How to Recover Deleted or Lost Partition on Mac

To recover a lost partition on Mac using Disk Drill, follow these steps.

1. Download and install Disk Drill for Mac. Don’t perform the download and installation on the disk that lost a partition to protect the data from being overwritten or corrupted.
2. Launch the app and choose the device with the lost partition from the disk list. If you are recovering from an external device, connect it to your Mac computer before starting Disk Drill.
3. Click the Recover button to start scanning the device for lost files and folders.
4. Preview the files that can be recovered and make your selections. Choose a safe storage location for the recovered data that is not on the affected device.
5. Click Recover again to perform the recovery.

For most users, Disk Drill is the best all-around option. It covers all the basics (and more) through a clean and beginner-friendly UI. It’s a great tool if you need to recover a lost partition or data in general without getting too technical.

If you want more control over the process (like editing file signatures or working with raw disk structures), R-Studio is a powerful alternative. It’s geared more toward advanced users and data recovery professionals.

You can also try TestDisk, a free, command-line tool focused on repairing partition structures rather than recovering individual files. It’s not the easiest to use, but can be an effective Mac partition recovery tool in the right hands.

Another option is DiskWarrior, which doesn’t recover data directly but is designed to repair damaged file systems and directory structures (especially on older HFS+ drives).

More information on the best programs to recover lost partitions on Mac can be found in our full review.

If you need to recover a lost partition from your Mac or MacBook’s internal hard drive (and that’s the only disk in the system) the safest way to do it is by using an external drive.

Here’s what that means: get an external SSD or hard drive with enough free space. Install Disk Drill (or any partition recovery software) on that external drive, not your internal one. Then, recover the lost data to that same external drive.

This setup avoids writing new data to the drive you’re trying to recover from, which helps prevent permanent loss. It also keeps things cleaner and safer when scanning your Mac’s system disk.

If you have an Apple Silicon or T2-based Mac, make sure to pick recovery software that can work with it.

The Mac recovery partition is an alternative method of restoring system software without the use of an installation DVD. The partition allows you to repair or erase your hard drive and install a new copy of the operating system. You can also use the partition to restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup.

If your disk or one of its partitions shows up as RAW, macOS won’t be able to access it like a normal volume. That usually means the file system is damaged or missing, but the data itself may still be recoverable.

You can use Disk Drill to safely scan the RAW disk and extract files from it, even if macOS can’t mount it. Here’s how to do it:

1. Connect the RAW disk to your Mac.
2. Launch Disk Drill and look for the drive in the list under “Storage Devices”. It might not show a partition name, but the physical disk should appear.
3. Click "Search for lost data." Disk Drill will scan the entire disk and attempt to locate lost files, regardless of the file system.
4. Preview and recover the files you need. Save them to a different drive to avoid overwriting anything.

No, it does not. Reinstalling replaces the system files but leaves user data and most preferences alone.

If a partition using APFS or HFS+ was deleted, recovery is often possible, as long as the data hasn’t been overwritten. Disk Drill supports both APFS and HFS+ file systems and can scan the full disk (not just visible volumes) to search for lost partitions and recover files from them. There’s a good chance the folder structure and file names will still be recoverable too.

macOS doesn’t include a built-in tool specifically for partition recovery. Disk Utility can help you repair a volume or reformat a drive, but it won’t recover a deleted or lost partition (or restore the files from it).

If you're dealing with actual data loss, you’ll need to use third-party software like Disk Drill, TestDisk, or R-Studio to scan the disk and recover the missing data.

It depends on where the lost partition was.

If the partition was on an external drive, then yes, you can keep using your Mac normally. Just avoid writing anything new to that external disk until you’ve tried to recover the data. The less you touch it, the better your recovery chances.

But if the lost partition was on your internal system drive, it’s a different story. Even routine actions like browsing the web or saving files can overwrite parts of the disk where your lost data might still live. In that case, it’s best to stop using the Mac, boot from an external drive, and run recovery tools from there.

Either way, don’t install recovery software on the same drive you're trying to recover from. That’s rule number one.

In some cases, yes - but it’s not something macOS handles on its own.

If the partition table is damaged but the data on the drive is still intact, tools like Disk Drill, TestDisk, or R-Studio can help. They can recover your files.

TestDisk, in particular, is built specifically for this purpose. It’s designed to recover lost or deleted partitions and rebuild damaged partition tables. The interface is text-based, so it’s not super beginner-friendly, but it’s powerful and free.