Thank you for choosing Disk Drill app from the Mac App Store. You are minutes away from restoring your data, but first we would like to walk you through the data recovery process. We ask that you join us in this guide to ensure that you get the most out of Disk Drill and do not experience any issues with file recovery.

One common issue is “storage devices not listed” on the Disk Drill’s drive list, and it has a very simple fix.

This simple tutorial will not only discuss solutions to the above issue, but will also show you how to get your data back in just a few simple clicks. If you still have questions after completing this tutorial or need additional help, please, feel free to contact us, the CleverFiles team is always on standby and happy to help.

How to Recover from a Disk Image

On the Mac App Store in order to stay within approved security requirements, Disk Drill is not allowed to ask for your root/admin password. This rule is there for your protection against malicious apps, however it also prevents our recovery app from accessing your disks directly to read and recover your data, a crucial part of the file recovery process. Since Mac will not grant the necessary root (admin) privileges to reclaim lost files, there is no way for Disk Drill to read your data directly! So, in order to perform a successful recovery, Disk Drill needs a binary copy of your disk where the data loss had occurred, often called a “read-write uncompressed byte-to-byte disk image”. You will need to create this image file manually before you can start the recovery. Here’s how that can be done.

Option #1: Disk Utility

1. Make sure Disk Utility has been granted Full Disk Access (see System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Full Disk Access)
2. Run Disk Utility, it’s a standard Mac OS X/macOS system app.
3. Choose the drive to recover from on the left.
4. Initiate a new backup in one of the following ways:
   1. Go to File > New Image > Image from “YOUR_DISK_NAME”.
   2. Right-click the drive on the list and choose Image from “YOUR_DISK_NAME”.
5. Create a new disk image with “read-write” as the Image format. Do not choose “Compressed” or “read-only”, these options will not copy vital lost data.
6. Set encryption to “none”.
7. Save your disk image to any drive except the affected (original) one, an external hard drive is usually ideal. Mind the required disk space, it has to be bigger than the disk image you are creating.
8. Return to the Disk Drill window and load the new DMG file by drag and drop or open it using File then “Open Disk Image” in the menu options.

Option #2: Terminal App

If the Disk Utility disk image does not work, you still have other data recovery options. You will still need a disk image, in this case we will be creating one via Terminal. Sometimes the Disk Utility method will not properly copy all of your deleted data to the image file thus causing issues when you try to perform the recovery.

On the other hand, Terminal gets around the access restrictions to guarantee all your data recovery efforts work as expected. It does require more work, familiarity with command line tools and some precautions to avoid damaging your disk in the process, but the chances to get your files back are higher. It’s still very simple and straightforward, we promise!

1. First, you must find out the “BSD device node” for the disk or partition that has your deleted data. You can do this through Disk Utility (as in option #2). You do this by clicking the disk in the drive list and then choosing “Get Info” from the popup menu. This will show you a long table of data. You need to find and make note of the “BSD device node” entry on this list. It will say something like “disk0”, write/copy this information down for later.
2. Launch Terminal and create the disk image. You will need to type (or paste) the following command to start the process:

   sudo dd if=/dev/disk0 of=/users/%USERNAME%/Desktop/disk.dmg bs=131072 conv=noerror,sync

   And then…

   sudo chmod 777 /users/%USERNAME%/Desktop/disk.dmg

   You can change the disk image file name and location as you see fit, mind the amount of required disk space, and whether the location where the backup will be created is part of your iCloud Drive or Dropbox, etc.

   You might be asked by macOS to unmount your disk before creating a backup. In that case, use the following command before initiating the backup process (disk0 should be your disk’s BSD device node):

   diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0

3. Creating the file will take some time to complete, once finished you will find your disk.dmg file stored safely on your Desktop.

Congratulations, you are now ready to recover your deleted data! You should have no issues loading your disk image into our apps if you follow the above steps. This method also has the added advantage of speed, recovery is generally much faster from a disk image. You do not have to worry about bad sectors slowing down your data recovery as with other methods.

Still Having Questions? Get in Touch!

If none of these solutions work or if you still have questions, feel free to drop us a line. Our tech support team will gladly go through the process with you, so you can get your data back with our data recovery app as soon as possible.