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Change Partition Scheme In Mac Caused Data Loss!

Mac OS X is one of the most powerful operating system that is used all over the world. It is equipped with many such features and functionalities which you are not going to get in any other operating system. This operating system allows its users to partition their Mac’s hard drive so that the data stored in it can easily be stored, organized and accessed properly. But at times Mac partition configuration does not allow users to perform the required operations in certain circumstances like when user installs any firmware updates on Intel-based Mac and it is using non-standard partition scheme like ‘fdisk scheme’ or so. In such situation user to re-partition their Mac hard drive and then need to go with Macintosh File Recovery software so that the lost and inaccessible data can easily be accessed.

Let’s consider a situation where when user attempts to install the firmware update on the partition that uses ‘fdisk partition scheme’ then the process might get terminated with an error messages which says –

"Unexpected error occurred (0); unable to upgrade firmware."

In order to install the firmware update on such situation user need to change the partition scheme which can only be done by re-partitioning the hard drive.

There are two methods to fix this issue –

  • Use external startup disk – Using external bootable disk like firmware disk which is configured with GUID partition scheme user can easily start their Mac using Startup Disk preferences. After that apply firmware updates during start up and that all. This will apply update on Mac not on external disk.
  • Erase & repartition hard drive and reinstall Mac – As a second step format the entire Mac hard drive and delete all the existing partitions. Once it is done repartition the drive using GUID partition scheme and reinstall Mac OS X into it.

Among the above mentioned methods first might not work in some situation but the second will surely work and help you to resolve the problem. Although re-partitioning the hard drive of Mac will resolve the issue but it also has a downside and i.e. it will make the hard drive data inaccessible. So, in such situation to get the data back either user need to use the valid and updated backup or need to use third party Macintosh File Recovery software which will recover the entire Mac hard drive data in seconds.