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Loading...Although Disk Utility offers other features, we are going to focus on using it to detect and repair any errors that may exist on our drive. You can use this as often as you like.
Open “Finder” and select “Applications” to the left, then open the “Utilities” folder. Before you open Disk Utility, I recommend you click, hold and drag the Disk Utility icon down into your dock. This will give you easy access so you can perform a check on a regular basis.
Open Disk Utility. You’ll notice at the top-right it states the size of your drive. At the top-left, you’ll see the name of the manufacturer of your hard drive and then underneath, you’ll see the name of your start up partition. Below, you can see a line graph of how much space is used on your drive and how much free space you have remaining.
To start, select the first drive at the top-left. Next, you’ll see 5 tabs: First Aid, Partition, Erase, Restore and Unmount. Select the “First Aid” tab. A box will open asking you if you want to run First Aid on this drive. Select “Run” to begin. You can click to show the details if you wish. Once it is done, if you see a green circle with a white checkmark inside, your drive is good.
Now, let’s check your start up drive. To the left, select the next listing, and for most of us, it will be shown as: “Macintosh HD.” Select the “First Aid” button and then select “Run.” You will also need to give permission to lock the boot drive. Select “Continue.” Again, you can select to show the details of the scan.
You can perform this on each of the drives listed to the top-left. If no errors were found, you can close all your open windows. However, if either scan found errors, make a screenshot of the errors by pressing Command + Shift + 3 and it will take a picture of your entire desktop and it will save your screenshot on your desktop. This file can then be used to share with Apple or your Mac Tech to determine how to fix those errors.
For more than 15 years, Scott Lindsay has helped thousands of people better their skills, publishing more than 400 articles about Apple and Microsoft software, the computer and the internet. You can reach Scott for comments or questions at ScottLindsay@live.com.
