My portable exFAT hard drive got corrupted during a system upgrade. Maybe because it was plugged in. I couldn’t figure out what caused it.
It’s a 500GB drive from Silicon Power. Been using it for years now. Still in great shape. Here’s what i did to fix it and get all the data back:
Step 1
Run diskutil list to find the ID of your drive. Mine is disk2s2(the last one):
MacBook-Pro:~ kavish$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 121.1 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +121.1 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 107.8 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 45.9 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 510.1 MB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data Kavish 499.9 GB disk2s2
Step 2
Now, you’ll have to boot into single-user mode. Leave your drive plugged in and turn off your mac. Turn it back on, and just after pressing the power button, press ⌘+s untill you see the apple logo.
Step 3
If you did everything right, you’ll get a root shell. Type the following command with your ID:
fsck_exfat -d YOUR_ID -f -y
Note: It’s gonna take some time to complete.
Step 4
When it’s done, run reboot.
“I never forget a face—but in your case, I’ll be glad to make an exception.” — Groucho Marx