Fix "File System Type is RAW, CHKDSK Cannot Run on RAW Drive" Issue

Applies to: Local/external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, and so on.

"The file system type is RAW. CHKDSK cannot be used on RAW drives."

When you attempt to use the CHKDSK command to check and fix disk errors like file system corruption and bad sectors, you might encounter the “The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for raw drives” error.

The file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not supported for RAW drives.

Does the error message in the image above look familiar? It means that you can't run CHKDSK because there's a problem with the device's file system.

What does "RAW file system" mean?

RAW file system refers to a file system that is not recognizable by the computer. Here are some reasons that may cause your hard drive or storage device (such as a USB flash drive or memory card) to have a RAW file system:

• The file system is missing or corrupted
• The RAW drive is not formatted with a file system
• The computer fails to recognize the current file system of the drive

When your hard drive or storage media becomes RAW, running CHKDSK will fail and display the message “File system type is RAW. CHKDSK cannot run on RAW disk.” If you try to open the drive, you might receive a notification that says “You need to format the disk in drive X before you can use it. Do you want to format it?” Additionally, you won't be able to access the drive or the files stored on the device.

How to fix the "The file system type of the disk is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives" issue?

When your drive or external storage device becomes RAW, it becomes inaccessible and unusable. To make it fit for data storage again, you need to convert it from RAW to NTFS or any other Windows-compatible file system by formatting. Formatting a drive lets you assign a new file system to it, making it usable. However, as you know, formatting removes existing files from the storage media. Therefore, the steps to fix the "The type of the file system is RAW" error are:

• Recover data from RAW drive
• Formatted drive

If there is no data on the drive, or you do not need to save anything on it, you can simply format the drive.

Process 1: Recover Data from RAW Drive

While you can't access existing files on a RAW formatted drive, tools like Data Recovery Wizard by tools can help. This software not only recovers deleted data, reformatted data, and lost partitions, but it can also retrieve files from drives that have become RAW and inaccessible.

Recover data from a drive or storage device reported as RAW:

Step 1: Select and scan the RAW partition

If the RAW partition has a partition label, you can directly select it from the drive list and click "Scan" to search for lost files. If the RAW partition loses its label, it will be identified as "Lost Partition". Just select "Lost Partition" and click "Scan" to perform a full scan on the RAW drive.

Step 2. Preview the data in the scanning result

When the scan is finished, all recoverable files on the RAW drive will be displayed. Look through the files and find the one you want to restore. You can sort the scanned data by file type, or search for it directly in the “Search File or Folder” box.

Step 3: Recover data from the RAW partition

Select all the files and then click on “Recover” to retrieve all the data. Choose another internal or external hard drive to save the recovered data and then hit “OK” to start RAW drive recovery.

You may still use data recovery services to recover RAW data manually.

RAW Recovery Services Tool

Contact our experts for a free evaluation.

Consult with our Data Recovery Specialists for a one-on-one manual RAW recovery service. After a free diagnosis, we can offer the following services:

• Repair damaged RAW drives without formatting
• Data recovery from RAW drives, including those encrypted with BitLocker
• Recover RAW partitions, RAW USB, RAW flash drives, RAW external hard drives, and more

Method 2: Convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32 by Formatting

After retrieving all saved files from the RAW drive, you can format the drive using any of the following three methods:

Method 1: Format RAW Drive Using File Explorer

Step 1: Right click on the RAW partition in "This PC" and choose "Format".

Step 2: Choose a file system for the drive (NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT) and click “Start.”

Step 3: Select “Yes” in the prompt to begin formatting the hard drive.

Method 2: Fix RAW to NTFS/FAT32 with Diskpart

Diskpart is a command-line tool you can use to create, delete, and modify partitions on your computer's disks, including formatting partitions.

Step 1: Press Windows + R, type diskpart, and press Enter.

Step 2: Enter the following command on each line and press Enter:

Select Volume X (where "X" is the drive number of the RAW drive)
Format fs=ntfs quick (or Format fs=fat32 quick)
Exit

Method 3: Convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32 with Formatting Tool

If you're looking for something simple, try the free partitioning software, Partition Master. In addition to the formats supported by Windows, this tool also supports EXT2 and EXT3. Other features include the ability to merge, check, and delete partitions.

To learn how to format a hard drive using the Partition Master tool, see the article on how to format a hard drive in Windows 10.

Bottom line

The “File system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives” error can occur due to several reasons. Your computer might be infected by a virus, a failed formatting, a sudden shutdown, power surge, and many such factors that can lead to this error.

Fortunately, you can recover files from an inaccessible RAW drive and then format the drive to make it usable again. We'd appreciate it if you share this guide with someone who might find it useful.