Recover Deleted Mac Partition for Free

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Partitions are logical sections of your Mac storage disk that appear in macOS as distinct storage units (segregated as Disk Level > Volume Level hierarchy). But when you accidentally delete your Mac partition from Disk Utility or a partition is lost due to other reasons, the logical section is no longer available in Finder and its stored data turns inaccessible. Also, for the startup partition loss, your Mac won’t boot anymore. Read here to recover data from a non-booting Mac.

Reasons for partition loss

• Accidental deletion of partition
• Fatal disk error
• Incomplete disk erasure
• File system corruption
• Partition map corruption

The next sections describe a few DIY methods to recover deleted Mac partition for free in macOS.

1. Time Machine to Salvage Your Lost Partition Data

If you have backed up your Mac startup disk using a Time Machine backup drive, you can easily restore your lost partition data easily. For that, perform the following steps:

1. Ensure your Time Machine backup drive is connected to your Mac. Launch Time Machine.
2. By using Timeline or Up/Down arrow, open the date when the partition was not deleted.
3. Select all the files and folders from the partition and save it to an external hard disk drive.

2. Free Recovery Tool to Retrieve Lost Partition Data

In the absence of Time Machine backup, employ a free data recovery tool to retrieve lost partition data. Perform the following steps:

Download and install Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition on your Mac. Then, launch the software.

• From the Select What To Recover screen, select the type of data that you wish to recover from your lost partitions, then click Next.
• From the Select Location screen, select Can’t find volume, then click Scan.
• From the Select Disk to Search Lost Volume screen, select the storage drive to search for lost partitions, and click Search.
• From the search list, select the deleted partition, toggle on Deep Scan, and click Scan.
• From the scan result displayed on the right pane, double-click any file to preview. 
• Select the required files, then click Recover. Specify a distinct save location, then click Save.
• Let the software recover data from the deleted partition. Go to the specified save location to verify the recovered files.

Note: Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac allows you free scan and preview. Plus, recovers up to 1 GB of data. To recover more, activate the software. The software also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

3. Disk Utility to Recreate Partition then Restore Data

Once you have restored your partition data in an external hard drive, use Disk Utility to create a new Mac partition with the same name as the deleted ones. Then transfer the recovered partition data from the external drive to the newly created partition. The complete steps are as follows:

1. Press Command + Space Bar to open Spotlight. Type Disk Utility, then open the app.
2. In the Disk Utility window, go to View > Show All Devices.
3. From the sidebar of Disk Utility, select an existing APFS volume.
4. Click the Add Volume button, then provide the same name to the new APFS volume.
5. Choose the format as APFS, then click Add. The new volume is added to the drive.
6. Transfer the retrieved data from the external hard drive to the newly created partition.

Conclusion

When a storage drive partition is deleted, lost, or inaccessible, you need to perform macOS partition recovery to prevent permanent data loss. Begin by copying the lost partition data from Time Machine backup to an external hard drive. Or, if you don’t have a backup, use Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac to search for lost partitions and recover data from the deleted partition to an external hard drive. Once partition data is retrieved, create a new partition by using Disk Utility with the same deleted partition name, then transfer the recovered files and folders from the external hard drive to the new partition.