Mac OS X: Diagnose and Fix Disk Issues

Macintosh, better known as Mac, is the world’s best operating system and of course, is the desire of every computer user today. It carries the title of being the best because of its high-level security, faster processing, and built-in fault-repairing mechanism, which makes it a robust operating system. However, Mac users are often observed complaining regarding file system errors, disk read errors, and partition failed errors. Since being the best is the achievement that nobody wants to condone, Apple Inc. also releases frequent resolutions for such frequently met bugs.

Mac OS X has a built-in tool called Disk Utility (found in Applications-> Utilities folder) that diagnoses and repairs some common disk as well as file system errors. It allows you to verify the individual Mac volume as well as the set of permissions associated with it. There a number of error-diagnosing mechanisms to fix an issue with the Mac disk; however, you can try these below mentioned steps to diagnose the problems observed in order to fix it:

Restart Your Mac
When you observe any issue with the your Mac (such as disk not responding, unable to access any volume, disk read error etc.), you should restart your Mac in order to try fixing it by rebooting. Rebooting a Mac machine probably resolves the issue, as it performs a thorough scan of all system files while booting.

Verify and Repair Permissions
Disk Utility facilitates you to verify and repair the set of permissions associated with every individual Mac volume. The verification of a particular volume includes scanning complete file system, as the corrupt file system prohibits access to that particular volume. Run Disk Utility to verify permissions and repair them simultaneously, if corrupt.

Check for Memory Consumption
The issue you encounter while accessing a particular volume of your Mac could be due to an overfilled memory. An overfilled disk may suffer from file system corruption, and even partition map errors. Therefore, every disk must have at least 10 percent of its total capacity free to improve Mac drive performance and allow  working uninterruptedly.

Verify and Repair Disk
A particular Mac volume may throw error, and even prohibit the user access due to some partition map issue or volume header corruption. In such situation, you need to launch Disk Utility to verify and repair disk. However, you can use your Mac OS X installation disc to repair a disk, if Disk Utility is unable to repair it.

Safe Boot
Safe boot performs a thorough checkup of all system files and repairs them if it meets any issue. To run your Mac in safe mode, press and hold shift key immediately after you hear startup tone and release it as you see the Apple icon.

Repair Your Mac
When you get such file system and disk read errors with your boot volume, it affects the Mac boot process and may display a gray screen. Therefore, you need to go for a complete repair using your Mac OS X installation disc.

In case the issues persist even after disk repair, you need to do a fresh OS installation.