which will appear on the screen
- To start the file system check, type the fsck –fy and hit enter
- After completion of the check, if the computer generates a message stating 'File system was modified', then run fsck –fy again
- Upon running the command again, the message 'The volume appears to be OK' will be displayed
- Type reboot on the command and hit enter to restart the computer
Despite trying the above-mentioned steps, if the problem on the APFS disk still persists, then you may have to format the drive with a fresh copy of macOS Catalina. Make sure you recover or backup the data before installing the new macOS. As you can never estimate the extent of damage the drive has undergone, use a professional recovery tool such as Remo Recover and follow the below-mentioned steps to recover the APFS disk.
Additional Information: If you come across APFS Volume Superblock is invalid error, get more information on how to fix the error by clicking on the given link.
Why it is recommended to recover data before Repairing the APFS disk
Although disk repair is done to overcome corruption, there can be a possibility that the repair process could damage the drive even further. This is because a corrupted disk is weak and prone to failure. Sometimes making any changes to the APFS drive can eventually leads to data loss.
Hence, before going any further it is always better to recover APFS data before performing any repair. However, if your APFS volume is severely corrupt, the manually recovered data could not be intact or complete. In some cases, the hard drive could be inaccessible due to complete failure. In such cases, you definitely need the aid of a trusted APFS data recovery software to recover the data.
Performing data recovery on any corrupted disk could is very risky, as the drive could be inaccessible. But with the Remo APFS data recovery tool on your side, you can safely recover data from APFS disk, despite being corrupt and inaccessible. The advanced scan engine glides through the hard disk sector by sector to recover the data. Download and try the software for free now.
How to recover data from APFS volume?
Download and install the Remo Mac data recovery software and follow the steps.
- From the main screen click on Recover Volumes / Drives button
- Next, choose the Formatted/Reformatted Recovery option
- From the list of drives shown, choose the volume to be recovered
- Select the type of files that you choose to recover and click on Next
- After the completion of the recover process, choose the file and click on Preview to validate recovered file
- Finally, click on Save and browse for a location to save the recovered data
Conclusion
The new APFS file system is highly reliable to save data on Mac hard drive. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the hard drive can get corrupted. But if the Disk Utility prompts you to back up the data, try recovering the data and replacing the corrupt hard drive.
The troubleshooting steps mentioned in this article will help you to repair the APFS disk. In case the solutions provided in the article fail to repair APFS disk, create a Pre-Boot volume for APFS and reinstall macOS. However, take a backup of the drive before reinstalling the operating system. If you have any questions related to the APFS repair or recovery, please share them in the comment section below.
